The Everyday Mystic

The Success Trap: Why You Are Playing the Wrong Game w/ Corissa Saint Laurent

• Corissa Saint Laurent • Episode 100

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What if I told you, you were playing the wrong game? 

You followed the protocol: the grades, the career, the house, the accolades. By all external metrics, you have won. Yet, for many high-performing leaders, this victory feels hollow. This is the Success Trap: the exhausting result of prioritizing the mechanics of achievement over the truth of alignment.

In this milestone episode, Corissa deconstructs the "Old Game" of linear force and invites you to upgrade to a new operating system. Discover why your current dissatisfaction is actually a strategic signal, and learn how to pivot from simply surviving your success to leading with your full power as a creative force.

For those of you who know, where you've arrived can't be all there is, listen intently as you're guided back to your divine nature as a creative force working with Source energy, living in a different game, your true life as a spiritual being having a human experience. 

Connect with Corissa:

If this conversation awoke or inspired something in you, please consider leaving us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review to help us reach more people.

Thanks for tuning in!

Corissa Saint Laurent:

Hello, beautiful souls. I recorded this episode before I knew what was going to be my 100th. Now I'm here hitting this milestone and also wondering why we don't celebrate other numbers as much as we do these round numbers. I guess it's just easier to say, like happy 100th, or we're celebrating the 100th versus we're celebrating the 96th. So here we are at 100 episodes of The Everyday Mystic. And I feel honored to have been chosen for this, to have received the download that I did to start this podcast and connect in these ways to people who are everyday mystics just like you. Maybe you haven't fully answered your call yet. Maybe you haven't had the same exact experiences as my guests where the sky opened up and God spoke to them, or their psychic gifts all came online after some sort of trauma or experience. Maybe you haven't had that kind of flash of lightning mystical experience, but there's a reason why you are tuned in here right now. And that reason is exactly why you are an everyday mystic. You're here to seek connection to your divine source, to your true nature, to who you know you really are, and to the truth of that. You're here to connect into that experience of the oneness that is God, that is all of creation, and to say yes to being part of it. So whether or not you've had one of the types of experiences that my guests have had, but after a hundred episodes or at least 99 episodes, maybe you've seen some aspect of your story in there, or you've realized, oh, it doesn't have to be this huge flash of lightning sky opening up experience or complete rock bottom. Maybe it can just be that I answered a call and had a gentle whisper that I followed to the inevitable end of understanding myself as this divine being, as this energetic being here, living in a body, having this incredible wild human experience, but also connected to something so much bigger and greater. Not only am I honored to be the host and channel for everyday mysticism, I'm also so touched by everybody who is interested in sharing something that's going to help someone else awaken. So if some aspect of one of my guests' stories or the advice that they've given or a practice that they shared, or something that just clicked for you during an episode, I want to ask you to do a special favor to the show on this 100th episode. If you see this episode on Instagram or LinkedIn or on YouTube, leave a comment and share what one of those episodes has meant to you. Or you can drop a review into one of the podcast players that shares that as well. I read all of those too, or simply email me. And I do have people reach out, actually, guests of mine who've reached out who are fans of the show and wanted to come on. So if that's you too, and you are interested in sharing who you are as an everyday mystic, what that means to you, the things that you do in your life that help to cultivate that. And you want to just rap with me about everyday mysticism, hit me up. Go to theeverydaymystic.org slash podcast. There's a little form there you can fill out. I would love to hear from you. I've spoken to some well-known people, but that's not who I seek necessarily. I seek people who have interesting gifts to share, stories to tell, beautiful energy to give, and a perspective that provides an interesting conversation and really ultimately people who I hope the audience can resonate with, see some of themselves in, and be guided further along their journey. So let's get into episode 100 with me. This is a solo cast, so you're gonna hear more. I don't even remember what I talked about in this episode, but you're gonna get into it now, and I'll look forward to hearing from you after. Much love to you. Thanks so much for being a listener and for being here with me on my 100th episode. Thank you. You're listening to the Everyday Mystic, where we share advice and stories grounded in the practical and supercharged by the spiritual. I'm your host, Carissa St. Laurent, and I'm on a mission to demystify the mystical and transform your everyday life into one of greater meaning, higher purpose, and true joy. If you're ready to tap into your inner wisdom and the energy of all that is, you're in the right place, and we're so happy you're here. Let's get this party started. I was gonna start a series that reflected on my guest episodes and what I gained and learned and heard and what was opened in my heart. And I decided to jump on today because I was supposed to have a guest recording today. And she's needing to reschedule because of life events, and we spoke for a little while about what's going on in her life, and that's really what so much of this is about. Really, it's what life is about. That we get to reflect on each other or for each other, so that we can then see within. And reflections of what you know I might be offering or reflection, uh, an impression of something is that interpretation of what is being shown to me. But what's being shown to me, to you, to anyone is a beautiful reflection of themselves and their inner world. And we get to do this back and forth to one another so that we're then living in this sort of prism, not prison, prism of reflection to and for each other. And through that, get to pick up so much more information, get to see so much further and deeper into life, and get to then play with that energy as well when we know that that's what's happening. And playing with that energy then means that we can be conscious to, or that we are conscious of what we're reflecting out. What this guest was going through is actually a reflection of something that I went through a few years ago. And it was really interesting to be able to be there for her because I had been through something similar. And she's in the midst of it right now. Literally, it's happening in the moment. So sometimes when things are happening in the moment for us, we are inundated and a little stuck in the energies of that moment. And although we may be spiritual, mystical, multidimensional people, and we can know that wow, there's great lessons here. I know that there are gifts for me here. When you're in the midst of it, it just feels heavy and dense and sometimes awful and hurtful and painful and in all the emotions. And that's a beautiful thing to go through. This mystical life isn't about bypassing human emotion. And it isn't about the giving up of our human experience so that we can just kind of live from this exalted, ascended place. It's about going through fully that experience and then picking up the gifts along the way. One of my guests in a past episode used that video game metaphor. And I love it as a metaphor for this game of life that we're moving through the stages, the levels, right? And as you go along, you're picking up the little treasures, hopefully, not getting knocked down and killed by whatever villains and you know mischievous characters are in the game there to potentially knock you down, take your stuff. How do we work around that? How do we move through the game smoothly? How do we find those hidden treasures that exist and are in these places that we don't yet see, but that maybe you stumble upon and you discover through making a mistake, going the wrong way, running into an issue, and then as you're getting out of it, ooh, hidden treasure. I wouldn't have even seen this or known this had I not taken the wrong path. And that's what she's going through, what I've gone through, maybe what you've gone through before, of what you might consider as you took a wrong turn in life. You chose the wrong direction, and now you're experiencing the suffering of that because you have to repair, you have to get out of a situation, you need to remove some obstacles that have been set up because of that decision. But none of these decisions are wrong. None of these moves that we make are the wrong direction. All of them, when looked at this way, when lived this way, are exactly the move that you were meant to make. Or you could look at it this way of there is no move you were meant to make, but we're just in response to the moves that we make. And in the response of those moves, we are potentially finding hidden treasures. We are discovering that, oh, this was the wrong direction. Let me go in this direction then. Doesn't make that one wrong. It just makes your now understanding of what that right direction is. By playing with and understanding contrasts in our life, we see that this thing isn't right. So then, therefore, this other thing is or could be. But we won't know necessarily that this is the right thing over here when we didn't explore this thing that ended up not being the right thing. Our life, this game of life, is that exploration. When we sit back in safety and when we put ourselves in stasis, essentially removing or probably just slowing down that rate at which we discover those treasures because we're just staying at the home base, right? We're staying at the starting block of the game. We never start to move and go in any directions. If you stay within that stasis, it's not that things don't happen to you. Life is still gonna happen. Opportunities for growth are still gonna happen. The universe and creation is still gonna deliver things that you get to respond to. But then you we always have the option of how we're gonna respond. Are we gonna respond with the same set of actions that we would have taken in the past? Or are we gonna respond in a new way and potentially step into a different direction? Or is our response going to be nothing that we do nothing? That's still a response. It's still a reaction to this current circumstances, even though it may seem like it's a non-response, it's it's a choice. You're choosing to do nothing, you're choosing to not make a move, you're choosing to stay potentially safe and secure. But within that safety and security comes eventually a prison of your own making. We've talked about this in past episodes. That prison of your own making will keep you trapped if you want to have a life of adventure, if you want to have a life of picking up and accepting those treasures along the way. If you want to live the life of your dreams, if you want to have more than what you have now, then the metaphor of that safe, static place is a prison rather than this beautiful fun game that you could be living within. You stay at home base because you think, well, nothing can happen to me here, but life will continue to happen to you and through you in that spot. You just become more and more imprisoned and more and more static, and more and more. I was gonna say more and more less capable. Like I'm getting into all these double negatives, is you just become less attuned to what could be done because you're so encapsulated in doing nothing. We get very accustomed to how things are. Where we're at is a reflection of our past, you know, both far past as well as most current and recent past, and everything we've been thinking and doing and creating up until this moment now. And this moment now is our reflection of all of that past thinking and believing and acting in order to get to this moment. So if the past has been nothing, not doing anything, not acting in any way, not taking any risk, not making any moves, then the current moment stasis will be a reflection of that. And that's a choice that a lot of people make because they're so afraid of what my friend and guest who will be coming onto the podcast shortly just couldn't do it today. It's exactly what she's experiencing. She's experiencing the pain of this thing, this move she made not working out. But it is working out. It's working out exactly in her favor. It's working out exactly as it was meant to, because what happened when she took that move showed her, oh, that's not the right move. This isn't the right place for you. You chose this out of fear and out of frustration, or you chose it in a place where you weren't vibrating in your highest frequency. We're not always going to be vibrating in our highest frequency. But if we're making moves, if we're making choices, if we're accepting the breadcrumbs, if we are at least choosing life rather than choosing only safety. And I'm not saying life is all about risk and there's an, you know, you shouldn't be safe. No. But life isn't all about safe and secure. It becomes that prison when the safety and security become the only thing, the only value that you live through or live into. So if you want the bigger stuff, if you want the dream life, if you want to feel and be and live a life that feels like magic because you are a co-creator in it rather than a victim of it, then you're taking the moves, you're making the moves, you're going in the directions that you're guided into in every moment. And then when you hit a wall, you come into conflict, you get into a place where this direction is no longer the correct direction, you make another move. You go in a different direction. You turn around and maybe see the hidden treasure and gifts there that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. And then, very importantly, you don't beat yourself up about that move you made, about that direction you took, about the step that you chose, because it was exactly the right one that you needed then. It was exactly the right one that led you to the moment of now where you're realizing bigger things and seeing, oh yeah, that's why I chose that. You then get to reflect on what wasn't right about this. You get that contrast that then allows you to see what is right. You get to elevate in the game and move into the next level rather than scurrying around on the same level, bumping into things and feeling like you're always trapped. So that metaphor works in a lot of great ways, especially if you're a kid from the 80s who had the olden Nintendo systems. I picture the Mario Brothers game and these games that only moved in one direction. Now, I mean, video gaming is crazy. When I see something, I'm just like, what is going on there? It's it's so multi-dimensional. We are now, of course, in real life, outside of this game metaphor, living in this multi-directional, multidimensional place where it's not just scurrying around on one level in one direction, it's going in all sorts of different directions and following timelines back and forth and into the future, and in ways that expand our knowing and our understanding and our experience of this game, this life, in a completely new and different way. But there's a certain mastery that needs to happen on this level, on this plane, on this, even this one directional path before you can start to really play in the multidimensional spaces, the planes that go in all directions. Getting to a place where you are comfortable moving forward in a Linear fashion is an important first step. If any of you are feeling stuck at home base, you know you're stuck, you haven't left the beginning and the start of the game, or maybe you have, but then you retreated and you hid in some part of the game on this first level because things were getting scary and things were getting really hard, and you had run into some villains and some barriers that seemed impossible to defeat. If you're stuck in one of those places, the only way that we can get out of that is to move yourself. Life may end up choosing to move you as well. But even those decisions that life makes for you, that the creator might make for you, a decision like a disease diagnosis, a firing from your job, you know, those big things, those big crisis moments that happen in our human lives, those are gifts because the creator is pushing you out of that comfort zone, is pushing you and giving you the energy that you don't yet have, is reminding you that you keep on moving. Don't get stuck, don't disintegrate here because well, you could, right? I mean, that's a choice too. You could absolutely choose to disintegrate in that space, in that spot, that one place. But you get the opportunity and the choice too, through that kick in the ass, through that big life moment, to say, no, I'm not gonna disintegrate here. I am going to make a move. Whether that move is just turning right and looking in another direction, or it's completely changing the game and what it looks like, we can start to move really quickly once we choose to do that. And all of this is choice. All of this is literally making a decision to see this life, this game in a certain way, and to decide to make those choices. I want to up level 10 levels right now. I mean, that might be a little much for someone who's not even moved out of, you know, a place they've been hiding, but it's all up to you. It's up to you the kinds of leaps. You might want to make that massive quantum leap, or you might want to just take one step forward. Again, all of it is right. None of it is wrong. None of these decisions are the right or wrong thing. They just are. They're the decision that you make, and then life will respond to it, and you'll then respond to that, and you'll continue to go and you'll continue to make the moves that are the right ones for you. Now, as we get clearer in our intuition, as we get clearer in the power that we have, as we get more enlivened by the game and see then and have vision around what we're doing as a co-creator in this, then yes, we can start to move things very quickly because we're not encumbered as much by our fear or by the unknown or by even something wrong happening. We can quickly go, oh yeah, okay, wasn't what I thought was ideal, but it is ideal because of this, this, and this. You figure it out, boom, you're on to the next thing and you're going. We can move that quickly through a quote unquote crisis because we immediately see the gifts in it, and then we get them and we go and we keep moving. And when I use the word movement, again, it doesn't mean that we're like in this frenetic pace of like go, go, go, go, go. Energetically, we're moving, but that could look like sitting, it could look like laying, it could look like complete stillness, it could look like nothingness, but we are moving things multidimensionally. So there's that too as we start to play in this multidimensional space, that doing nothing, what once was being stuck or acting from a stuck inactive place, that doing nothing could turn into the most active, magical, mesmerizing place you could be because you're working on and through the energetics of the multidimensional space, not just this one-directional earthly plane. So that's all the fun that we get to have here. It truly is, and that's why I love that metaphor of the game, because we can usually have fun playing games, right? And if we look at life that way too, it is a tremendous amount of fun. And the faster we learn from the game, the more quickly we can move out of those moments that are not so fun, that are challenging and hard, and that might take you down. On the plane recently, I was watching a bit of Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings. So it's the first of that trilogy. And, you know, the Eye of Sauron, which is that energy, really, it's it's evil incarnate, this and this opposite contrasting force to light and love and creation. It's a destructive force. This I, which created this ring of power, right? Which is the whole story of the Lord of the Rings. This I, which is then embodied in this ring, will take you down, will disintegrate you into and destroy you if you get sucked into it. The character Gollum in that story got sucked into it. All sorts of characters got sucked into the ring and then essentially lost themselves, lost who they really are. That we are these lights, we are this creative energy until we die, and even then, we but we won't go there right now. In this lifetime, we are a creative force. And once we choose to live from that knowing that we are a creative force, we get to live out a co-creative life with all of this multidimensional energy, with all with the creator itself, with source energy. But we can also get sucked into the destructive energy, the opposite of all that. We can get sucked into that and get stuck, get static, get inactive, get imprisoned in that fear, imprisoned in the material world, imprisoned in the ego. Rather than seeing that we are these incredible energetic light beings that are here to create beautiful things and to have a fun and exalted time doing that. But it's easy to get sucked into the ring, and that's really I believe the message of that story is that the material world, and right, so that energetic Sauron energy gets put into this beautiful gold ring. And it's you know, I think what Tolkien was saying is that we can get caught in the material world, in the greed of that and in the pursuit of that, and that's not necessarily the right direction to go, that we can get engulfed by that and led astray through that. Instead of understanding who we really are, that we're always in creation and that we can create whatever we want. We don't need the ring, it isn't giving us any power that we don't already have. When we get caught up in the power of our ego, which can easily get fed through the mechanisms in place materially here, we can disintegrate as Gollum did into that character. So this game we're playing can go in any direction. It can anything can happen to us. But you're not just a player in the game, you are also a co-creator. You get to choose what your levels look like, you get to choose how fast you move through it, you get to change what the game looks like, and you get to choose even what obstacles you wish to encounter. And now you may be thinking, why would you want to even be met by these obstacles? Well, because there are challenges that then teach us something about ourselves, that show us something that we didn't yet see, that give us even more strength in the overcoming of it, give us potentially the recognition of the power that we already have. So usually when these obstacles come up, it they're they're just reminders. It's God, the creator, it's this reflection of everything out here showing us something that we have been ignoring, that we have not wanted to see, or that we just haven't seen. Whether that's through desire to not see, or it's just, I just haven't seen that yet. And well, this thing showed me this aspect of myself, this hidden shadow side of me, this strength that I had that I didn't remember that I had, showed me that I have this side of me that I didn't remember that I had. All of it is a beautiful opportunity to see the wholeness of ourselves, to experience the wholeness of who we are, and to embrace it and love that, and to love the process of finding and discovering all of that. So, whatever you might be facing in your life, a small or large trial that you might be going through in life, look deeply into it to see what gifts are there, what treasures are there for you to discover, and what is this experiencing mirroring back to you? Something that you need to see, something that you absolutely once seen will move you through the game. Whether it's to the next level or to the next spot or to the next set of treasures, it is going to bring you countless gifts of discovery, countless gifts of understanding more of who you are. The gift of seeing yourself as this divine light being in a body who is here to have this incredible fun and exalted experience. Have fun, friends, on the game. I'm looking forward to hearing all about what you run into, what you discover, and the gifts that you find within. Share them in the comments, hit me up on Instagram. You can always DM or go through the Everydaymystic.org website and connect with me there. And if something here opened your heart, opened your mind, allowed you to see something beyond what you had seen before you started listening, I'd love for you to share a thumbs up, a comment, or share this episode with someone else that it might do that for too.