Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Flow Burglars - The Uninvited Guests that make you grow - Episode 123

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

It’s no secret and plain to see what the true cause of disease and most of all the problems we face today comes from Emotional Mismanagement. Our inability to control the only thing we actually have control over. Our response to the inconvenient obstacle course of challenges life throws at us.. Today, we’re talking about one of the most critical skills in emotional self-mastery: protecting your peace by recognizing the people who quietly drain it. These people and their patterns show up so subtly that we often don’t notice our energy leaking until we’re already exhausted, frustrated, and combative. In essence, we all work hard to maintain consistency and reach the flow state where things start going our way. These people seemingly show up with the intention of stealing that flow. Therefore, I call them Flow Burglars, and I’ve identified five predictable archetypes, each of which disrupts your flow in its own way.  During today’s playtime, we are going to learn how to recognize, disarm, and outsmart them BEFORE they drain your energy and burglarize your flow. Here are the 5 Archetypes: Comfort Clinger, who uses your support to avoid growth Ungrateful Goblin, who absorbs your kindness without a hint of appreciation Validation Vampire, who appears to want guidance but really wants your agreement Narrative Ninja, who manipulates through emotional storytelling Hard-Headed Hurricane, who chooses chaos again and again and invites you into it. Each of these patterns drains your energy differently. However, the solution to all of them is the same: discernment, the power to see people clearly and consciously, read their intentions accurately, and choose your response from a place of wisdom rather than reflex.  Discernment protects your peace because it keeps you from stepping into roles you were never meant to play. Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy: ► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast - You will find a "Follow" button on the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Makes Sense Academy: A private mastermind and psychologically safe environment full of the Mindset and Action steps that will help you begin to thrive. The Makes Sense Academy. https://www.skool.com/makes-sense-academy/about The Sati Experience: A retreat designed for the married couple that truly loves one another, yet wants to take their love to that higher magical level. Relax, reestablish, and renew your love at the Sati Experience. https://www.satiexperience.com Highlights: 0:00 - Intro 3:42 - The Flow Burglar 6:05 - My first encounter with a Flow Burglar 15:15 - What are they looking for? 18:02 - Repeat Offenders: Advanced forms of Flow Burglars 21:36 - The Final Truth Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Make Sense podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way that you look at things, the things that you look at begin to change. The Make Sense podcast is sponsored and primarily funded by the Make Sense Academy. Our private community, where open and curious seekers of growth and expansion, apply the make sense principles and systems to move from simply going through life to growing through life. So check out the Make Sense Academy, risk-free, for less than you'll spend today on shit that you don't need.

Welcome, my friends, to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. Makes sense. Great morning world. great morning humans. This is your friendly neighborhood dragon and welcome to another edition of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast that streams live on Substack every Monday morning at 8 a.m. And this is an opportunity for us to meet together live, win the morning so we can win the day and therefore the week and interact on any level on the topic that we are going to present. Some things that are coming up. Some things that are coming

I leave on Friday. This live recording right now is being done on Monday, the 17th of November. And I am leaving on Friday night. Overnight, I'm flying to Peru over to Kusko, Peru. And I'll be embarking on an interesting spiritual journey that the dragon likes to do ever so often, once or twice a year. But I'll be staying at this just miraculous place, right by a river in what's called the Sacred Valley,

basically looking up at the mountains where Machapitou exists. So I'll be leaving Friday night. Very, very excited about that. And then when I get back, I'll have a week to prepare, because then I'm heading out to San Diego. So anybody that's on the West Coast or anybody that is inclined to go to what I think is shaping up is one of the most powerful events that I will ever partake in.

but I'm going to be emceeing from my good friend Jim Quick and his event is called Limitless Live. So if you go to Limitless Live.com and just look at the speakers that he has coming in, it's extraordinary. I speak very often about the jacuzzi experience that people have where getting this awesome jacuzzi-like state of knowing and learning. And one of my favorite quotes and acknowledgments is that remember learning and knowing is just another form. of distraction in the absence of action. But at this particular event, which is December 8th, limitlesslive.com, this is going to be a big, big game shifter. So if you're in the area and you're interested in coming out to that event,

there's about a thousand seats in the audience live. And then he's soon to announce there's going to be a stream as well. So you guys know that before anybody else. That is going to be an extraordinary event. that will shift you. And it's an honor and a privilege for me to be there. If you use the code, Dragon 30, you'll get 30% off of whatever you see in there. So hope to see you guys there.

All right. So welcome back. Welcome back, everybody, to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. So today, we're going to be diving into what I call one of the most unintentionally spiritual roles that a person can play in your life. somebody else can play in your life. And that is the role of what I call the flow burglar. This is something that is going to be in my book that's launching in February. That book is called Make Sense. That book is finished. And eight years of work for that. But I've already started to

write my second book. So this is going to be an excerpt from my second book. And I do a whole chapter on this idea of the flow burglar. So we tease it a little bit in the first book. One of the most unintentionally spiritual roles that a person can play in your life, as if you looked at your life as a game and there's characters in the game, you're the main character. That is the role of the flow burglar, and I'll let you know what those are. So these are the people who seem in your life to test your patience, to shake your confidence, and maybe even considered people that can hijack your peace. And that's not because they're evil, by the way, but because they're unknowingly exposing the places and spaces inside of of you where you're still giving your power away. So that's going to be one of the reframes today is basically the people that come into your life that seem to be a pain in the ass and

really giving you shit and just entertaining. Maybe they're there for you and maybe it's not happening to you. And maybe what they're doing is exposing the areas in your life where you're giving your power away still. So it's opportunistic. So in this episode, we're going to basically decode what a flow burglar is, what they really are, and how to spot them. You got to know when you're dealing with a flow burglar because they are very, very cloaky, how they operate and why they trigger you so deeply. That's a big, big distinction, is to ask yourself, why is this thing, this event, this thought in my head triggering me so deeply. And also how, with one quiet and curious, huh, it's a pause. That flow burglar, that person can become one of the greatest

teachers that you never asked for, but absolutely needed. Are you ready for this? I'm going to start off with a little bit of a story, trying to figure out when I first came up with the idea of flow burglars, because I've been having them in my life forever. I just never noticed what they were. So I met my first real flow burglar. And think about the flow burglars and you're the flow burglars and your life and also consider the fact that you might be one. Isn't that interesting? So I met my first real flow burglar long before I even had a name for them. So back then, I just used to call these people, like this particular person, that guy, you know, that pain in my ass. And the type whose presence when they walk in a room and when they interact with you, their presence basically shifts the air in

that room, like a cold draft. You know what it feels like to feel a cold draft. So we were in some sort of important, almost high stakes meeting. And it was a meeting and a table that I was sitting at that I had worked very, very hard to be in, right? So I was emotionally excited about being in that conversation. And it was my turn to speak. And I was in flow. I was locked in, laser focused, feeling clear and dialed in. The dragon was in flight and alive at that moment. I was in flow. And then he spoke, that guy. And he didn't speak to add anything meaningful.

This is what's interesting. And this is one of the parts of spotting them. He actually spoke and it seemed like he was there to destabilize me as a human. The context of what he said had nothing to do with where we were going with the conversation. He was trying to destabilize and throw me off. So he basically attacked, oh, this is my perception. he attacked my motives instead of my ideas. It wasn't like healthy criticism.

He was going after my motives for what I was saying. And he was attacking my character instead of my reasoning that I was sharing, which I was very excited about. And he did it with kind of like a smirk little grin. He was enjoying himself. He was happy to do it. And that grin should have come with like a warning label. You know what I'm saying?

And just like that, my understanding. entire state collapsed, which is not an easy thing to do because I was very confident and I was very certain in what I was saying and I was in flow, but my entire state collapsed. And what did it feel like? Heat, tightness. I became tunnel visioned. All of that stuff ensued. And I was no longer leading the room nor myself. I moved into a victim status and I was reacting to one man's insecurity and accepted his insecurity as my own. Does that make sense? It's kind of like my nervous system folded in that instant on itself, like some sort of cheap furniture. So I walked out of that meeting furious. My stress response system, my protective force field had been infiltrated and I

walked out furious. And I wasn't furious only at him. If I'm really being honest, I was also furious at myself. I was upset with myself. How did I let one human's emotional turbulence hijack my entire internal world? Here's an interesting way of looking at that. How did I let his storm? Because that's what he presented. How did I let his storm evolve and become my internal weather? Isn't that an interesting way to look at it? Somebody else's storm that they present you with. Sometimes we allow that to manifest as weather inside of our own minds. I just kept replaying that moment, like some sort of courtroom evidence

that I was looking over, and something all of a sudden clicked. He didn't steal my flow. I realized that. I handed it to him. So I realized that I played as big a role or maybe even bigger in this unsettling feeling that I was feeling.

He wasn't the villain. He was just a messenger, and I started to get curious about it. that situation, that realization, it changed everything. That's what I'm here to share with you today. It's just a reframe. It's a different way of looking at things. Remember, if you change the way you look at things,

the things that you look at will begin to change. When I had that realization, all I did was I got curious and I uttered this curious, that's the sound. When you acknowledge something, you're not sure about it, but you're going to allow yourself the space to maybe use some rationale and some logic and think about it. So when I said, huh, I didn't utter that curiosity directed towards him, but at myself and the whole situation.

I was looking at why it affected me so deeply and what else could be true about it. That's one of my favorite questions when I'm in the midst of an interface that's feeling unsettling and it's not serving me, is to say what else might be true, Dragon? That's when the term flow burglars was born. That's it. I made it up. I never heard of it before. Flow burglars. He was trying to burglarize my flow,

but I'm in a different space now and I'm ready to reframe it because I'm thinking about it rather than allowing the world to think for me or my conditioned program mind. And here's the twist. There's always a twist. After I made that huge distinction, it wasn't the last time that I saw that guy, right? But I'm looking at him differently. I've changed the way I look at him now. After that day, he didn't stop being who he was. But what changed was that he no longer had access and power and dominion over my inner world. And the best way that I could describe it is he was still throwing punches, but his punches felt like they were now being thrown. at me underwater, if you can visualize that. I'm thinking a movie where Jean-Claude Van Dam was training. I think it was bloodsport or something like that. He was throwing punches at me still, because that's what he does. But they were thrown underwater and no longer, because of the time that I had to look at it and think about it, no longer reaching my jaw. So I came to realize that flow burglars, they don't actually show up to disrupt your life. That is you that does that. allows that. They actually show up to reveal the parts of your life that are still disruptible.

Think about it. I started to look at movies and heroes' journeys and all of that stuff. They all have flow burglars. Batman had the Joker. So here's my Joker. I love the word Joker, by the way. I love to say, oh, that guy's just a Joker. And what I'm referring to is Batman's Joker. Luke Skywalker, who did he have? Darth Vader. And even in the famous movie, The Matrix, Neo had Mr. Smith. This was not necessarily a bad thing. I started to question how this might be a good thing. I made a decision that we get flow burglars and they come to us as opportunities.

That's the reframe. They're not detours. They're opportunities. But to the unconscious sleepwalker and those of you that have been coming along this journey with me or those of you from the Make Sense Academy, the people that I coach, all we're doing is is awakening people and giving them the keys. of control and power to think for themselves in a world that is thinking for us, if you're involved in some sort of algorithm or consuming things that are making you assume things.

So to the others, the unconscious sleepwalkers, they appear to be malicious flow burglars, disrespectful and also highly inconvenient, don't they? The first time you notice a flowburger, you're feeling disrespected, you're feeling like they have malicious intent, and that it's highly inconvenient. That's the victim status. If you're feeling that something is happening to you and it's inconvenient, you're in some sort of a defensive victim status where you're perceiving that something's happening to you and you're not asking how it's happening for you or how it might serve you. But to the awakened ones, to you guys, when you practice open curiosity, which is just an awareness, say, hmm, I wonder, maybe. When you practice open curiosity,

rather than just reactivity, the way that we're wired right now, so you'd have to be able to notice it, you start seeing flow burglars for what they really are. And what are they? I like to look at them as uninvited teachers, but welcomed. Uninvited teachers, they're kind of like unwilling, spiritual trainers. They're unwillingly giving you training that you didn't ask for. But isn't that the way that the universe works. Have you ever had the universe give you something that you didn't ask for, but it ended up serving your needs to a high, high level? A flow burglar can actually be a coworker, a partner, maybe even these days a stranger online, or even you, meaning your own thoughts that are in your head that say things like, you're not enough. And their job is simple

to test whether your peace is internal or requires outsourcing. Does your peace delicately sit in the balance of outside sources? Do you require outside things to be right in order for you to feel whole and feel peaceful and happiness and experience a wonderful life? We spoke last week about what it means to walk alone and not need anything. Their job is simple, and that is to test your peace. and see if it's internal or outsourced. We love outsourcing, don't we?

Think about that for a second. We love outsourcing our peace. Through the practice of things like blame, how many times do you blame others for your circumstance? And we say things like, it's not me, it's them. It's the situation. Oh, well, it's just life. I find that so interesting when we say, it's just life.

Shit happens. I understand the value in that, but while shit is happening and while life is happening, we have control over what, how we respond and how we perceive it. That's the essence of all my work. But that precious pause, that's how you're armed, that's your magical tool, that precious pause where we say, hmm, what it does is it redirects the entire situation and it inward again. We're living outside. We're outsourcing. And it brings everything inward to that version of yourself where you remember, you get to choose. We always have a choice. We always have a

choice. So it's not to shame or blame when we say, hmm, but to wake up. That's what we're doing here. And we ask questions like, what's inside of me that's reacting? What inside of me is reacting right now? And what story in my head am I trying to defend? Or what part of me is ready and needing to level up? Interesting insight to look at yourself when you're in the throes of a reaction, of a knee-jerk stress response system reaction with all the fields, the tightness, the tension, the tunnel vision, and recognize it and pause and say, hmm, and ask yourself, what part of me right now is needing to level up? What's my next step? So take note that, hmm, although it's extremely powerful, it doesn't stop the attack.

That's an important distinction. Just because you say, hmm, what it does is it gives you control and it reminds you that you have a choice, but it doesn't stop the attack. What it does is it prevents the identification and participation with the attack. It moves you into the position of the observer rather than the participant. Now, there's advanced forms, advanced levels of flow burglars, and you have to know this. And those are the ones that we call repeat offenders, the ones that seem to just have it out for you. the repeat offenders, the chronic interruptors, and the ones that seem to be on assignment.

It's like their whole life has dedicated to making you miserable and stealing your flow. Have you ever had someone in your life like that? You just create this perception that they're there with one sole purpose, and that is to make you miserable and steal your flow. And here's another thing that's interesting to note. Flow burglars almost always share the same order. origin and story. This is a place of compassion and curiosity that I'm coming from now, because I'm starting to wonder why people are like that. Take myself out of the equation.

I'm no longer participating and I'm observing. I'm eating popcorn and watching the movie. Flow burglars almost always come from the same origin if you learn about them and story. Low self-worth and it's disguised as righteousness. I've been a flow burglar. I've had times in my life where I had low self-worth and I disguised it and packed it. packaged it and wrapped it in a package called righteousness. And that's when I was trying to be right because I didn't like myself. And remember, hurt people, hurt people. So what a cool reframe, rather than say, why is this person hurting me to asking, I wonder why they're hurt. And if you struggle with this, by the way, I understand. It's not easy to let your guard down because

we've all been programmed to think that that's what we're supposed to do. But there's a big win on the other side. The juice is well worth the squeeze. Over time, if you practice this, and it takes practice, right, don't expect it to be perfect the first time. You might still want to defend yourself and all of that. I've been through all of that. But over time, something miraculous happens. The very people who once triggered you all of a sudden become the people who refine your awareness. They almost become, like I said before, teachers. You almost get in this space where you start to recognize that if flow burglars are in your life, you're fortunate. And what they're doing is they become kind of like your spiritual gym partners and trainers.

They're like your workout buddies that are forcing you to build the muscle of awareness. Thank you. Thank you for bringing me to this place where I am forced to build a very, very important, almost life-saving muscle called awareness. And every time you pause to say, hmm, haven't made up my mind, every time you pause to say, hmm, what happens is you level up just by committing to saying it. You level up. You graduate to a new level of freedom.

Remember, and this is one of our two top tenants that we teach in all of my systems, but in our Make Sense Academy. Every time we say that, we have to remember this tenant that says that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works. So if you're out there doing a lot of the do, but not seemingly getting ahead and always feeling like you're being distracted or pushed back and unfortunately having people and things indicate that the universe does not have any compassion for you. Stop focusing on the do and go back and focus on the who.

Because if you're always focusing on the do, that's called do-do. So here's the final truth about flow burglars. Low burglars don't expose your weakness. That's not why they're there. They reveal your opportunities for growth and expansion. Can you see how blessed you are when those kind of people come in? I would never have even come up with this podcast or any of my stuff, the concept of makes sense, the very idea of it. And this book that I just wrote came from me looking at adversity a different way. And coming to this place where I go, wait a second. That makes sense. That's the whole premise of the book and you'll love it. They're there for our growth and expansion. They're opportunistic. And once you stop giving them access and power, the burglary that they're trying to perform, the burglary becomes impossible. Why? Because no one can steal what you have finally decided to keep. Nobody can steal something from you if it's unstealable, because you've decided to keep it. Make sense? So that's it for today. Remember, if you learn something

today, give it away, because that's the only way it's going to stay. And I'll see you next time. Love and appreciate you all. Have an amazing day. And thank you for sharing this space with me today. Bye-bye.