Saturday, March 30, 2002 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Ben (Albert)
Elias arrives at 5:37 PM. (Arrival time is 22 seconds.)

ELIAS: Good afternoon!

BEN: Good afternoon, Elias.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) And what shall we be discussing this day?

BEN: Well, I wanted to try to go in a slightly different direction. I haven't been alone with you for a while, even though I've been in a couple of sessions. I've been enjoying sharing sessions with other people. But in this sense, I want to think of this as us being alone together, number one.

ELIAS: Very well.

BEN: The other thing is, I wanted to explore the now with you in some way, just this moment that we are together and just the whole idea of the now. Also, the part of the material I've been most challenged with, most interested in lately, is emotions as communication.

So what I'd like to try to do is in the now, with your help, try to translate some of my emotional communications to myself. I'd like to try to be able to know when I'm having feelings or when I'm having these communications, that I can actually start to learn to listen to them and understand what they're there for and what they're saying.

ELIAS: Very well, I am understanding.

BEN: The one way that I thought that we could possibly do this is, I know you say that emotions are not a reaction or something, but I was just hoping that I could have some emotional reactions now and then we could say this is this; this is what this is about. Does that make sense?

ELIAS: I am understanding.

BEN: But I need your help. I had a dream recently where I was being hypnotized and I was thinking about the idea, oh, wouldn't it be great to have Elias as my hypnotist, but I guess it was one of those things where... Can you prompt me in some way so that we could get this started and then we can work on it together?

ELIAS: And you view yourself to be incorporating no emotional expression at all presently?

BEN: I know you've said before that even right now I'm expressing some kind of emotional communication to myself. So number one, the first place to start is right now. I don't really hear any phones ringing right now.

ELIAS: Ah, and in paying attention to the totality of your expression in this now, do you assess within yourself that you are entirely relaxed (Ben laughs) and comfortable and expressing preference and pleasure, and therefore are offering yourself no communication other than validation?

BEN: Well, I mean, if this is a signal or whatever, I suppose there's a certain amount of anticipation surrounding this moment right now, but I can't really... Certainly, among my friends, I'm considered to be one of those people that keep their emotions to themselves, shall we say. A lot of times I'm just aware that I'm having them. I can't really tell you what the signal is, what the feeling is or whatever else, and even right now in this moment I can't really... I guess there's nothing strong enough to get my notice.

ELIAS: Now; in this, begin noticing what you are expressing.

First of all, you are expressing that you generally may be feeling, which is a signal, but that you cannot identify the signal.

BEN: Quite often.

ELIAS: This as a beginning point is significant, for the signals are specific and reflect the message. Therefore, if you do not allow yourself - and it is not a situation in which you CANNOT, but that you DO NOT allow yourself - to identify the signal, you shall generate much more difficulty in attempting to recognize the message, for the signal offers you a beginning point of information. It may be offered in identification of one word, but that one word shall allow you some incorporation of information of a beginning point to be investigating or to be examining to allow yourself to receive the message.

Now; I may express to you, if we are discussing this subject matter in steps, so to speak, the first step is to allow yourself to translate the signal.

BEN: So obviously, you're saying there's a communication going on constantly. (Pause)

ELIAS: For the most part. You do generate moments in which you may figuratively view yourselves to be neutral, in which you are not generating any communication to yourself to be noticing that you are generating an obstacle in relation to choices or that you are discounting of yourselves. And you also at times are not generating a communication of validation, for you have already offered that to yourself and received it and allow yourself a time framework in which you merely relax in that validation and satisfaction within self.

Generally speaking, for the most part, you are generating communications. The time frameworks in which you allow yourself to relax in an expression of validation are much less frequent.

Many times you generate many communications simultaneously, which generally are expressed in relation to a theme, so to speak. As you are aware, you generate many different directions and actions within any particular time framework. You interact with other individuals; you interact with actions within your jobs; you interact with yourselves within your dwelling; you engage many different types of activities and incorporate many different directions simultaneously as you move within your linear time framework in any particular day.

Now; as you offer to yourself a communication, an emotional communication in relation to any particular action that you engage within your day, you may be assured that you are offering yourself communications in many other directions also, for they all move together. Your identification or definitions, in your terms, of your work, your play, your interactions, your mundane actions throughout any particular day are all interrelated, for you are generating a specific direction in that time framework. Therefore, all of the actions that you incorporate are interrelated.

Therefore, if you are engaging conversation with an individual that you view to be a friend and you are discussing a particular subject matter, that subject matter is also intertwined with an action that you may be incorporating within that time framework in your workplace, in interactions engaged with other individuals in other situations, in other expressions; and the manner in which you allow yourself to recognize what you are communicating to yourself is to be paying attention to you and what you are generating in each moment, and allow yourself in a manner of speaking to view the larger picture, as an example, of an entire day, rather than separating each experience that you generate and viewing each experience to be isolated within itself.

Therefore, in the exploration that you wish to be generating with myself this day, offer to myself a synopsis of what you have engaged thus far this day. What have you generated and what have you engaged?

BEN: I got up this morning early; I went to yoga class; I spoke to Mikah who spent the night here last night; I had brunch with Jill; I went for a walk in the park; I talked on the telephone some; I had a nap.

ELIAS: Very well.

Now; assess your experience in each of these movements.

BEN: In what sense? Like, where was I when I was in those places, or...?

ELIAS: Assess in each of these experiences what you were generating in the moments. Within your class, what were you generating and what is your experience? In your interaction with Mikah, in your engagement in dining, in your walk in the park, you are generating thoughts. These thoughts are translating movement. Therefore, in viewing what you are actually creating or doing, and also allowing yourself to turn your attention to your thoughts, you may offer yourself a clearer recognition of the signals, the feelings that you are also generating in these experiences. Shall you attempt?

BEN: Oh, sure, I can tell you about my thoughts or whatever. For example, I can tell you I'm going to yoga class and I'm checking out the room and saying, "Oh, there's nobody here that I find attractive." I can be in particular points during the class, going, "This is hard. I can't wait for this to be over." I can be in points where I say, "Oh, yes, I'm very relaxed now and I'm so glad I'm here and that I did this for myself." All these thoughts are going through my head.

ELIAS: Very well.

Now; move to other experiences within your day and attempt to seek out the similarities.

BEN: Okay. Um, let's see...

ELIAS: In your interaction with Mikah, what is your identification of similarities to what you experienced...

BEN: Well, in similarities to what I just said, this would be a moment where I feel like I'm relaxed.

ELIAS: Very well. And you engaged conversation concerning...?

BEN: Probably we would have been discussing the brunch that I would be having when I left the house.

ELIAS: And the subject matter of the brunch?

BEN: (Laughs) Well, we talked about work, mostly, I guess, and family and travel and...

ELIAS: No, the subject matter concerning the brunch, between yourself and Mikah.

BEN: Well, Mikah is aware that I hoped that this brunch was in some sense a date.

ELIAS: Therefore, you generate a similar expression in conversation with Mikah that you generate within your class.

BEN: Yes, well, okay, the theme or the subject matter is who am I attracted to and who is attracted to me? Something like that?

ELIAS: Very well - yes.

BEN: Then I would give that being a theme quite often in my day!

ELIAS: Very well.

Now; what I am expressing to you is an example to allow yourself to view, as I have stated, the larger picture of the entirety of your day to offer you information concerning your direction.

BEN: Let's see if I get a handle on this. Now, as you know, I have been talking lately about this idea about sexuality or attraction, or my motivation for wanting a partner being a desire to express myself in a particular way. So, I can say that in all these circumstances I am finding myself in any given moment testing to find out whether I can express myself in that moment.

ELIAS: Ah, very well.

Now; this is significant.

Now; as you recognize that action or that theme - not the theme of generating a sexual encounter - but as you hone your sights, so to speak, and allow yourself to more clearly recognize the theme of your experiences to be testing whether you shall allow yourself to express yourself, in each situation you may move your attention to what you generate in feeling in those moments, for the feeling is the signal which shall, in a manner of speaking, direct you to the communication, [and] the communication offers you the assessment of what you are actually accomplishing or what you are actually generating.

In this, if you are within your class situation and you are testing your ability to generate expression of yourself freely, and your initial direction is to be interactive with another individual but you do not generate that, you shall generate an emotional communication. And in this, I may express to you, the emotional communication that you express in signal is brief disappointment.

BEN: Okay, yes. I could have said that, yes.

ELIAS: The recognition of the signal is significant, for this offers you information. In that moment, you may turn your attention [and] acknowledge, "Ah! I am experiencing a signal of disappointment, and what generates that disappointment? I am testing my ability to generate what I want and create that in free expression of myself, and I am not allowing that choice. Therefore, I shall turn my attention to a different expression and test my ability to be expressing myself freely in another experience."

Now; view what you have generated throughout this one day, and allow yourself to view the emotional communications that have been offered to you throughout this one day. In moments in which you are testing your ability to freely express yourself and what you want in relation to another individual in certain expressions, you generate disappointment, and you quickly move your attention.

BEN: What is the message that's underneath the disappointment?

ELIAS: That you are not allowing yourself permission to choose. You are not allowing yourself the choice that you want, for you do not trust your ability to actually generate this expression.

Now; in other moments within your day as you interact with yourself in quietness, you generate a comfort and you validate yourself that within these moments you are generating a comfort and a type of peacefulness within yourself in which you generate satisfaction. Satisfaction is also an emotional communication; it is a validation to you.

But even within those moments, at times, you allow your attention to move to your thought process, which recalls moments in which you view you failed the test. Therefore, you continue to move back and forth between the expressions, and in the moments that you generate the association that you have failed the tests, you create an emotional communication once again of disappointment.

BEN: Now, we're referring to the test being I can create my own reality the way I want?

ELIAS: And with free expression of yourself, without...

BEN: Ah, I can express myself the way I want.

ELIAS: Correct, without restraint.

BEN: I gotcha.

ELIAS: Now; in this, what you are generating in the message is that you are discounting of yourself in your ability, you are not allowing for your choice in relation to what you want, and you are reinforcing the discounting of yourself in immediately moving your attention into distraction.

BEN: Because the signal hasn't been received?

ELIAS: Yes.

BEN: I mean, because this is one of those things where you say you are aware or you're not aware, but I can tell you that probably in the moment when I'm in the yoga class and I'm aware that I'm experiencing disappointment and I'm aware that basically that that means that I don't have the ability to create my own reality or at least that's what the communication is, that I am aware of it; but then I guess that's what you're saying, that at that point you just decide, "Oh, okay, I don't want to hear that and now I'm going to distract myself"?

ELIAS: Yes. For do you genuinely acknowledge this? No. If you are genuinely acknowledging this and allowing your attention to move to this communication, you shall also allow yourself to follow that communication with an acknowledgment of your choices, a recognition that you are not allowing your choices. Once recognizing that you are not allowing your choices, you may offer yourself information concerning the reason or the influence which is affecting to not allow you these choices.

As an example within your class, you may enter your class and as you have expressed, scan the room. Once scanning the room with a particular intention expressed, what is your immediate assessment?

BEN: Disappointment.

ELIAS: Not yet. What is your immediate... What was your immediate assessment once you had scanned the room?

BEN: That there was only one other guy in the class that was mostly women.

ELIAS: And this particular male individual was unacceptable.

BEN: Correct.

ELIAS: Very well. You have entered, as you have stated, with an intention of testing your ability to express yourself freely.

BEN: Yes. Now, I realize of course that this limitation to my expression is completely self-created, because through my preferences or whatever else I decide whether I'm going to express myself that way or not. Nobody else is deciding that for me.

ELIAS: I am understanding, but regardless that for the most part the individuals within your class are female, you do present yourself with one male.

BEN: Yes.

ELIAS: But in your assessment you fail the test, for you automatically discontinue the test before you even engage it, for this particular male is unacceptable. But this is not the point. The point was your test.

BEN: Okay, so the test did occur and did produce results.

ELIAS: Yes, it produced results of discounting of yourself and not offering yourself choice and not offering yourself the opportunity to freely express yourself and generating distraction, for in the moment you are not listening to you.

In listening to your communication, in listening to the signal of disappointment and in paying attention to the communication that you offer to yourself and recognizing that the communication involves denying yourself choice, the appearance or the preference of the other male individual matters not. What matters, in your terms, is that you allow yourself the freedom of your expression. Therefore, what generates the denial of that choice?

BEN: Me.

ELIAS: In simplistic terms, why shall you not move yourself in proximity to the other male individual and allow yourself to express yourself freely?

BEN: Yeah, well, that's the tricky part, isn't it?

ELIAS: (Laughs gently) Ah! But this is the process that you are inquiring of.

BEN: Yes, yes, very much so.

ELIAS: For once...

BEN: I understand. This has been something that I've certainly been thinking about for a while now. For whatever reason, we have this ritual or something that we set up. So if the person is the right age and the right gender and the right weight and the right whatever else, all these things, NOW I can express myself, where the whole idea is it really doesn't have anything to do with the other person. The other person doesn't change you; just because this person is unattractive, now you're not expressing yourself or you are expressing yourself. You're completely deciding whether this person's attractive or anything, anyway.

ELIAS: Correct! You are quite correct.

Therefore, if the motivation is to be generating the test of whether you shall allow yourself the freedom to choose and express yourself, the appearance of the other individual matters not.

BEN: Correct - in theory.

ELIAS: In moving into a different type of expression in which you are experimenting with your ability to generate what you PREFER, this is another direction; but this was not what you were generating.

BEN: Correct.

ELIAS: You incorporate conditions for your allowance, [and] this IS significant in relation to what your intention was, for this offers you information concerning how you limit yourself and what generates the denial of your choice to freely express yourself. Merely offering yourself that information, and the ability to identify what the influences are that you incorporate in denying your choice to express yourself freely, offers you tremendous information and also in itself generates an expression of freedom, for in that moment you offer yourself choice. This is the process that is expressed in attempting to become familiar with your communications to self and your movement and what you want and your direction, your preferences, your motivations and the influences of your beliefs.

BEN: Well then, I'm going to have to tell you that I'm not doing as bad with this as I thought I was. I mean, I guess because I'm looking for emotional communication to mean something that I decided that it means, I'm not even aware of what I am aware of.

ELIAS: I am understanding.

BEN: Because this discussion that we're having today, it's not like you're telling me anything I didn't really already know.

ELIAS: I am understanding this also. It is merely that you are communicating to yourself and translating within your thought process that there may be or should be a specific method that you are not viewing and therefore you are not offering yourself information, which is not necessarily correct.

In a manner of speaking, my friend, what you have been generating in your translation of thought is similar to an association concerning projections. (Elias starts coughing and Mary pops out)

Elias departs at 6:18 PM

MARY: Sorry!

BEN: Want to cut it off now?

MARY: No.

BEN: Why don't we take a break? (Mary continues coughing and the tape of the session ends)

©2004 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved

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Copyright 2002 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.