Monday, December 2, 2002 (Private/Phone)

Participants: Mary (Michael) and Frank (Ulra)

Elias arrives at 11:28 AM. (Arrival time is 18 seconds.)

ELIAS: Good morning!

FRANK: Good morning! Pleasure to speak to you again!

ELIAS: (Laughs) And you also!

FRANK: Thank you very much!

Well, let’s see. I guess, as is sort of my usual custom lately, I’d like to start by asking you about a dream I had since we last spoke. I was in my home and I saw this little alligator, about a three- or four-inch long alligator, that had a sort of menacing look on its face. The next thing I knew, I was trying to find this alligator again because I wanted to get rid of it or kill it or whatever, and I couldn’t find it. Then there were a lot of these little alligators all over the place, and my wife and a close friend of mine were present also. Shortly thereafter, there was a hornet as well, which I think I killed in the dream.

My impression of this dream is that the little alligators represent either beliefs or perceptions that I view as negative that I’m trying to change or get to the bottom of.

ELIAS: Partially. I may express to you, the stronger message in this imagery is to be paying attention to actions that you generate throughout your day that you perceive to be small, for those actions or responses or expressions that you deem to be small are those that comprise the larger picture of the entirety of the movement of your day.

In this, all of these small actions that generally speaking are overlooked and not noticed are indicators of how you are generating your movement and your direction throughout your day. Those indicators express to you the moments in which you are allowing yourself flexibility and the moments in which you are expressing rigidity, the moments in which you are generating automatic responses and not noticing, and the moments in which you are actually paying attention.

The number of these small menacing creatures is your imagery to yourself in relation to how many times throughout your day there are expressed automatic responses and actions that may be noticed by turning your attention to serve you as indicators. But without noticing, they remain the expressions of reinforcement of automatic responses. Are you understanding?

FRANK: Yes, I am, although I have a question, or maybe you could give me an example of one of these small actions that I’m not paying attention to.

ELIAS: Examine mundane movements of your day. Let us begin with how you awake. What do you incorporate in the first few moments as you awaken?

FRANK: Usually that I’m tired, I guess.

ELIAS: And as you move from your bed, what are your actions?

FRANK: I don’t know. I guess I would say they’re pretty mindless.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) Quite. Even an action of showering or brushing your teeth, if you are noticing, you generate the action in the same manner. You shall incorporate the same movements. You shall incorporate washing in the same manner each day. You shall brush your teeth beginning on one side or in one particular motion each day, and you move your attention to thoughts concerning what shall be occurring later within your day, and you pay little attention to the actual actions that you are incorporating. Consuming your coffee or certain meals throughout the day, certain manners in which you approach your vehicle and how you engage starting your vehicle, these are all actions that you incorporate in each and every day. They are all actions that you generate in a manner of automatic responses, and they are all influenced by beliefs.

In this, you generate all of these actions throughout your day and you do not notice what you are actually doing, which we have spoken of previously — paying attention to what you are actually doing. All of these actions you deem to be mundane, insignificant and small, and therefore you do not pay attention and you do not notice the mechanics of them. Even the manner in which you may prepare a sandwich may be generated in the same action each time.

Actions such as these are the actions that you generate continuously, and these are the actions that are indicators to you concerning your automatic responses and the influence of beliefs that are reinforced daily. They are also actions unnoticed, which generates another indicator that you are not moving your attention in the now or upon self. But...

FRANK: Are you saying that to the extent that I do focus on these mundane actions and pay attention to how I’m doing them, as opposed to doing them on an automatic basis, that that is sort of — well, I don’t want to use the word “practice” — but it’s a way of making sure I’m in the now and paying attention on the more significant items in my life?

ELIAS: In a manner of speaking, for all of these actions that you incorporate are, in a manner of speaking, puzzle pieces that contribute to the design of the whole picture, and therefore offer you more of a clarity in understanding what you actually generate and how you create within your reality.

You, in like manner to many other individuals, move your attention to what you deem to be large actions or significant actions: your business, your family, engaging interaction with your children, planning activities or events, planning actions that shall generate clients within your business, actions that shall be generating greater income. These are actions that you deem to be large and significant.

All of these small actions that you incorporate in hundreds of movements throughout your day contribute to how you shall generate the large actions that you wish. But what you focus your attention upon are these large events, so to speak, or actions, and confuse yourself in how you may generate those in a manner of intentionally directing your energy and your movement to accomplish what you want.

FRANK: Let me ask you this question. Let’s take the action of brushing my teeth, for example. Other than by noticing it, other than by keeping myself in the mode of noticing myself and focusing on myself and not doing things automatically, how else does that contribute to these big actions that I am in fact concerned with?

ELIAS: For these are indicators of your beliefs and your hold in rigidity to these beliefs.

As an example, in brushing your teeth, let us say that you brush your teeth in a specific manner in specific motions, and in those specific motions you generate that action for a reason. You may not express a thought translation of those reasons, for you are generating an automatic response. But in recognizing that, you may be incorporating a belief that expresses if you incorporate certain motions in brushing your teeth, you shall be preventing harmfulness to your teeth and therefore you are generating a protection of your teeth. This is influenced by beliefs.

This is what I am expressing to you, my friend. Even an action that you view to be so small as brushing your teeth is influenced by many beliefs that are expressed in those larger actions, associations that there are elements that incorporate the ability to attack your teeth that are not generated by yourself and that may be harmful to your teeth. Therefore you must be generating actions to be protecting of them, for they serve a function which is important to you.

FRANK: That I understand. That does get down to a significant belief that really pervades everything in my life.

ELIAS: Correct, and this is the point. This is the significance of the dream that you have offered to yourself in this type of imagery, that all of these creatures appear to you to be very small but they also appear to be menacing and there are many of them.

FRANK: Maybe this part is not significant, but just to help me understand the dream imagery and how the process of dreams works, why at one point did my wife and my friend suddenly show up in this dream? And why at one point did I see a bee or a hornet in this dream? Is there any significance to that?

ELIAS: Yes. You present these individuals within your dream imagery as symbology of interaction with other individuals and that these menacing little actions, so to speak, or small creatures are incorporated in relation to other individuals also, and that other individuals generate these types of actions also, which you allow to be affecting of your automatic responses.

Therefore, they are interconnected, and this is the reason that you present other individuals within your dream imagery. You present specific other individuals, for these individuals incorporate certain representations to you in the manner in which they express themselves and how you interact with them in differences.

You also present to yourself the hornet as imagery of the challenge, so to speak, or the difficulty in grasping these actions with your attention. You translate that in physical imagery. The hornet is a significant representation. For were you to attempt to physically catch within your hand this creature, you would incorporate more of a challenge than attempting to catch these reptile creatures, although you initially present to yourself the imagery of merely one and its disappearance, which is the imagery of the automatic response and how it is unnoticed.

FRANK: Yeah, it’s there and it’s gone. Let me ask you about something else. I hadn’t really thought of it until just now. It was probably some time in the last couple of months. While I was asleep, I actually got stung by a hornet that was somehow in the house. Does this have anything to do with this same imagery here?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: It’s sort of like another wake-up call about all this?

ELIAS: In a manner of speaking, yes.

FRANK: Because at the time I really wondered, “Okay, this is some sort of message but God knows what it is!” (Elias laughs) Maybe I should have said, “Elias knows!”

ELIAS: Quite in keeping with how you generate your imagery! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: So it was the same sort of message?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: That’s very interesting, and it’s something that I will try to focus on. But as you know, for anyone, for all of us that’s tough. That seems like a lot of work, or maybe we’re just not used to doing it.

ELIAS: I am quite understanding. Recognize also, my friend, that it is unnecessary to continue to hold your attention upon all of these mundane actions that you incorporate. The significance is that you allow yourself a temporary time framework in which you familiarize yourself with your movements, and therefore allow yourself to identify what motivates certain movements, and which movements, which actions, you are incorporating rigidity with. This offers you much clearer information in how you may be generating choices to create more of an ease in your creations.

FRANK: I can see that. I understand. It’ll be an interesting piece of homework for me. (Elias laughs) Oh, boy. Where do we go next? There are a lot of things I want to ask you about.

I’d like to ask you about another piece of imagery that occurred. About a month ago, I received some money — actually it’s money that I get on a regular basis from different businesses that I’m involved with — and I ended up depositing it in the wrong bank account. Then I went and wrote checks on it, and those checks bounced. It wasn’t a big deal, but it did create some headaches or hassles, I guess, because I had done it.

I thought about that and it occurred to me that what the imagery was probably trying to show me or what I was trying to show myself is that in fact I do have more money and more financial resources than I sometimes give myself credit for or realize. Is that an accurate assessment of what happened?

ELIAS: Yes, and also this is another example of attention and how you create certain actions. In certain situations, you generate actions that you are not paying attention to, and you gain your attention or you move your attention for you generate a type of backlash in association with not paying attention to certain actions.

FRANK: So this was my way of telling myself to pay attention.

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Interesting how that all fits together with the dream. (Elias laughs)

My wife and I were at a party a couple of weeks ago with some neighbors, two couples, and while we were there another neighbor just sort of showed up unexpectedly from across the street. She showed up with her fiancé and started talking about how they were getting married and this and that.

When they left, this one couple started being very critical of them and the choice the woman had made and things like that. I’m thinking about that imagery and it’s obviously got something to do with lack of acceptance. I found myself thinking, “Boy, why are they being so critical and nonaccepting of the choice this person’s made?”

So again, what was that all about? Was that to sort of further my understanding of this concept of acceptance or to help me to be more accepting, or what exactly?

ELIAS: Yes, offering yourself an example of how easily it is expressed to be nonaccepting and to be generating judgment and to justify the judgments that are expressed.

FRANK: That’s kind of what I thought that was.

Since we last talked, I have to some extent redeveloped an old physical ailment. It’s interesting; the first time that you and I talked, I asked you about this. It’s a gastro-intestinal problem that I had had for many, many, many years. The first session that you and I had, we talked about that and it immediately went away based on what you had told me. I believe you talked about it as being sort of like a tension inside of me that I was holding and that I needed to release that.

Over the last month it’s sort of come back, triggered by some physical events which I want to ask you about a little later. Could you maybe shed some light on that? I think I probably created that because of nervousness about my business; that’s my impression. But maybe you could talk about that a little bit, why I did it, how I did it, and how I can get away from that.

ELIAS: An intensity of movement. This, you are correct, is being generated by an incorporation of tension. But what has triggered this tension? Look to the time framework in which you generate this physical expression, and in association with that, view what you have been incorporating, what you have been doing in pushing your energy, pushing yourself in your movement — generating a partial satisfaction in relation to your business but also partially overwhelming yourself with a tremendous incorporation of activity.

FRANK: Yeah, that’s for sure! The last month was a very difficult one. It’s funny because Mary and I were discussing this right before we started the session, and one of the things I had expressed to her was that I had sort of decided to make this a slow month.

ELIAS: Ah ha! And the reason that you have generated that decision is associated with your previous time framework in which you were pushing your energy quite strongly, but in that pushing you also created this physical expression in association with the tension that you generated.

FRANK: So that’s what created the physical result.

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: On one level I knew this wasn’t true, but it seemed like this was triggered by foods that I consumed. Is that just because I need to have some sort of physical reason to say, “Okay, here’s what caused this to happen”?

ELIAS: Partially, and partially this is another automatic response: you view physical responses within your body or physical expressions within your body and your automatic association is that they are created by another physical expression.

FRANK: In other words, not a full acceptance of the concept that I in fact do create everything internally.

ELIAS: Correct, and also this is an example of an automatic association.

FRANK: So for me, I have this automatic association that if I have alcohol or certain foods, that creates this; but in fact I could consume these things and not have any effect.

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: I think that at some intellectual level I understand that, and I guess maybe sort of half accept it but don’t fully accept it. Would that be an adequate proper description?

ELIAS: Yes. It is associated with beliefs of cause and effect. (Pause)

FRANK: I’d like to spend just a little bit of time, if we could, on something I’ve been thinking a lot about and maybe get your assistance with making a decision here. Last summer was very difficult because, in line with what we discussed just a little while ago, I took on many, many, many outside activities, and I was overwhelmed because I had so many things going on. They were all things that I sort of wanted to do or I think I did want to do them, but yet it just got to be too much.

So I’m trying to sort out for myself, number one, why do I do this sort of thing? Why do I take on all these activities? And number two, what should I do next year? Because I don’t want to find myself in the same trap again. I would like to see if you can assist me in any way on this.

ELIAS: You are attempting to familiarize yourself with yourself and your preferences and how this is associated with your wants, and also you are attempting to evaluate how you may be incorporating moving your attention in many directions simultaneously, for as you are aware, this is an action associated with this shift. In this, you translate that type of movement into objective imagery, and the manner in which you incorporate your objective imagery is to generate physical actions and creations in which you produce some expression.

In this, as you allow yourself to move your attention in different manners, you offer yourself information concerning that you do incorporate the ability to engage this type of action, but also that in certain manners it may be overwhelming. (Mary’s dog starts to bark and continues while Elias is speaking) Moving your attention and allowing yourself to incorporate many different directions of attention simultaneously does not necessarily incorporate the action of generating a physical manifestation, so to speak, and the manifestation may not necessarily be an expression such as an object but it is a producing of some expression outside of yourself.

Now; what you have been engaging is an exploration of how to be generating that natural movement associated with your orientation and your natural expression but also incorporating the action of turning your attention to self. (Dog quiets down)

FRANK: And this is causing me to do that.

ELIAS: It is not causing you; you are choosing! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: (Laughs) This is leading me to choose.

ELIAS: (Laughs) Yes, this is the motivation.

FRANK: So what it’s doing is it has made me want to sort of examine all these things and say, “Boy, do I really want to do this? Why do I do it? And do I really want to do it?” and all those sorts of things.

ELIAS: Correct, and also as I have stated, it is an example to you of allowing yourself to move your attention in many directions. But as you incorporate that action and express outwardly, which is a natural movement that you incorporate, you are also attempting to evaluate and discover how to be continuing to express outwardly in your natural movement but also incorporate paying attention to self, which is an expression of holding your attention in more than one direction simultaneously.

FRANK: That really is the key to a lot of this, isn’t it?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: If you can learn to do that, then... Probably part of the reason why we have trouble focusing on ourselves is that it’s hard not to focus on the world, and if you can only do one thing at a time then that’s where you’re going to be.

ELIAS: Correct, and this is influenced by a belief and generates an automatic response.

FRANK: By the belief that you can’t focus on more than one thing simultaneously?

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: Give me a moment. I need to write that down. It’s very significant. (Elias laughs) That’s definitely food for thought.

As long as we’re on that, this may be a good transition into something else that I want to ask you about, or really two things I want to ask you about. One is the role of imagination with regard to uncovering beliefs and accepting beliefs and changing perceptions. (More barking while Frank is speaking) Also, if you could maybe talk about — at least relative to me and where I’m at now — the whole process of acceptance of a choice contrary to an existing perception or belief, and that process and how it works.

ELIAS: First of all, I shall express to you imagination is an avenue of communication. Therefore, it is significant. For in paying attention to the communications of imagination (dog barks again), you offer yourself an expanded expression of creativity.

FRANK: Can you explain that a little bit? I’m not sure I understand that.

ELIAS: Imagination expresses a type of communication that generates inspiration and expresses a strong link, in a manner of speaking, with your creativity. It is an avenue of communication that loosens your associations with rigidness. In a manner of speaking, it is your objective expression of communication that similarly reflects dream expressions.

In your dream state, so to speak, you relax your associations with your beliefs, and you relax your associations with rigidness within your physical reality. Therefore, you allow yourself more flexibility and you allow yourself to create much more fluid or flexible imagery. You allow yourself to bend time much more easily; you allow yourself much more of a freedom in physical movement; at times you allow yourselves to fly within dream imagery. This imagery is quite real. It is no less real than waking imagery that you generate.

Imagination is a type of reflection of that type of expression of imagery that is generated in dream state, in which your associations with your beliefs and your rigidness is relaxed much more. Therefore, you offer yourself many more different types of expressions or imagery or ideas which generate an expression of inspiration. The difficulty or the challenge that is incorporated is in listening to that form of communication and not discounting it.

FRANK: And in interpreting, right?

ELIAS: At times, yes.

FRANK: Like for example, going back to the dream with the alligators, I thought I understood it and I think to some small degree I did. But as I learned when we started this conversation, there was much more information there that didn’t occur to me at all. Isn’t that an issue of interpretation?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Well then, let me ask you something else. Although I kind of understand what you’re saying here, to a large degree imagination is sort of self-generated. Now, when you say it’s an avenue of communication, that sounds like it’s ... I’m getting hung up on semantics here.

ELIAS: It is self-generated. ALL avenues of communication are self-generated.

FRANK: Yeah, you’re going to get me on that! I think you know where I’m going with this — it’s coming from a part of me that I don’t realize is a part of me.

ELIAS: I am understanding, but this is another expression of separation and quite strongly associated with that belief which you incorporate in separating yourself into parts, so to speak — those parts that are hidden from you and those parts that are not hidden from you.

FRANK: Well then, why don’t we move on to the second part of the question that I asked you, which sort of focuses on this?

ELIAS: Offer an example and we shall examine it.

FRANK: One example would be, we’ve talked in the past about the fact that I have a belief or a perception, I guess, that it is necessary to engage in hard work in order to generate financial assets. You’ve said that the way to move beyond beliefs is not to try to eliminate them or to change them, but to accept them and to then choose a different manifestation. As you know, I’ve been playing with this and trying to go about this, and sometimes I’m successful and sometimes I’m not. I guess I would like to get some clarification and more information on how I do that.

ELIAS: And you are incorporating a question concerning generating a choice that may be contrary to what you think you want and why you generate those types of actions?

FRANK: Yes, and that once I recognize that I’m choosing something contrary to what I think I want, why I can’t more easily generate what it is that I want.

ELIAS: And as I have expressed to you, the manner in which you allow yourself to generate this is to become more familiar with what you are actually doing, which offers you information concerning what you want.

For in this, you may be expressing the belief that you must be incorporating hard work to be accomplishing successfulness. Recognizing that belief genuinely — not merely thinking about the belief, but genuinely recognizing that belief and its influence and your automatic responses related to it — you may allow yourself to acknowledge the existence of that belief, expressing to yourself, “I am aware that I incorporate this belief. I am aware that this belief influences many of my automatic responses and that I am generating that action. Now, in acknowledgment of that action, I may also be acknowledging to myself that I do incorporate the ability to generate other choices.”

As an example, which you are actually offering to yourself presently, in one day, so to speak, you may engage your business and you may be in your terms working within your business, and you may be pushing your energy and expressing automatic responses and incorporating hard work to generate your successfulness. If allowing yourself to turn your attention to you in the midst of that action, and allowing yourself to notice and recognize that you are generating the action of automatic response in relation to that belief and that you are working hard, you offer yourself a stop-point in which you may objectively intentionally generate a different choice.

Perhaps in the midst of the action that you are incorporating in a particular day in which you are working hard, you may notice and choose to stop and intentionally relax your energy and relax your movement, recognizing that you may incorporate the same volume but you may choose the manner in which you generate that volume.

FRANK: So you’re saying it’s as simple as stopping and noticing and just sort of deciding there’s a different way I can do this.

ELIAS: And allowing yourself choice. You may choose to incorporate an intensity of movement and express the action of running from one end of a street to the other and you may pound your feet upon your ground. As you approach the end of your street, you have accomplished movement to the destination that you want. You may also accomplish the same action, the same destination, and express the successfulness of it in peacefully walking to the other end of your street. You accomplish the same movement, you express the same successfulness, but it is a choice of whether you shall force that energy or whether you shall allow the energy to be expressed in ease.

FRANK: Well, that’s a great example, a good metaphor. (Elias chuckles)

I’d like to ask you about another belief I hold that is a belief that in order for things to get better, they kind of have to hit bottom, get really bad, and then that sort of causes me to wake up and start the process that causes things to get better. Is that, in fact, a belief that I hold?

ELIAS: Yes. Many individuals express this belief, which is quite influencing. Even in those small actions throughout your day, which we have discussed this morning, you may begin to recognize that there are automatic responses that you express throughout your day that also are reinforcing of that belief and are directly influencing of what we have discussed in your previous question, for these types of beliefs influence certain types of automatic responses or actions in expressions that you do physically.

This is closely associated with [the belief that] if you generate difficulty or incorporate hard work, you shall offer yourself successfulness. It is quite associated with the belief that if you are expressing difficulty or hardship, this shall be motivating to you to create better.

FRANK: Lately I think I’m sort of getting onto this belief.

ELIAS: And paying attention.

FRANK: I’m starting to pay attention to this and trying to deal with it before things hit bottom, so to speak.

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: But again, the process is the same as with everything else and with the other things that you just discussed.

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: By saying these two beliefs are interrelated, by affecting one I’m affecting the other?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: For example, in this case, these beliefs and the perceptions that they lead to are pretty major in terms of my current motivations and what I want to do and where I want to go and all that sort of thing?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Well, something to spend some time on here.

ELIAS: (Laughs) As always!

FRANK: Well, I guess that’s about our time for today. It’s been a very productive conversation, I think, as always!

ELIAS: (Laughs) Be paying attention to your small reptiles! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: Oh, oh! One last question before I let you go here. Earlier in our conversation when the dog was barking while you were speaking, I assume you were aware of that. Were you aware that the dog was barking earlier while you were speaking?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Was the purpose of that to sort of illustrate this concept of focusing on two things at once?

ELIAS: Or more than one, yes.

FRANK: At the time I was wondering about that imagery, and my impression was the purpose was to illustrate what you were just talking about.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) Correct.

FRANK: Great! Thank you so much!

ELIAS: You are quite welcome as always, and I shall be anticipating our next meeting and the further account of the adventure! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: Thank you! I look forward to talking to you again soon.

ELIAS: Be playful, my friend!

FRANK: I’ll do my best!

ELIAS: Ha ha ha! Very well! As always, in tremendous affection, au revoir.

FRANK: Good-bye.

Elias departs at 12:34 PM.

©2005 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved

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Copyright 2002 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.