The Value of Valuing Self
Topics:
Session 201501161
“Perception”
“The Value of Valuing Self”
“What Am I Making Important?”
Friday, January 16, 2015 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Jason (Spensar)
ELIAS: Good morning!
JASON: Hi, Elias.
ELIAS: (Laughs) And what have you been engaging, my friend?
JASON: Lots of things; really looking forward to this call this morning. I wanted to start out with asking you a little bit about perception and the impact of different ways of altering that perception.
The first question I had was, one of the meditations or practices I have done in the past would involve paying attention to the space that your perceptions and sensations occur in, as well as attending to those perceptions and sensations. The idea is that by also including the space that the objects that you normally view within your perception, it sort of broadens your perception, makes it more inclusive. It has the impact of sort of relaxing you, making it a little bit easier. I wanted to, one, just confirm that with you and also see how you would describe that.
ELIAS: This is an interesting exercise, and I would be acknowledging of you that you explored it (laughs), or that you conceived of the idea in viewing perception from that type of angle. This is interesting. What I would ask you initially, other than the relaxing quality of it, what do you notice in your experience doing that that is different?
JASON: Very quickly it takes away the hyperfocus on thoughts and thinking. It creates a feeling of balance.
ELIAS: I would very much agree. In this, let me also inquire of you, what prompted you to experiment in this direction?
JASON: It's part of an exercise that I do that's called Open Focus, and it was created by someone who I know is into meditation but also into biofeedback. He found that by attending to space that it led to a general relaxation, and he was using, obviously, the biofeedback equipment and alpha waves and so on. He developed a bunch of different exercises for attending to the feeling of the space in the room that you're in, and it has obviously an impact of relaxing you but also generating a feeling of well-being.
ELIAS: Excellent. I would be very encouraging of this, for this is a method that you can incorporate not only, as you are aware, for relaxation or centering yourself – which, it is excellent for that purpose in centering yourself – but also I would express that this is a significant method in relation to generating a greater understanding of this tool, so to speak, that you incorporate, this mechanism of perception, and what it is and how to manipulate it.
And in that, after you began with your question of how to be altering of your perception, when you are paying attention from that type of angle, you begin to recognize that perception is, in a manner of speaking, a combination of HOW you are paying attention to any particular subject and what association you are generating with it in the moment. Therefore, it matters not what the subject is. It can be an object in a physical space, or it can be more conceptual. It can be an idea or a subject matter, so to speak, that you incorporate an opinion about, or it can be an action. In this, you can use that in relation to your perception with regard to either what you yourself are doing or your perception in relation to some outside source, such as what another individual is doing or a situation.
Now, in that, when you posed the question about using this method or this experimentation to change your perception, what was your idea in relation to that question?
JASON: To which question?
ELIAS: Changing your perception.
JASON: The idea would be that what I want to do is bridge the gap between how I pay attention in that language, let's say the language of perception or attention, and then the language of general expressions that we commonly use, like acceptance and appreciation, and then also maybe like less positive things like discounting. Like what does that mean, what am I doing with my perception and attention when I'm discounting? What am I doing when I'm accepting? What am I doing when I'm appreciating? I want to try to bridge that.
ELIAS: Very well. And can you think of or offer an example, even hypothetical, of both of these directions?
JASON: My next question was going to be that if you attend to your perceptions in an unbiased fashion, in an equal attention to all perceptions, not shying away from anything, not gravitating towards any one perception, is that in line with or aligned with acceptance?
ELIAS: Somewhat. Now, let me express to you, this can be somewhat of a tricky business, for there is a considerable volume of energy that is being expressed in your present time framework in metaphysical directions and philosophies that move in the direction of somewhat leading individuals into the idea of utopia, in a manner of speaking: that if you are manipulating your perception in a particular manner that it will lead you in the direction of awakening, so to speak, and that once you move in that direction of awakening, then you will generate a perception in which you recognize fully and completely your interconnectedness with everything that is, and that you will incorporate no judgments whatsoever – which is considerably incorrect.
You do exist within a physical reality, and that physical reality does incorporate a blueprint or a type of plan, if you will, that includes certain structures, and as long as you continue within physical focus, those structures will be in place.
Now; in that, it is not that you would entirely incorporate no judgment whatsoever in the expression of acceptance. Acceptance is not eliminating your expressions of judgments but rather relaxing them to a significant degree; meaning that, once again, duplicity is one of the belief systems, and therefore it remains a part of your life, so to speak, and your expressions within physical focus as long as you exist within physical focus.
Now, in that, it is a relaxing of judgments, for you maintain your own directions, your own opinions, your own guidelines; which, your own guidelines in themselves automatically generate judgments of good or bad. But in that, you can, in a manner of speaking, see beyond those judgments, and you can recognize that those judgments are in place for your own benefit and are not necessarily applicable to other situations or other individuals.
That is the direction in which acceptance is expressed, that you maintain your direction and your judgment as to what you deem to be good or bad in your guidelines that guide you in your behaviors, and you also maintain your preferences, which are also judgments – what you prefer and what you do not prefer – but you stop applying them to outside sources. You recognize that you can accept outside expressions even if you disagree with them, and therefore they are not bothersome to you. And you also recognize that when you incorporate a disagreement with some outside source, regardless of what it is, that you have choices in relation to your own guidelines that you can implement that allow you to move in directions, in a manner of speaking, flowing around those outside sources that you do not necessarily agree with. Therefore, you can genuinely accept them or accept their presence and not be bothered by their presence or their existence, so to speak.
Now; in this, in relation to recognizing perception, let us say in a discounting manner, what would you offer as an example of a discounting perception that you would want to change?
JASON: A discounting perception that I'd want to change…It's a little tough, because I usually am not well aware of when I'm discounting myself, or at least objectively.
ELIAS: But you may be aware subsequently. Therefore, allow yourself to recall a past experience that you subsequently were aware that you may have been discounting, and perhaps broaden that; not only discounting of yourself but perhaps discounting of another individual, ANY expression of discounting that you might want to change.
JASON: One thing that comes to mind is temper, blowing my temper, getting angry usually with my wife, then subsequently going through the regret of that and dealing with the aftermath of that.
ELIAS: That is an excellent example. Now, narrow the example somewhat more and express to myself what would be what you would term to be a typical situation in which your temper would flare.
JASON: It's pretty easy. I have a couple recent examples. It usually starts off with a conversation where I don't want to get involved in a conversation about a certain topic, but she does want to involve me, and I'll resist and resist and resist and then blow up.
ELIAS: Very well. Then subsequently you feel uncomfortable, and you...
JASON: I regret raising my voice around the kids, and I actually—this was a few months ago, but I actually broke my hand punching a wall.
ELIAS: That would be a definite situation that would be understandable that you would regret (both chuckle) or that you would want to change, for that is considerably uncomfortable. Very well. Now, in this, let us say, using your method, now in using your method, you were speaking about an object. Correct?
JASON: Yes.
ELIAS: And being aware of the space that the object exists within and therefore, in a manner of speaking, observing what your perception is of that object in that space and what is influencing that expression of perception. Correct?
JASON: Yes.
ELIAS: Very well. Now, in a very similar manner, you can use the same method and view the other individual as that object.
In themselves, another individual in relation to you is neutral, regardless of what they express or how they do it. The only manner in which they become not neutral anymore is in relation to how you are perceiving the other individual; therefore, very similar to the object.
Let us say that the object that you are focusing on is a lamp, and you are, in a manner of speaking, evaluating what your perception is of that lamp and how it is formed and what influences that you become more aware of what you are paying attention to in relation to the lamp. Now, when you are evaluating, or let us say noticing, what your attention is doing, you notice what your attention is most drawn to in relation to that lamp. Is it a color, is it the size, is it the shape, is it the brightness? And in all of those evaluations, in all of those components of what you are paying attention to, you generate assessments. You like or you dislike the shape. You like or you dislike the size, the brightness, the color, the dimness. All of the factors, all of the qualities of that lamp you are processing through your attention to it; and in that, you are generating evaluations and assessments of all of those qualities and whether you like them or dislike them or whether they are important to you or not important to you. And in that, all of that assessment of attention filters through to create a perception, and the perception then generates your actual opinion, in a manner of speaking, of that object. This all occurs very, very, very quickly; in a fraction of a second all of that information has been processed.
In this, when you are interacting with your partner and she moves in a direction of wanting to talk about or discuss some subject that you are not interested in participating with, first, you are paying attention to her and what she is doing and what she is expressing. In that, before she even begins to express the subject that you do not want to engage, you already are generating an assessment that you do not want to participate.
Now, let me express this to you in terms that may be more clear. Humans, in very similar manner to animals, generate postures in relation to what you do. Those postures are for the most part very subtle, but they are certain movements that you consistently do in relation to different subjects and different encounters. Therefore...
JASON: Is this a physical posture?
ELIAS: Yes, yes.
Now; just as much as an animal generates physical postures that are so subtle that you would likely not notice, humans do also; but you are not paying attention to that particular expression objectively, but you do recognize it energetically. The energy changes, the individual’s posture changes, and you already know what is about to occur. And in that, you are already prepared for the situation. But in that being prepared for the situation, you are prepared in the manner that you are accustomed to, which is moving in the direction of avoiding and continuing to attempt to avoid until you are agitated enough that you cannot avoid it any longer and you explode, in a manner of speaking.
Now; there are many actions that are occurring, but what are you paying attention to?
JASON: The feeling.
ELIAS: First of all, yes, you are paying attention to the feeling.
JASON: Like an irritation, maybe.
ELIAS: Yes. And what else are you doing?
JASON: Blocking them out?
ELIAS: No, not necessarily. You are paying attention...
JASON: Tensing?
ELIAS: Yes, by reacting to the feeling. And what else are you doing? You are assigning responsibility for that feeling to the other individual, for it is their fault that you are generating the feeling that you are. Are you paying attention to you in any of this?
JASON: Not usually, not if it's going... Otherwise it would never get to that irritation level.
ELIAS: Precisely. No, you are not paying attention to you. You are paying attention to a feeling, and you are reacting to it.
In this, that also moves in what is familiar: that feelings are uncontrollable, and that they merely occur, and that you do not direct feelings at all – which is very incorrect. And in that, in paying attention only to the feeling, you are not paying attention to you, for the feeling is only a signal; you are not paying attention to what that signal is referring to. Therefore, that signal, in a manner of speaking, is an alert. You are agitated, or you are irritated, or you are anxious—why? What is occurring within you? Why is this subject so important?
JASON: Why is this...? I'm confused.
ELIAS: Importance is not only expressed in what you want or what you like. Very frequently importance is expressed in what you dislike and what you do not want. Therefore, why is the presentment of the subject that is beginning to create that anxiety so important? That is what you are not paying attention to. You are paying attention to the feeling and reacting to it.
How you react to it is very similar to most individuals with uncomfortable feelings. When you are uncomfortable, the first reaction is to attempt to push it away and to ignore it. Therefore, you also attempt to ignore whatever you perceive as the source of that feeling or the cause of that feeling. In that, rather than paying attention to why you are feeling that particular feeling and what is important, you are reacting by wanting to change the feeling. And if you cannot change it – which you cannot, regardless – but if you think you cannot change it, you move in the automatic reaction of attempting to ignore it or avoid it. And if it is being caused by an outside source in your assessment, in your perception, then you attempt to ignore and push away the outside source also.
Now; in this, once again, the most important factor with perception is attention. Therefore, it is a matter of asking yourself what are you paying attention to and making important, and why is that so important to you. If it is a subject that you do not want to engage, why do you not want to engage it? What is so important about that subject and about not engaging it? It can be that you may have an association that this subject is futile and that you are not heard, and therefore in not being heard it merely moves in circles, and it is pointless.
JASON: (Laughs) Yes.
ELIAS: Now; in that, your assessment may be valid. But in that, why? What are you doing that you are not being heard? Or, what are you engaging in which that repeatedly is being presented to you?
In that, let me express to you, your assessment may be correct that the other individual is not hearing you and that they are moving in their direction with their perception, and it is unwavering and unchanging and that the conversation is pointless. But you are fighting with it by attempting to push it away and ignore it, and when you do that you are opposing, and when you are opposing you merely escalate the situation. For you are generating an energy that encourages the other individual to keep moving in the direction that they are, which is precisely what you do not want, but that is the energy you are projecting. Therefore, in that, the reason that you are projecting that energy is that that interaction, that subject, that scenario, has become important. You have made it important. Not necessarily in a positive manner—but remember, importance is not delegated only to positive. You have made it important...
JASON: By paying attention to it?
ELIAS: …in a negative manner by reacting to it and not understanding what is creating the reaction.
Now, let us say that the assessment is correct, that you are not being heard and the conversation is pointless, for the other individual will not change their perception. In all of that, first, you are discounting of yourself in that very action, for you are expressing an allowance to be—or yourself to be—unimportant, therefore not heard. You are, two, generating the other individual as being more important than yourself and therefore stronger. The second is discounting of yourself.
JASON: So the root cause is from not paying attention to myself?
ELIAS: Yes.
JASON: And putting myself first?
ELIAS: Yes. Three, whatever the subject is you disagree with or you generate a very different association or perception about the subject, you are not allowing yourself the comfort of merely acknowledging that. You are projecting to the other individual that they are expressing a threat. They disagree with you, or you disagree with them; it is the same, and therefore that creates a threat. That is the next discounting of yourself, that you cannot meet that threat. Therefore you react to it, and you attempt to push it away.
Next discounting of yourself is that you are not acknowledging your deservingness. What is important? In that scenario, what becomes important is how much you dislike the situation, how much you cannot counter what is being expressed. What also becomes important is how much you perceive the other individual is NOT expressing your importance. That is the baseline, is that you perceive the other individual is not viewing you as important. They are not valuing you or expressing your importance, and that is the threat.
JASON: How would I create the perception of the other person valuing me? Does that make sense?
ELIAS: Yes, it does; it very much does. For, let me express to you, without even thinking—there is no thought involved in this action. You can very easily and very strongly begin to move in a direction in which you generalize that the other individual does not value you or is not acknowledging your importance, and that begins to spill into many different directions, for it begins to be generated as your perception of the other individual.
Let us return to the lamp. Let us say you look at the lamp, you are paying attention to the lamp, and one of the factors that you are paying attention to with that lamp is that the lamp is blue. And let us say that outside of this perception exercise that you are doing, another individual visits you and walks into a room, views the identical same lamp and expresses, "What an unusual green lamp." You immediately will counter—even if you do not express it verbally, you will immediately counter, "The lamp is not green, it is blue." In this, you have your perception fixed. Therefore, you are fixed in it in a particular direction and [are] unwilling to allow any alteration of it.
This occurs with other individuals also in your perception of them in relation to experiences. Especially when you are not paying attention to yourself, and you are paying so much attention to the outside source or the other individual and what they do, and developing this perception that they are not valuing you and they are not recognizing your importance, that perception becomes fixed.
JASON: To correct that, or not to correct it, but to change it?
ELIAS: First of all, it is a matter of beginning to recognize what are the areas within you that feel disempowered or that you are not expressing an importance with. What are the expressions within you, first, that you are not necessarily paying attention to you but you are automatically looking outside of yourself?
Let me offer a very simple example in a very practical manner. Hypothetically, you have a partner and your partner consistently engages your vehicle at times, and each time your partner engages your vehicle, when they exit the vehicle they never lock the doors. But it is important to you that you always lock the doors.
Now; in that, you are viewing another individual and their action and their behavior, and you are generating a judgment about that. Your perception is fixed on the other individual, and you become angry, and you repeat this action over and over and over. Every time your partner engages the vehicle and does not lock the doors you become angry, and you express it over and over and over. You express to yourself and to the other individual, "How many times must I repeat myself and tell you to lock the door?" and they continue to generate the same behavior.
Why is that important to you? What is the other individual doing?
JASON: Not following your guidelines.
ELIAS: Precisely. Yes. And when the other individual is not following your guidelines, you automatically generate the perception that you are not important to them; for you must not be important or valuable, for if you were valuable and if you were important, they would follow your guidelines – which is entirely incorrect. But the point in that is the reason that you are generating that to be important is because of your attention. Your attention is not on you; it is fixed outside of you and therefore is seeking that validation and that reinforcement of your value and your importance through the outside source, which leads to disappointment.
In this, the very same scenario can occur, and you can maintain that it is important that you lock your car. And in that, you are also aware of what you are doing, and you are validating yourself in what is important to you. You are not seeking that validation outside of yourself. You are comfortable and content with you.
Now, in that, remember: perception creates your actual reality. Therefore, now you are not paying attention to how your partner is engaging the vehicle or what they do with it. It is not important to you any longer as to what the other individual is doing. You accept their differences, you recognize that they incorporate different guidelines, and in that, you maintain acknowledging your guidelines and what is important to you that you do in your behavior.
And because you are no longer focusing upon the other individual and that is not important to you any longer, now it is not important for you to mold the other individual into your clone. Now it is not important that the other individual be a mirror image of you, but they can be their own image. And in that, because you are allowing them to be them and you are not reacting and you are not generating an importance in that direction any longer, the other individual likely will begin locking the door automatically without even a thought. It will not be an action that they will be doing in thinking about this is important to you. No, they will automatically do it with no thought.
JASON: Can you give me a few more examples of creating perceptions of valuing myself versus not valuing myself? That was a very clear example. Maybe I can ask directly… even sitting here at my computer watching the news or something like that?
ELIAS: Watching the news: in that, how are you perceiving that? It is a matter of being aware of how are you directing your attention. Are you generating a feeling while you are watching the news? Are you becoming irritated in what is being expressed by the news and the subjects that are being presented, or are you becoming agitated and uneasy and questioning what could possibly be occurring next? Are you [inaudible] or anxious?
In that, you note what you are feeling, you acknowledge what you are feeling – for that is an action – but you do not dwell on the feeling or allow the feeling to dictate your behavior. You move beyond that and you ask yourself, Why am I feeling this? What does this mean to me? What am I making important? Am I projecting futurely and worrying about what the future holds? Am I being present and actually recognizing that I am generating my own choices and feel satisfied and comfortable in the moment regardless of what is being expressed on the news? Is some subject on the news bothersome to me? If so, why? What am I doing? Am I allowing that information to generate tension within me, therefore I am reacting to it? Or am I merely offering myself information and sifting through that information to assess what is important to me and what is not?
JASON: I wanted to ask a question on another, you can call it mediation or practice that I have been doing more recently, because this falls in line with what we're talking about. I don't know if you'd call it meditation or just even a reminder, but I like to make recordings on my phone – it's fairly easy – and then listen to it. I've made recordings of things that you have said that I believe are helpful to remember or beneficial. I want to list a few of the things that I've been listening to and then I'll repeat it and try to remember it more often.
One of those is acknowledging that you're within physical focus, that you hold belief systems, they're not bad, they're not unacceptable; they are your reality. Another is keeping your attention on yourself and the energy you are generating, as your life in every encounter is a reflection of that energy. Accepting your feelings, actions, beliefs and all that you've created; they are not wrong; they are your reality. Then also imagining not trying, struggling or pushing, allow yourself to be comfortable and at ease. I'll list one of these sentences each 30 seconds or so on the recording, and then meditate to that, sort of a guided meditation.
ELIAS: Yes.
JASON: Can you imagine being present and satisfied, nowhere to go, nothing to do? Enjoying this present moment, no expectations? Then the last one is, can you imagine feeling appreciation for what you are doing and accomplishing now? It feels good to continue to repeat that and try to bring that into my perception.
ELIAS: Yes. Let me also express to you realistically, when I express to you pay attention to yourself, that is not to say in a black-and-white manner that you are paying attention to yourself to the exclusion of everything else around you; no, but that you very much are paying attention to what is around you and your engagements and encounters with other individuals and situations. But you are consistently also moving your attention to yourself in a manner of checking with yourself, in a manner of speaking: What do I feel about this? What am I doing in relation to this? What is my idea in relation to this action and this moment and this encounter? That you are continuously moving your attention also to yourself while you are engaging any outside source and assessing what is your response to it.
In this, once again I will express, it incorporates literally 500 times more time for me to explain it to you than for you to actually do it, for you process very quickly. And in that, it is merely reminding yourself to be present, be aware of your existence. It is not unusual at all and occurs so frequently in which an individual may be engaging a conversation, a simple conversation, with another individual, and in that moment that you are listening to another individual or engaging with them, you have no objective awareness of yourself at all.
JASON: And that's making yourself less important, or perceiving yourself as being less important?
ELIAS: Precisely. Also, that leads in directions in which you may generate behaviors or expressions that you are not necessarily satisfied or comfortable with. For you are doing what? You are reacting. In this, all of it is automatic pilot. You are paying so much attention to the outside source that you have no awareness whatsoever of what you yourself are doing.
JASON: Our time is up. I just wanted to ask one real quick question, if I could. If I was to notice how many times throughout the day how comfortable I am, often, which is not something I notice—you know, notice that my body is comfortable—how would that change…?
ELIAS: That will change your reality considerably, for I will leave you with this parting thought: it is your natural movement as an expression of consciousness to always be generating more. You do it automatically in every moment of your existence. You are always, always generating more.
In that, it is a matter of what you want to generate more of, and that is very much determined by what you are paying attention to. For the more you are paying attention to being comfortable, being satisfied, being content, the more your perception creates that, and therefore you create MORE contentment and satisfaction and comfort. The more you pay attention to being uncomfortable or irritated or anxious, your perception creates THAT, and you generate more and more of that. Your perception creates the outward physical imagery and reality, but it matches what you are paying attention to. But you are always creating more.
JASON: Great. Thank you very much, Elias. It was great talking to you.
ELIAS: You are very welcome, my friend. I shall greatly anticipate our next meeting. I express to you my energy continuously in encouragement and supportiveness. To you in tremendous lovingness, au revoir.
JASON: Bye.
(Elias departs after 1 hour 4 minutes.)
Copyright 2015 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.