Why You Pay Attention to the Negative
Topics:
”Why You Pay Attention to the Negative”
”How to Express and Release Feelings”
”Feelings are Signals from the Body Consciousness”
Note: The transcript and audio of Mary’s pre-session talk can be found .
Saturday, October 24, 2015 (Group/Hinsdale, New Hampshire)
Participants: Mary (Michael), Adam (Avril), Ann (Vivette), Ben (Albert), Bill (Zit), Bonnie (Lyla), Brigitt (Camile), Briter, Carole (Aileen), Daniel (Zynn), Inna (Beatrix), Jean-François (Samta), Jeff (Galina), John (Rrussell), John H. (Lonn), Judy (Mallya), Ken (Oba), Lorraine (Kayia), Lynda (Ruther), Natasha (Nicole), Rick R., Rodney (Zacharie), Sandra (Atafah), Susan (Catherine), Togi (Gianni), Tom (Abel), Val (Atticus), and Veronica (Amadis)
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
GROUP: Hi Elias!
ELIAS: This day we will be discussing some of your favorite subjects (chuckles): being present, feelings and expressing feelings, and also why you pay attention to the negative. (Reactions from group, and Elias laughs)
Why is the negative more important? Why does that always seem to overshadow the positive? Why do you remember the negative experiences more than the positive experiences? When you relate a story, why is it that you gravitate toward stories that are negative rather than positive or exciting? Why do you interact with each other and engage conversations that are more geared to what is wrong than what is right, or what is uncomfortable rather than what is comfortable, or what is not happening rather than what you are accomplishing?
Contrary to what your scientists will express to you, for it is a matter of what you observe and measure that will be an indicator to scientists as to their data, and if they are measuring and observing more reference to negative associations or behaviors or experiences, then they deduce that you are, in their terms, hard-wired to remember negative experiences and to be more drawn to negative expressions than to positive expressions. But this is incorrect.
You are not actually more predisposed to be focusing on negative or remembering negative more than positive, but this also ties very nicely into our subject of feelings and expressing feelings.
Generally, when you generate a positive experience, or some experience that is comfortable or that you like or that excites you, you do express it, or you in the very least express it partially. You express some of it; perhaps not all of it, for as we have been discussing recently, you are not accustomed to expressing feelings in any capacity. But you are more likely to express a positive feeling in the moment, and you are definitely more likely to release that energy of a positive experience immediately.
When you have a positive experience - when you are happy, when you are excited, when you are accomplishing, generally you will release that energy very quickly, if not immediately in the moment. Therefore, you do not hold that energy, and you do not dwell on positive experiences.
You have a positive experience. You acknowledge it. That is an action that you definitely do. You do acknowledge positive experiences when they happen, when you generate them. And in doing so, you do not dwell on that positive experience. You also do not attempt to analyze it. You are not trying to figure it out: Why did I have that positive experience? (Group laughter) No, you accept it, you welcome it and you release it. And it matters not how excited you may be in a positive experience. Generally speaking, in less than an hour after you generate a positive experience you are not feeling it any longer, you are not thinking about it any longer, you are not addressing to it, you are not holding it. It is gone.
But another significant factor is what you have learned, what you have been taught and what has been reinforced to you, much of which has been initiated by the dawn of psychology, which encourages you to think about, to analyze, to figure out, to replay all of your negative experiences. In this, negative experiences have been made to be important and that they are significant. They have meaning. Positive experiences have meaning also, but you are not taught to be evaluating the meaning of positive experiences or what causes them. You are taught to think about and analyze and dwell upon negative experiences.
And this becomes such an ingrained factor with all of you, you encourage it with your young: “Talk to me about what is bothering you. Tell me what you are feeling that is upsetting you.” And you think that you are communicating with your children and that you are encouraging them to express themselves. But you are not including “Talk to me about what you accomplished,” “Share with me what makes you happy,” “Tell me what you feel when you are excited,” “What are you interested in?” What you encourage is you notice a look that a child expresses and you immediately seize upon that and express, “Did someone upset you? Are you uncomfortable?”
In this, you are repeating cycles of generating negative expressions as being more important than positive expressions. What is the cliché? It is impossible to turn away from a train wreck. What do you watch on your televisions? News. And what does your news express to you? Accomplishments? Happiness? Joy? Freedom? Excitement? Creativity? No. Generally, it reports to you about death and destruction and debates and arguments and crime and even weather (group laughter), that is bad. If the weather is sunny and beautiful and would be encouraging you to be happy and enjoying the day, your weatherman will likely express, “The weather will be fine,” or “It will be sunny and bright,” and you will incorporate a very small portion of your news report that occupies the weather, unless they include “but it will be hot and muggy and uncomfortable.” (Group laughter)
In this, you pay attention to negative, for it is automatic. You are so accustomed to noticing. It is not necessarily that negative is more attractive than positive, and it is also not necessarily that there are more negative experiences or expressions than positive. It is that the negative you have made into being important, and the positive is only important in the moment. Which is how it should be for both, that it is only important in the moment.
That when you generate a negative experience, what do you do? You experience it, then you analyze it, then you share it, then you talk about it, and you talk about it again and you talk about it again, and whoever will listen to you, you will repeat it again and again and again and again. And how many times do you repeat, “I accomplished this and it was so exciting”? You may express that once. You may even express it twice. After that, you likely will be bored with it and not expressing it, for it is not dramatic. And you can create negative experiences to be very dramatic.
And why else are they attractive? For if you are expressing negative, you are hoping to elicit sympathy, compassion, empathy, attention – you want to be seen. When you experience positive, it is a very personal experience. What is good to you may be unimportant to another individual. What is exciting to you may be mundane to another individual, or they may not be interested in that exciting, comfortable, satisfying experience. Therefore, you learn very young that to be witnessed you must express in a manner that gains other individuals’ attention.
You all want to be witnessed. In this, you all want to know that you are important, and to have that validated, that you are important. And if other individuals are not interested in what excites you or what is satisfying to you or what you have accomplished, then they will listen and pay attention to you if you are uncomfortable, if you are sad, if you are anxious, if you are angry. Why is that? It is easy to echo. It is not easy to echo positive experiences, for you are all so very different and your interests are different, and what excites you and what is good and what is satisfying to you or what is an accomplishment to you is different with each of you. And therefore, it is more difficult to echo another individual in their accomplishment, in their excitement.
If you express, “I am so proud of myself. I painted an entire wall!” (Group laughter) “I accomplished that in two hours, and I feel so good,” many other individuals will respond to you of “That is nice.” (Group laughter)
ANN: “Good for you!”
ELIAS: “I’m happy that you are pleased with yourself.” They may not be interested in painting an entire wall. That may not seem to be an accomplishment to them, for they would not do it. Therefore, they do not know how to echo you. They can pretend to echo you, which you and they both know would be very false. The other individual could pretend to echo you and jump up and down and express, “That is so exciting!” (Group laughter) “I’m so happy that you painted the wall!” And you would know that it was false, and they would know that it was pretend. It is not an actual echo.
You pay attention to echoes and you are drawn to them, for they validate you. They validate you that the other individual is connecting with you and relating to you, and therefore you are important. They see you. They hear you. They understand you. And that is important. And when you express an accomplishment, it is difficult to echo that. When you express, “I was engaged in a conversation with Sally yesterday, and she irritated me SO MUCH, because she always talks about herself and she never hears any other individual,” and the individual that you are speaking to will likely express, “I KNOW!” (Group laughter) “I have the same experience!” And you are validated, for you have been echoed.
And in that, this occurs very frequently. You either pay attention to conversations that you engage with other individuals when you incorporate common interests, therefore you are generating a very specific method and action when you generate a conversation with another individual. A subject is expressed, one individual presents the subject, the other individual listens, and while they are listening, what are they doing? You think you are listening. You are partially listening. And what are you doing? You do not even know. You are accessing. You are immediately accessing. You are not thinking. You are accessing information: What memory do I hold that is similar? What is my experience that is similar that I can understand and relate to this other individual? It does not require any thinking. You do not think. You access.
And in that accessing of information, as I expressed, you are partially listening. You are accessing information to echo. For that is what you do. You want to be echoed and you want to echo the other individuals, for this is your method of connecting and relating and validating each other.
You engage your thinking if you are debating. Debating is a very different expression from a conversation. If you are debating, you have set yourself in a position of opposition and you have engaged a competition in which it is clearly established that one or the other will win. One will be right and one will be wrong. And the debate is the competition to establish who will be right, who will be accepted as right. That is very different than a conversation. And you do think in a debate, for you are calculating how you can out-right the other individual, how you can be more right than the other individual and be convincing in your rightness.
But in a conversation, you want to be connecting. You want to be witnessed, and you want to be witnessing. Therefore, your method to do that is to echo each other. And the easiest and most effective manner in which you can echo is in negative experiences. For you can share those. Even if the experiences are different, the feelings are the same. Therefore, the experience in itself does not actually matter. For one individual can express, “I experienced this and it was awful,” and the other individual will offer an entirely different scenario and express, “I know what you mean, because I experienced this,” and it is an entirely different experience, but the feeling is the same. And that is what they are echoing. And that is what you are connecting with.
And in that, you generate that expression of importance. You witness each other. You acknowledge the importance of the other individual, you connect with them and you connect with their feeling.
Positive feelings, because you do not dwell on them, because you do not hold to them, because you do release them and they seem so fleeting because you are not holding to them, it is much more difficult for you to access that information within you and to express that in the same manner: “I am excited that I painted this wall!” And the other individual responds, “I know what you mean! I drove to another state yesterday and I was so excited!” (Group laughter) That would be an example of sharing that feeling of accomplishment and excitement and generating that action of relating to each other.
But with positive experiences, because they are not encouraged you do not automatically know how to express that relating to another individual. You do not dismiss the subject and address to the feeling and express your connection with the other individual through the feeling. You focus on the subject, and you cannot echo with the subject.
You are not echoing with the subject in negative expressions; you are echoing the feeling. But you do that much more easily, for it is so automatic. But it is not because you are predisposed to pay more attention to that; it is because you are taught to pay more attention to that. You are encouraged to pay more attention to that, and you are encouraged to question yourselves continuously.
And therefore, even when you are offered information that encourages you to be empowered and to be expressing in positive manners and accomplishing, you turn it to question yourself: “What am I doing wrong?” “Why am I not as accomplished as I should be?” “I incorporate much information, and I am not accomplishing,” or “I am stuck.” “What is wrong with me?” “What am I not doing?” rather than “What am I doing?”
Part of this also is very much connected to that factor of not knowing how to express yourselves. You have learned so well that you have forgotten how to express yourselves, how to express what you feel. Or you have been taught that it is inappropriate. You can express yourself at times, but not always. There is a time and a place in which you can express yourself and express your feelings, and other than that it is inappropriate and do not do it, or do it alone.
But if you are alone, how do you do it? What would you do if you are alone? You can, but I would wager to say that most of you do not, for most of you do not know what to do if you are alone. Then once you are alone, the moment has passed and you have explained it away or you have overridden it and you have expressed that it is unimportant.
And what does that do? It holds that energy. You did not express it, you did not release it, therefore it continues to be held. And that is another reason that you pay more attention to the negative than the positive, is that you continue to hold the negative energy, whereas you release the positive energy almost immediately. Therefore, the negative is always a reminder, for that energy will be expressed.
Now; how to express feelings. Let me say to you, first of all, feelings are signals, as you know. And as signals, you can express those signals in many, many, many different manners, and they are equally as effective and efficient. One feeling does not have to be expressed in the identification of what it is, such as being sad. Being sad or generating the feeling of sad does not have to be expressed by crying. That energy can be expressed in other manners. An interesting and very effective trick that you can use in relation to expressing feelings is to express the opposite of whatever the feeling is.
Now; this method is excellent, and the reason it is excellent is that it accomplishes more than merely expressing a feeling. It accomplishes being more aware. For in order for you to define what the opposite is of what you are feeling, you must clearly identify what that feeling is and what it means. For if you do not know what the feeling is and what it means to you, you cannot define what would be the opposite of it.
If you are feeling annoyed, let us say you are in a shop and a small child is screaming, screaming, screaming, and you are becoming annoyed with this child screaming, screaming, screaming, and you are becoming annoyed with the child’s parent, that the child’s parent is not stopping the child from screaming, screaming, screaming.
Now; this is an example of more than merely the solution. For first of all, what are you taught? How would you express that feeling in that moment? You wouldn’t. Most of you are very unlikely to approach the child or the parent and express yourself and your annoyance. And you are also unlikely to be expressing a tantrum to express that energy in the shop, for that is what? Inappropriate.
Therefore, what will you do? Likely you will do not much. You may mention it to another individual in the shop: “That child is very annoying.” Is that expressing the feeling? No. It is merely identifying the annoyance. Will you generally express it in any manner? Likely not, and especially not in the moment. You may express it later, in yet again another inappropriate manner, by becoming irritated with another individual in a disproportionate manner because you are already annoyed and carrying that energy and not expressing it. Therefore you compound it.
But if you were to pause in the moment and identify, “I am annoyed with this situation. What does that mean to me? Why am I annoyed? What is that annoyance actually expressing in a message to me? Why is it affecting me?” It may be the sound is irritating to me, or it may be the other individual is not expressing control of the situation. They should be controlling their child, and therefore they should be expressing some discipline with that child.
Now; what would the opposite of that be? “I am annoyed at the situation. And the reason I am annoyed is that the other individual is not controlling the situation. And what does that mean to me? How does that affect me individually? It is inconsiderate. I express it is inconsiderate to me when other individuals are not controlling the situation that they are responsible for.” And what would be the opposite of being inconsiderate?
ANN: Being considerate.
ELIAS: And how would you be considerate?
ANN: I may go over to the parent and say, “Can I help you with something?” or…
ELIAS: No.
ANN: No. (Laughs)
ELIAS: How can you be considerate to you?
ANN: Oh. To me? I would remove myself from the situation if the noise was bothering me.
ELIAS: No. (Group laughter) That is not expressive. What can you do that would be expressing consideration? How could you express consideration?
RICK: Appreciating the child and…
ELIAS: But you do not appreciate the child! You are angry at the child.
JOHN: Here is my own child, right, and he could be really annoying when he was little, but I would sing on top of him. Ha-la-ha-da-da-ah-ah! And then drown out his voice and I could hear my own, and I can carry on with whatever I’m doing.
ELIAS: Excellent. That is an excellent example.
RODNEY: I do that with my cat! I would go “Meow, meow, meow, meow!” She hears me. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: You are offering an example of expressing the opposite of being bothered. You are not bothered by your own singing, and therefore you are actually expressing the opposite of what is annoying you.
In that, when you can identify what is the feeling and what does that feeling mean to me, then you can pause and you can evaluate what would the opposite of this be?
I have incorporated a recent example with an individual and expressing [that] if you were witnessing an individual expressing in a harsh manner to an animal or to a child, and it is bothersome to you and it is distressing to you, but in that moment you either cannot identify how to express that, or in that moment that influence of inappropriate is so strong that you automatically will not express your bothered expression in that situation. But you can express it because feelings can be expressed in other manners, for it is the energy that is requiring being expressed and released.
Therefore, the manner in which you do it is not as important. In that, you may express to yourself, “What is the opposite of what I am witnessing and what I am feeling in this moment? What can I do – not think of – what can I do that would be the opposite of what I am feeling and what I am witnessing?”
It may be that you move to your home and you hug your cat. Or you may phone a child, a grandchild, your own child, and express, “I love you.” That expression is enough to stop the holding of that negative energy, expressing the feeling and then releasing it. If you call on your telephone – and you all incorporate your mobile phones – in that moment, if you call your child and you express, “I love you,” you may be very surprised at how fast that annoyed feeling disappears. And you will not be hearing that screaming child any longer, for your attention has broke[n] and it has moved in the direction of that positive and released that negative.
Yes?
BILL: It seems to me almost better, especially with a heated, negative kind of feeling, to express the opposite rather than coming out and expressing to the person, because it doesn’t seem to go away. It escalates.
ELIAS: And the reason for that is that you are not necessarily expressing it. I incorporated an example of that yesterday with one of our group, in which the suggestion was expressed, “I could curse.” And I expressed you could, if you are aware that your intention in cursing is to release that energy, but it likely won’t be. You will merely be reacting. And you will be expressing that curse merely to be reacting.
That is not expressing your feeling. That is reacting to an outside source. And that is what you generally do.
NATASHA: But isn’t reacting in this case, the cursing, would be also expressing the energy?
ELIAS: It could be if you are aware of it, which is what I expressed.
NATASHA: But even if you are unaware, your body could compel you to scream, to curse, whatever, to do so much. You may not be aware with what your body might prompt you, no?
ELIAS: No. That would be a reaction. That would be reacting.
NATASHA: But regardless…
ELIAS: That is NOT releasing the energy. No. That is reacting. There is a difference between responding and reacting. Responding involves aware choice. If you are screaming because you know that this is the manner in which you are expressing a feeling – and that is not unusual. You do know at times if you are screaming that you are doing it because you are expressing an overwhelming feeling. But there are also many times in which an individual may be screaming as a reaction and they do not know that they are releasing energy. They are NOT releasing energy. There is no intention to release that energy. They are not deflating themselves. They are screaming to continue that energy.
ANN: So would a good indication of being, if you were releasing energy by responding, be how you felt? Like if you were really irritated, and you scream, and all of a sudden, “Huh! I feel better!”
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: Then you’re responding. You’ll know how you feel.
ELIAS: You will be deflating that agitation. It will deplete it. It will release it. You will feel it. Many times an individual is reacting and screaming, and in the reaction they do not want to release it. There is no intention of releasing it. They want to be continuing it. And they are screaming to encourage the perpetuation of the feeling. If they scream, perhaps the other individual – or likely the other individual – will scream back. And it will continue.
NATASHA: But wouldn’t they be deflated after they continue mutual screaming?
ELIAS: It is dependent upon the situation. You may be surprised how long you can continue that. Even when you stop screaming, you can continue to hold the feeling. And some individuals can hold the feeling for years.
LYNDA: That’s true. That’s true.
NATASHA: So how big it would be, if you are holding the feeling after years…
LYNDA: Can I ask a question?
ELIAS: Yes.
LYNDA: So psychology teaches us, for a long time, that letting it all out for the sake of letting it all out is a good thing. Maybe not?
ELIAS: No. I would disagree. For that is merely giving you permission to generate expressions or actions that perpetuate those negative feelings. You are not releasing them. You are not actually expressing them. You are merely generating an expression OF them, which is different. And in that, you are not letting it go. That is a very different action. And you know when you have let it go. You know when you have released it, for you stop feeling it. And you will feel, in a manner of speaking, deflated. You inflate yourself with the feeling.
It is the same with positive feelings. You inflate yourself with a positive feeling. You are exhilarated, you are excited, you are happy, you are euphoric. You inflate yourself with that feeling, and when you release it, it dissipates, and you deflate. Yes?
TOM: How about apologizing? Would that be a way of releasing the energy?
ELIAS: It is dependent upon the expression and the situation. It can be, yes. If it is genuine – and this is a tricky situation, for it can be genuine – but if it is genuine and there are no attachments to it. Meaning, if you are apologizing in a capacity that you are genuinely sorry for an action that you have engaged, and in that being sorry for it you also are including the intention to not repeat that expression, and that you are not in some capacity using the “I’m sorry” to hide or to withdraw. Therefore, if there is not an attachment to it, yes it can be an avenue or a method to release energy. But if there is any attachment to it then no, it would not be.
ANN: So Elias, one time my son and I were, or I was screaming at my son. We were getting in this heated debate. And I was trying - It was one of those I wanted to be right and he wanted to be right. And he’s looking at me (laughs) and he goes, “Mom! The veins in your neck are sticking out.” And then I just started laughing and he started laughing, and I could feel the whole situation was deflated. But that was nothing done intentionally. It was -
ELIAS: The laughing was the release.
ANN: So… But was the laughing, would you consider that a reaction or a response? Because it just felt like it was funny.
ELIAS: I would express that that was a response.
ANN: Interesting.
ELIAS: And in that, allowed you to release that energy. For you expressed it the opposite manner, and you released it through that expression.
Let me also express to you all, before we engage our break, all of this requires much less thinking than you think it does. (Group laughter) Therefore, it is not as difficult as you think it is, for it is not, as in this example, a situation that you must be analyzing what you are doing.
I am merely giving you a method that will allow you intentionally to express certain feelings, any feelings, in an effective manner that may be easier and more acceptable to you, or more appropriate in situations than attempting to define and evaluate what would be an appropriate expression of a feeling in negative situations. For you are much less likely to be expressing those feelings in negative situations than you are in positive situations.
Yes?
DANIEL: This reminds me of a story, a Sufi story I think, where a king asks for some individuals for a recipe like that, and he was given a ring inside which was a message. And the message was, “This too shall pass.” And he was supposed to read it only in extreme distress or extreme happiness, and that calmed him down. So how would you comment on that?
ELIAS: I would express that that is accurate, but not necessarily a satisfactory method for everyone. And the reason that it is not a satisfactory method for everyone is that you have been so ingrained to fight.
VERONICA: To fight?
ELIAS: To fight.
LORRAINE: To be right.
BRIGITT: To fight to be right.
ELIAS: With yourselves, with outside sources, with everything. And because of that, the idea of waiting for this to pass can be very unsatisfactory to many individuals, for you want to fight for it to be done now.
RICK: At the beginning of the conversation before they… (Elias laughs as the microphone is passed across various individuals and some confusion ensues.)
JOHN: It will come out in the recording better.
LYNDA: Take it away, Rick.
RICK: Energy itself is neutral, before the conversation or before they get together to talk. Am I correct?
ELIAS: Not necessarily. That is -
RICK: As far as the sound aspect.
ELIAS: That is dependent upon the individuals and the situation. No, it may not be neutral.
RICK: So… Okay. So if she’s talking about Sally in a negative aspect, this person does this and then the other person says, “Oh, I know!” they’re both agreeing on an energy debt. Is it negative energy? It cannot be a positive energy, even though it might be serving them both well.
ELIAS: How does that serve you well?
RICK: If you go to a church that teaches a religion that everybody else disagrees with but you agree with, doesn’t that serve you well?
ELIAS: In some capacities, yes.
RICK: Wouldn’t a conversation that was negative serve you well if you are both in that kind of a process, of a thinking process to…
ELIAS: Not necessarily. How is it to your greatest benefit?
RICK: If you are unaware of who you are and that’s all you know, you know nothing else, doesn’t it benefit you?
ELIAS: Not necessarily, even if you are unaware, and that is the point. Is that what you want to perpetuate, being unaware? Is that what you want to perpetuate, is reinforcing what does not serve you and what is not to your benefit?
In relation to religion, this is not an accurate comparison, for that includes faith and believing. And in that, in the situation of generating a negative expression of expressing an opinion in a negative capacity for the reason of being echoed, it is not serving either individual. It is not to your greatest benefit, and it is not necessarily a matter of that this is what either of these individuals genuinely believes or what they express a faith in. It is an opinion that they are expressing that they are developing in a negative capacity, for it generates an avenue in which they can be echoed. But that is not necessarily a benefit, although they are being validated, they are being echoed, they are being encouraged to discount.
Whenever you discount another individual, you are also simultaneously discounting yourself. Whenever you elevate yourself in relation to another individual, you are also discounting yourself in that elevation. For that is an expression of if you must elevate yourself to express that you are important or acceptable or good enough, that is a reflection that there is an aspect of you that does not believe that, that is discounting of yourself, and that is the reason that you elevate yourself.
When you actually accept yourself and you are expressing that appreciation of yourself, it is not necessary for you to elevate yourself. You do not view yourself or perceive yourself as elevated, for you also do not view anyone else as less than. When you generate an opinion of less than, which is what was occurring in that example, there is a clear expression of an individual developing an opinion that elevates them and discounts another individual, which in its core is a discounting of all.
RICK: And not as from a flawed belief system? Or you’re just violating your belief system without knowing it.
ELIAS: It is not a matter of violating your belief system or the belief system itself being flawed. It is a matter of your attachments and your constructs and what you have been taught, and therefore not belief systems but what you believe, which is different. That is the same, another word for what you trust. Believing is the same as trust. And in that, you are expressing what you trust. You trust that you are not good enough, for that is what you have been taught and you have learned to accept it.
RICK: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. One more.
SANDRA: Elias, when we have some kind of interaction that may be - we’re sitting and we’re attempting to be present, and then we attain a state of presence, then there’s some action that is startling and would be upsetting, kids screaming. Now there’s a presence. How does that presence shift that kind of activity releasing?
ELIAS: It creates it to be less important.
SANDRA: Okay. So then -
ELIAS: It does not necessarily create euphoria.
SANDRA: No.
ELIAS: Or utopia. It does not mean that you cease to experience uncomfortable emotional expressions. You are emotional beings, and you express the spectrum of emotional expressions, not only some. Not only the good emotions. You express and experience all of them, and they are all purposeful. For they all communicate to you in relation to your own guidelines. We are not eliminating belief systems, including duplicity, which is good/bad, right/wrong. But it changes the importance of it.
And in that, this is what I have expressed in relation to neutralizing. Not neutralizing-eliminating. Neutralizing means you experience more neutrality. There is less importance in relation to those outside expressions. Is it directly affecting of you or not is the first aspect. And even if it IS directly affecting of you, when you are present it shifts that importance. All of those constructs, all of those attachments - many, many, many of them become very much less important.
And therefore, you are not reactive, as I expressed previously. This is your most obvious indicator of whether you are being present or not being present. And many of you – most of you – are being present much more than you think you are.
In that, your greatest indicator that you are not being present is if you are reacting. If you are being present, you will not be reactive.
SANDRA: You’ll be choosing to respond and walk away…
ELIAS: You KNOW that you have choice.
SANDRA: Yes. Right. So that’s that awareness, that moment. And then the likelihood of reducing trauma is greater?
ELIAS: Much so.
SANDRA: And the awareness that we’re creating our reality more and more deliberately and consciously, by choice?
ELIAS: Much so. Yes.
SANDRA: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. We shall break, and we shall continue shortly.
GROUP: Yea! Thank you! (Group applauds)
(Elias departs after Part I, 1 hour 10 minutes)
ELIAS: Continuing. Now; offer your experiences of situations in which you did not express a feeling, or that you perceive you could not express a feeling, or in which you would not know how to express a feeling. What are your experiences? Yes?
JEFF: I had one coming here: the airport. Being herded in line after line like cattle. Waiting, waiting, waiting, everybody in the same position. Everybody obviously getting more upset by the minute, worried that they’re not going to get their flight. And how do you respond? You have security all around, so if you respond, you’re worried about being taken out of line and definitely missing your flight. But it just builds up and builds up.
By the time I make my gate, a man who’s another traveler walks in front of me and is standing directly in my face. I’m already hyped up. I’m already worked up. So I tell this guy, “I don’t appreciate you standing right in my face.” And he turns around and says, “Excuse me?” And I repeated myself. And he looked at me and he knew I was angry. And so he apologized. And I’m thinking, what is going on with me? I didn’t know how to express it. It built up and I ended up blowing up at somebody else who really - It wasn’t that big of a deal.
ELIAS: Now; when he apologized, did you feel deflated? Did you feel satisfied? Did you feel nothing?
JEFF: I sort of felt - after he apologized, I guess I felt a little deflated. I felt embarrassed.
ELIAS: Excellent example. And in that, an excellent example of expressing a reaction and not necessarily expressing a feeling.
Now; before we explore how could you have expressed that differently, this is another point that is significant that becomes confusing to many, many individuals, is that one aspect also from the dawn of psychology, you have been encouraged to exert yourself and to be assertive. And therefore, in being assertive, they incorporate the terms of expressing yourself, but in that what you are encouraged to do is merely express what you are thinking, not necessarily what you are feeling.
In that, what you attempt to do is you attempt to be assertive, and you attempt to word what you are thinking in a manner that appears to be assertive but is not necessarily what you think of as being aggressive. Which you are less likely to be successful at, for when you think of being assertive, or expressing yourself in that manner, just as you expressed, you have already been churning within yourself. Therefore, you have already been building that energy. And in that, because you do not know how to express it, you do express some aggression in how you are reacting to the situation.
And remember: this is an important point, for aggression is the ONLY expression that disconnects you. It is a very unnatural expression. And humans are the ONLY species in your world that express aggression.
And if you are thinking about the animal kingdom and their expressions in the wild in relation to other animals, predators and prey, that is not aggression. They know they are connected with their prey. They know that their prey is a part of them and that they are a part of their prey and that they are interconnected and that they are a means to each other’s – not only one, but to each other’s – survival. Which is very different.
Aggression is a human expression, and it is expressed as the only action that you can engage that actually creates an energetic disconnect. It disconnects you momentarily from everything around you. And it generally influences, for everything you do ripples, and it generally influences the individuals around you to disconnect. Therefore, momentarily all of the individuals in that proximity disconnect with each other. Which is the reason that in group situations or crowds, one individual can express an aggressive action and it can explode into a riot, for all of the individuals momentarily experience that disconnect. And they are not connecting with each other at all.
This also creates what you may term to be a backlash, which is very understandable that you felt embarrassed subsequently. For what occurs subsequent to that type of disconnect is very abrupt, and it is a definite moment that individuals can feel. You are not accustomed to identifying that feeling, therefore you may not be aware of what is occurring. But subsequent to that, because it is such an unnatural expression in consciousness, you immediately seek to generate stronger connection.
This is the reason in a riotous situation or in a combat situation, individuals form very strong bonds with each other. For what they are doing is attempting to override that disconnect.
Now; in this type of situation – and this is an excellent example, for many individuals experience that type of scenario and those feelings – and you are becoming anxious and uncomfortable and frustrated because you are, in a manner of speaking, being made to feel entirely unimportant, that you are insignificant. You are unimportant. Who you are does not matter.
In this, when you are, especially in group situations, experiencing treatment that suggests to you that you are unimportant, it amplifies those feelings of agitation, anxiety, frustration, unrest, irritation.
In this, that not being acknowledged, if you are first of all not aware of yourself and you are not present and you are not focusing upon yourself - any of those aspects - you are focused on outside sources and what is occurring, the first aspect of that is that you begin to feel, in addition to unimportant, invisible. And that agitates you even more.
Now; in not knowing how to express that, the agitation builds. The irritation builds. It can even move from anxiety or agitation into irritation and anger.
In this, this is also an excellent example for it emphasizes appropriate and unappropriate behavior, what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. In this context, most of you are careful about your behavior in an airport, for you aware that there are authorities that are observing you, and if you behave in manners that call attention to yourself you risk being confronted by those authorities or being interpreted as being aggressive or being threatening.
Therefore, in being careful about your behavior you are also careful about how you express yourself. And that can move you into very much that familiar position of not knowing how to express yourself. And you wait, and you contain it, and you do not express it until some action occurs that bumps into your energy. And then when you are actually physically involved, for the other individual does not require touching you physically, but if they are in close physical proximity to you they ARE touching you, for they are bumping into your energy. Your energy field generally extends two to three feet from your body. When another individual moves closer to you physically than three feet, their energy is bumping into your energy. If you are already agitated, that is the same as another individual pushing you. And that will trigger the irritation to react.
And in that, the reaction is what? Reaction in itself is what? and then you add to it what? Control. Reaction is control. You react because of control and rightness. It always involves rightness and control, or lack of control, which is the same.
In that, you are adding to the control with more control. For you are attempting to control yourself in how you are reacting. “I am reacting, but I am being careful about how I am reacting. Therefore I will assert myself, not express myself. I will assert myself and say to you ‘I do not appreciate that,’ or ‘You are stepping in my position in line,’ or ‘I was here first.’”
And in that, you think of yourself as being justified. The other individual has generated an action that is clearly, in your perception, an affront to you personally. It may not be, but clearly in your own perception it is.
In that, you react and you assert yourself. And the other individual reacts to your assertion and will either counter you or they will recede. They will apologize and recede and shrink, or they will counter you and match your energy.
In this, either expression is an opposing energy. You are expressing an opposing energy, and the other individual is expressing a reflection of that with another opposing energy. The apology is not actually an apology. It is an expression that is defense. The other individual is defending in a receding manner. In that, they feel that disconnect, and they choose to recede rather than match the energy with the same aggression.
In that, if you were aware, even if you were not being present, if you were aware of that reaction or if you are aware after the factor, such as you felt uncomfortable for you felt embarrassed. In that, you feel embarrassed, for you are uncomfortable with your own expression and you feel exposed. That is the reason that individuals feel embarrassed. They are not actually exposed, but they feel exposed, and that creates embarrassment.
In this, even after the expression you can still express and release that energy. For [in] not doing so, now you have added another feeling of embarrassment, which you are also not going to express. You will feel it, and you will think about it and be uncomfortable. And you will continue to be uncomfortable for a time framework, and then you may stop thinking about it or stop dwelling upon it, but it will be expressed in some other manner at some other time framework, for now you are holding it.
In this, even if you do not express that feeling and release it immediately, which is the ideal, you can do it after by recognizing, “Now I am uncomfortable. I am embarrassed. I do not like that feeling.” You can pause and do the same: Ask yourself, “What is the opposite of what I am feeling? And how could I express that now?”
And there are many, many different manners in which you can express any feeling when you identify the opposite. It does not have to be some exaggerated or overt action. It can be simple, or what you perceive as a small action. It is enough.
JEFF: Could you give an example of that?
ELIAS: What would you express would be the opposite of the agitation you were feeling, recognizing if you were defining it as being that you were being made to feel unimportant? If you define what the feeling means, then you can identify what the opposite of that is. Therefore, if you are unimportant, what can you do in that moment that allows you to be important? It matters not what the action is. It could be merely expressing in a manner that one other individual hears you. That is an acknowledgement that you are important.
JEFF: You would say what?
ELIA: It matters not. It does not matter what you express. You could perhaps engage the attendant at the desk and ask a question. If the attendant answers you, she is acknowledging your presence. Therefore, that is an expression that you are not unimportant, you are being listened to and you are being acknowledged. You are being answered. You could express to the individual behind you in the line a joke, and if they laugh, they paid attention to you. If they paid attention to you, if they did not ignore you, then you are important. And if they laugh, you likely will feel different. You will stop being agitated or irritated, for feelings are signals. They are designed to be in the moment, and as soon as you move your attention, the feeling stops.
JEFF: You underestimate the strength of my attention. (Group laughs)
ELIAS: No! That is precisely the point. And I will express to you very genuinely, my friend. Let me express that you could be in a situation. You could literally witness the death of another individual and be overwhelmed with sadness and be crying hysterically. And in one moment, if another individual expressed in some manner that moved your attention away from the dead body, you would stop crying. In a moment.
You could be engaging with a friend and laughing in the most deepest belly laugh that you can imagine and enjoying yourself tremendously, and a fire alarm could occur and you will immediately stop laughing. And you will not be entertained any longer.
It only requires a moment for your attention to move. And as soon as your attention moves, the feeling stops. For they are signals, and that is how they are designed to be expressed. Feelings continue when they are not now feelings.
JEFF: Unless the person that was laughing was the same person that started the fire. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: (Chuckles) But that person would be continuing to pay attention to the fire alarm. (Laughs)
In this, when you can move your attention, which I have expressed previously, your feeling changes. But the difficulty for most individuals with that statement is that subsequent to myself expressing that, they begin to engage their usual routines in their lives, and in that, they may think to themselves when they are experiencing a feeling, “Ah! If I move my attention away from this, it will stop.” And they do not know how. For the more they think about moving their attention away from the feeling, the more they concentrate on the feeling and the more they think about it.
In that, giving you a method of an action that you can do that WILL move your attention and will continue to accomplish the same action of expressing that feeling and allowing you to release it gives you a direction that you can actually employ, that you can actually do.
Therefore, when you are defining what you are feeling and you know what it means to you, then you can identify what the opposite would be. And in any given situation, it would not be difficult for you to think of some action that you can do that would express that opposite, regardless of how small you seem to think that it is. It matters not. The size of the action or the action itself is not important. It is what it allows you to do, that it allows you to express and it allows you to release that energy, rather than hold it and hold it and hold it until you create physical manifestations, or you break a bone, or you engage a situation with a coworker and you create being fired, or you dissolve a relationship because you are creating so much conflict, or you create depression and you withdraw, for you cannot interact with other individuals for they distress you and irritate you so much and you do not understand them.
Let me express to you, even in that, understanding is not a requirement for connecting, and it is not even entirely that important. If you are being present, the factor of understanding is not always important. As I have expressed also recently, in some situations you may be being present and you might assess or think that what you are experiencing is being blank, for you are not accessing. You are actually being present, but you are not accustomed to not accessing, not reacting, not having everything be important, not expressing that every word another individual is saying or every action that they are doing is ultimately important, and also perhaps not involving yourself with what does not involve you, or what you are not actually involved in.
Yes?
BILL: Is physical pain a feeling?
ELIAS: Yes.
BILL: Because physical pain in me sort of makes me also feel frustration. (As microphone is handed to him) I just got rid of it! (Laughs) So for some intense physical pain, shifting one’s attention to some other thing seems extremely difficult.
ELIAS: It is difficult.
BILL: It seems less difficult to me to do what you’re saying, so that the opposite of pain might be pleasure, to express pleasure in some way rather than hit my thumb and create pain in a different place to take it away from my toe.
ELIAS: Correct. Correct.
BILL: So pain IS a feeling?
ELIAS: Yes!
BILL: Okay.
ELIAS: Physical or emotional feelings, either. Both are signals. They are all signals. All feelings are signals, and they are all generated by your body consciousness, whether they are emotional or physical. They are ALL expressed by your body. Your body indicates that alarm, that signal.
And feelings are signals in the same capacity as traffic signals and are to be acknowledged in the same manner. You acknowledge a traffic signal. You see it, you respond it and you do not analyze it. You do not evaluate it, you do not dwell on it, you do not sit in front of it and stare at it and watch it and watch it and watch it. You respond to it immediately. You stop, you go or you slow. That is what you do. For that is what they are intended to express to you. They are signals. They are not explanations. They are not reasoning with you. They are signals.
Feelings of any type, physical or emotional, are signals that there is some action that you are doing in the moment that your body is communicating with you about. In the moment, you feel anxious. In the moment, your body is communicating to you that there is some potential threat. Whether it is real or not matters not. The body is communicating a message to you. If you hammer your foot, it generates the signal of pain. It is communicating to you, “You injured yourself in this moment. Your foot is dysfunctioning and it hurts.”
In that - this is another excellent point in relation to feelings - if you generate an injury, you likely will feel it, you will have the signal initially and it will be painful, and the pain will likely dissipate considerably quickly, regardless of what the injury is.
Now; the pain may return. The signal may return and you may perceive it to be constant and ongoing, dependent upon the injury, but the reason you perceive it to be constant and ongoing, which it is not, but you will perceive it to be so, is because that is what you are paying attention to. You are concentrating on that signal. And when you concentrate on the signal, you allow the signal to dictate your behavior and your choices. If you are concentrating on the signal of pain, it dictates to you your behavior and your choices. If you are concentrating on the signal of irritation or sadness or anxiety, it dictates your behavior. You are allowing the signal to dictate your choice. You are relinquishing your choices to a signal.
If you think about that momentarily, would you relinquish your choices to a traffic signal and stare at the traffic signal and express, “What should I do? Tell me what to do.” Of course not. But you allow feelings to do that. You allow feelings to dictate your behavior and your choices.
Yes?
TOM: I have a question of clarification. You said that emotional feelings are signals from the body consciousness?
ELIAS: Yes.
TOM: I don’t know why, but for some reason I always thought they were signals from my inner self or from my essence, not from my body consciousness.
ELIAS: No. No. Your body generates the signal. The message is from within you, yes. The signal is generated by your body. It is one of its functions, to signal you that there is a message.
Yes?
RICK: So my leg – I have to, when I walk, I have to balance myself, and then I have to think about balancing myself when I walk because of my muscle tone I lost in my leg. So by doing that, I’m constantly continuing that aspect of having to balance myself as I walk, in my thought process, moment by moment by moment. But if I don’t think about that thought process of balancing myself when I walk, I fall. So how do I not do that?
ELIAS: For you expect to fall. You rely on your thinking to translate what you are doing, which is its function, but when you know a function it is not necessary for you to continue to rely upon your thinking to translate what you are doing, if you trust what you are doing. You can concentrate upon your heartbeat, but you can also not think about your heartbeat and it continues to beat. For you trust that your body knows how to function.
Many times, when individuals create physical manifestations they lose trust of their body’s capability. You lose that trust of what your body is capable of doing, and it reinforces what is tremendously familiar to you, which is control. It emphasizes that you must be in control to be expressing how your body should function.
RICK: So I’m trusting my body for a dysfunction?
ELIAS: Yes, you are.
RICK: And that’s why it happened in my life? Because I wanted it?
ELIAS: No! There is a difference between wanting and doing.
RICK: Okay.
ELIAS: The factor that you DO an action, or that you create something or you manifest something, is not to say that you want it. There is a significant difference with that. You may not want it at all, but there is always a reason that you create a manifestation. It may be not listening to your own communications. It may be a manifestation of expressed energy, energy that has been held for a considerable time framework. And many, many, many, many individuals express it through physical manifestations, for that is a natural expression. It does not require any intention, any thinking. It merely occurs, supposedly.
But in that, whatever the physical manifestation is, it very precisely reflects what the issue is, and in the same magnitude, in the same intensity. If an individual has an on-and-off irritation that they are engaging that is not severe but consistent but is not always occurring, they may create a rash. If an individual is denying themself over and over and over again, and diminishing themself and discounting themselves and not trusting themself, or expressing their insignificance, they may create cancer. If an individual is angry with themself or feeling guilty or regretful, they may create a physical manifestation that is debilitating. They will hurt themself.
Does that mean they want to do that? Of course not. Does that mean that they incorporated the intention to hurt themself? No. They are not intending to hurt themselves; they are already hurting themselves. Their body is merely reacting to what they are already doing and manifesting that as a reflection of what they are already doing to themself.
In this, your body consciousness is an excellent reflector of what you do to yourselves, and it is an excellent reflector of whether you trust yourself or not. Your body is an amazing, brilliant manifestation, physical manifestation in this reality. It holds the ability and does regenerate itself continuously throughout your entire lifetime. But it also does it in the manner that you believe it to do.
Therefore, if you believe that your body is only capable of certain regeneration, it will only create certain regeneration, for that is what you are instructing it to do. If your expression of what you believe is that you are continuously unbalanced, that is what it will manifest, for that is what you are instructing it to do, for you believe it. You trust that. Believing is merely another word for trust. What you believe, you will create.
And in that, (very softly and gently) you always have a choice. You can always choose. Regardless of what you have chosen, you can always choose more. You can always choose different.
Yes?
JOHN H: So I’ve heard that for most men, regardless of the underlying emotion, the expression of that is anger, and that you try to control anger. So I’m just thinking that, I know for me it is very hard to express really any emotion at times. I’m thinking it might be harder for men. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
ELIAS: It is. But is that natural? No. It is learned. It IS more difficult, for the most part or in general, for male individuals, because you are taught and you have been being taught for generation after generation after generation, and that is significant. Not only what you are taught now, in your lifetime. Your body consciousness does not only hold memory of your own experiences in this focus. Your body consciousness, that particular body that you hold now, holds ALL the memories of EVERY experience you have EVER generated in EVERY focus that you have in this physical reality, past and future. (Group noise and laughter) That is a lot of memories!
In that, that is a lot of associations, generation after generation after generation of information and experience and what you have been taught and what you have learned. And I express that – let me express it clearly – what you have been taught and what you have learned are not always the same. That is the reason that I generate that distinction. For you learn by yourselves also, not only what you have been taught from outside sources.
In this, for generations and generations and generations, in actuality for millennia, male individuals have been designated in certain roles, and therefore have also been expected to express in certain capacities. If you are designated in a role of a hunter, it is likely to your benefit to not be expressing tremendous emotional expressions in your daily activity, for that would likely be counterproductive to your role and your action and what is expected of you.
In this, -
JOHN: That doesn’t make sense to me. Why would…?
ANN: How can you kill something if you have a lot of emotion?
JOHN: Why not? (Group laughs, and there are numerous group comments simultaneously)
ANN: Would you not feel bad?
RICK: Well, I got a (inaudible) a lot of emotion...
JOHN: You do not need - you could be like a lion.
ELIAS: It is not merely that. It is also fear. In that, if you are listening to all of your emotional expressions, terror in the moment may be one of them. And it would be difficult for you to be fulfilling that role as a hunter if you are experiencing and allowing yourself to acknowledge that feeling of terror.
RICK: So is that why my friend – he’s a hunter – but he’s very negative (inaudible), and he expresses it very much so, every day. So the reason why he does it is because he’s trying to expose it with things?
ELIAS: No, not expose it. I would express that what he is likely expressing is that aspect of aggression to be disconnecting, and expressing that negativity in relation to other individuals or expressions to not feel and not involve himself.
But in this, for generation after generation after generation, this is what you have learned and what you have taught. And your bodies hold that memory, and it is strong. And female individuals, not generally being placed in situations in which they would be exposed to danger, so to speak, were allowed, have been allowed, are continued to be allowed to express more in an emotional capacity, and therefore are not hiding their feelings as much.
Now; in that, from so much time, generations, and in addition to generations your individual selves, practicing not paying attention to them, not paying attention to those signals, you become very efficient at ignoring them. And then you assess that you do not feel. It is not that you do not feel. It is that you do not pay attention to what you are feeling, for you have become very efficient and adept at diverting your attention around feelings.
Many male individuals also will express that they incorporate what you term to be a higher threshold for physical pain. NOT. (Group laughter) That is not correct. I would express that they have been taught and have learned not necessarily to express it in the same manner, but it is not necessarily that you incorporate a higher threshold for pain. (Group laughter)
In this, that is a significant factor, and it does not necessarily place you at a disadvantage. For let me express, those individuals that do express considerable emotional signals and allow themselves to express them or feel them or recognize them, that is not to say that they know what they mean. And that is not to say that they are actually viewing them as signals. And individuals that you perceive as being more emotional generally are engaging those signals and dwelling on those signals more than other individuals, and allowing those signals to dictate their behavior. Therefore, they are not interpreting them any clearer than those of you that are not necessarily even noticing them.
JOHN H: So I still have a chance? (Group laughter)
ELIAS: I would definitely agree. Yes.
Yes?
SANDRA: Elias, when you do get the signal of pain in the body and it is substantial, are you saying that it’s possible to take attention from that pain signal and focus elsewhere and reduce that pain or have it…?
ELIAS: Yes, and you can do the same -
SANDRA: And even like severe, after surgery, after you come out of… So in my case, I just want to say I held energy, I knew it, I had an explosive manifestation, a broken arm. And again then, after the surgery, coming out of it, there was a tremendous amount of pain. You’re saying that before the surgery somehow I had the expectation of that pain, and then therefore - and it was equal to everything that was held?
ELIAS: Not merely that, but then when you manifest it, you pay attention to it.
SANDRA: Right. And it lasted for weeks and weeks and weeks.
ELIAS: Let me express to you a very simple example of this very type of scenario, or your examples of physical pain, in your idea that physical pain is more difficult to move your attention away from, which I would disagree. For I would express to you that individuals that generate emotional pain such as depression and anxiety, that is very difficult for them to move their attention away.
LYNDA: I agree.
ELIAS: In this, you have even in YOUR lifetimes, you express: Childbirth. Then you will know physical pain. (Group noise and laughter) And I will acknowledge: Childbirth is an exceptionally painful process physically. But in your lifetimes, you have developed methods to engage childbirth without your drugs, without medication and with no pain. (Group noise)
FEMALE: How?
RICK: My mother had eleven children, never had a birth pain at all. (Group noise)
ELIAS: In this, the method is simple and precisely what I have been expressing: You move your attention away from the pain and you concentrate your attention on something else. You use, in your methods, a focal point, and you focus your attention on the focal point, and even the pain of childbearing is dissipated and not felt. An individual can generate childbirth with no pain.
In this, it is literally a matter of what you pay attention to. This is also what we began with in relation to why do you focus on the negative? Why is that so influencing? And why is it so prevalent? Because that is what you pay attention to.
SANDRA: So in the second operation with the same problem which occurred, the whole outcome was completely different. It was do I trust the doctor and myself to do it differently? So after the surgery again, coming out there was no pain, not one bit of pain medication, none.
ELIAS: And this is also an interesting point, this factor of trust in relation to what we were discussing previously, in trusting yourself, in trusting your body and your body’s ability to regenerate itself or to function properly.
At times, individuals may not trust themself. They may not trust their own body. But you may trust some other source. And once again, in the same capacity as it matters not what the expression is to express a feeling, it is equally as effective, you can trust some aspect that you deem to be an outside source: a doctor, a god, a prophet, a saint, an angel, an essence, a rock! (Group laughter) It matters not! You can trust some other source, whatever you want to label it, the universe if you will, and if you genuinely believe, or trust, that it will help you or that it will provide for you or it will right you, it will. For it is not it that is doing it, it is you. You are trusting, and the label of what you are trusting is not important.
Yes?
TOGI: In my experience, it is possible to trust yourself and your senses are not translating it. So you actually can create something, and your senses are not telling you that you are creating it.
ELIAS: Example?
TOGI: I can trust myself that I shape-shift. And I do that, but my senses are telling me I am not doing that. So there is a tricky part in it. Sometimes our senses are liars.
ELIAS: Many times.
TOGI: Yes. So it is tricky -
ELIAS: For your senses are geared and designed to input information in physical reality in absolute terms. What you hear is what you hear, what you see is what you see, what you taste, what you smell, what you feel – they are very absolute. Your senses are not interpretive. They are not abstract. They do not interpret what information is being inputted to them. They are very absolute. This is the reason that magic is so fascinating to you, for it fools your senses.
TOGI: But it’s tricky. If you - because I mean, to build trust we rely on our senses because - I mean sometimes I am able to see in energy what I’m actually doing, but if my senses are not inputting the same things, it is easy to dismiss it. And many people are not able to see energy, so they actually trust themselves. They create maybe a healing, but the senses are not translating it, so it’s actually tricky.
ELIAS: It can be; for in that, it is a matter of recognizing that your senses are not always accurate. Your senses input information in very absolute terms, and there are no absolutes.
And in that, your senses are designed to aid you in maneuvering, not to give you absolute information. They are designed to help you in maneuvering in a physical world, in a physical reality.
In that, they also generate signals to aid you in that maneuvering, but they are not interpretive. It is you yourself, not your senses, but you that interprets that information that is being inputted.
This is the reason that you do not only have your five senses as avenues of communications. They are five avenues of communications, but they are not the only avenues. You have other avenues, and that is the reason, to balance them, to allow you to know that your senses are geared to this physical reality and what you know in it.
If you engage actions, activities, interactions that are outside of this physical reality, your senses do not process that. They are geared to be inputting information in relation to this physical dimension, this physical reality; THIS physical reality, this ASPECT of physical reality, meaning this world and what you can engage around it.
As you evolve, as you expand, as you incorporate physical - not teleportation, but physical transportation to worlds beyond your world - your senses will adjust and adapt to inputting that information. They do not yet, for that information is not available to most of you yet.
Therefore yes, in those types of situations it is a matter of trusting what you are experiencing and what you know and not relying on your physical senses, for your senses are geared for here, and that is the information that they input in absolute terms.
TOGI: That makes it tricky.
ELIAS: Yes. It can.
ANN: Are his experiences then helping the physical senses somehow see that manifestation?
ELIAS: To a degree. To a degree. But it is a slow process, and the reason it is a slow process is that there are so few individuals that are engaging that type of activity, and therefore there is little reinforcement. There is no mass expression that creates a mass energy that accepts that as a part of your reality.
There are many things that you accept as a part of your reality that you have never seen, but you accept them as a part of your reality; and if you ever did see them, you would accept that and you would see it, because it is known to you. And even if it is not entirely known to you, it is known en masse.
In this, your experiences are not known en masse. And in that, it is a slow process, for there is not much reinforcement in mass energy that allows the senses to accept that other information as valid, because your senses translate in absolutes. It does not translate in grey. They translate in black and white.
And in that, it either is or it is not. And if there is not a mass expression that accepts some manifestation as real, as reality, then the senses deny it. The senses will reject it. That is the reason that it is a slow process. Is what you are doing influencing to change that? Yes, definitely. But it is a slow process.
The more individuals that move in a direction, whether they participate or not, of accepting and therefore expressing regardless of whether I see it, I believe it, that is faith. Believing, trusting what you cannot see.
SANDRA: Elias, we cannot see you. We trust you. We’re sitting here.
ELIAS: That is faith. (Group laughter) But most individuals do not express a faith in other worlds. They express the idea and the faith that you are somehow not the only beings in your universe, but that is very general. And in that, do they specifically express a faith that there are other definite worlds that exist? Not actually, not yet. But they will.
VERONICA: Elias?
ELIAS: Yes.
VERONICA: With regard to the body holding onto past negative belief experiences and future negativity, I belong to a group of dowsers, and they believe that holding the pendulum in front of the body will rid the body of all negative belief and all negative issues. They are using this as a tool now. I personally don’t believe in it, but it doesn’t mean that I’m right. If the person who is holding the negative belief has the pendulum swinging around, is that tool capable of removing the negative energy?
ELIAS: No.
ANN: The person has to believe it, right?
ELIAS: No.
ANN: The person receiving it.
ELIAS: It matters not. That would be contrary to the design of your reality, for that is expressing that they would be eliminating duplicity, which is the expression of good/bad, right/wrong, which includes negativity.
And in that, it would be a denial of that belief system. Is that possible in your reality? No. Unless you disengage. You can use them as tools. Can you eliminate negative? No. Your reality is based in duality, positive and negative. And in that, no, you cannot remove that from your reality. You can remove you from that reality if you do not want to participate with it, but no, you cannot remove it from your reality, for it is a part of the design of your reality. And it is NOT the enemy!
KEN: The shadows that bring depth.
ELIAS: Correct.
LYNDA: Right. I know we’re coming down the pike here, but I just wanted to throw - What I’m going to walk away with from today is this kind of exciting feeling which you just touched on at the beginning of the session, ten lifetimes ago, and that was – I’m going to paraphrase you – that the imagery doesn’t really matter. The differences – I wish I had a buck for every time you said that, but suddenly I realized we don’t all have to speak the same shibboleth and we don’t all have to eat the same food, and it’s okay if I’m weird and quirky and it’s okay if you are too and – oh not you, honey! (Group laughter) But Elias, you know - this could be liberating. I’m just saying. You know what I mean? And I want to hear more about this, and I will, too, because I’m going to pick your brain, and I’m hoping you’ll talk more about that part of it.
ELIAS: We will.
LYNDA: Cool!
ELIAS: And ALL of this - We will conclude with a reminder of what I expressed to those of you that participated in Rome, and all of the rest of you that subsequently participated. All of this is also very much a part of and significant to all of the changes that are occurring in your world presently. I expressed to you to be aware that these changes are occurring now, and they are. And now you see.
And the floods are not only with water. They are with people also. And the displacement. And it affects all of you. And all of you affect it.
In that, all of what we have been expressing and discussing about being present, about being aware of what you are feeling, about expressing yourselves, about being more aware, and about, indirectly, acceptance with yourselves and with each other in all of those differences, embracing the differences. Not that you must like them. Embracing does not mean that you must like or love or even agree. It means that you can coexist. That your mission is not to eliminate or push away or be rid of, but that you are all interconnected.
And in that, recognizing learning to be present and therefore allowing yourselves to notice and express that positive – not the power of positive thinking (group laughter) – but genuinely allowing yourselves to focus upon what is important. Not what you DON’T want - what you DO want. Not what you DON’T like, but what you DO like.
KEN: Trust can always be built in increments.
ELIAS: Always.
KEN: That’s always so comforting, knowing I don’t have to do it all at once. I can do it bit by bit by bit.
ELIAS: Yes. Moment by moment.
RICK: Isn’t that why Edgar Cayce saw that a hundred years from now the population will be one third of what it is now? Is that because this interconnection we have with each other, and this allowance and this trust, there’s only a certain percentage of people that will agree with it?
ELIAS: No. What I would express to you is not necessarily a disagreement, but that it is dependent upon how you proceed with this shift and how aware you become and how much you actually apply that aspect of being present, and therefore allowing yourselves to recognize your interconnectedness.
And in not, you will likely continue to move in the direction that you have for generation after generation and move in a direction of destruction. But you will not destroy your planet. It will continue, regardless. It will reconfigure itself, not necessarily in a manner that would be habitable for your species.
Therefore, in that -
ANN: Oh, Elias, can I ask one more question? So presence, would that be the most effective tool for interconnection or connection?
ELIAS: Yes. Definitely.
ANN: Thank you.
ELIAS: Yes?
TOGI: I have a question. I saw that you changed your energy prior to the Rome group session in quite a huge shift. I can’t really term it in words, but I’m sure you can express what was it. What did you shift in expressing to all of us?
ELIAS: The shift was in relation to addressing to you in a global manner. I generally am interactive with all of you and focused in a direction of each of you individually. That has, in all of the time that I have been interacting with you, been my agenda, to be interpersonally interactive with each of you.
In this, I moved in a direction temporarily of emphasizing all of you globally, to emphasize how important each of you are to what is occurring globally. For most of you that are not in the floods, whether they be of people or water, do not perceive yourselves to actually be involved or to be connected or to be influencing. But you are.
And it is closer upon you than you realize, just as I expressed in Rome.
That shall be food for thought for all of you.
To each of you in wondrous affection, in great lovingness and tremendous encouragement - for you can all do this, and you are well on your ways - in tremendous, glorious acknowledgement of each of you, au revoir.
GROUP: Au revoir.
(Elias departs after 1 hour 26 minutes)
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