Express Yourself
Topics:
“Express Yourself”
“What Pain Is and How to Address It”
“Satisfaction versus Lack of Satisfaction”
“Do What You Want”
(Mary's talk preceding the group session is available here as a transcript and as an audio file.)
(A video of the entire group session, along with Mary's talk, is available here.)
Saturday, May 20, 2017 (Group/Hinsdale, New Hampshire)
Participants: Mary (Michael), Aaron (Todd), Adam (Avril), Ann (Vivette), Ben (Albert),Brigitt (Camile), Dan (Zynn), Debbie (Tamarra), Eve (Shaurice), Inna (Beatrice), Jan (Meude), Jason (Spensar), John (Rrussell), Julie (Fontine), Kyla (Amie), Lisa, Lynda (Ruther), Naomi (Kallile), Natasha (Nicole), Nuno (Lystell), Phil (Patre), Roberto (Francine), Rodney (Zacharie), Sandra (Atafah), Scotty (Gianni), and Val (Atticus).
“What are you doing in relation to dissatisfaction?... It is a matter of changing you, and that changes the world.”
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
GROUP: Good afternoon, Elias!
ELIAS: This day we shall be discussing several subjects, which I will pose to all of you to participate with and offer your input in relation to these different subjects. The first is pain.
What is pain? How would you define pain? How would you describe it?
ANN: Intense discomfort.
PHIL: A signal.
ELIAS: Good.
JOHN: A specific signal.
ELIAS: Correct. And what would you express is the cause of pain?
KYLA: Resistance.
ELIAS: Why do you generate pain?
ANN: A signal.
PARTICIPANT: External and internal disturbances.
PARTICIPANT: Expectations.
PARTICIPANT: To get your attention.
JOHN: It’s a diagnostic signal.
ELIAS: Explain that.
JOHN: Sort of like if you’re working on a car, right? I mean, if you’ve got the kind of car that you are plugging into a microchip, right? Like you’ve got different… It’s red, right? There’s a red light, a red light is not good, or however you want to define it. Like something needs to be repaired here, a specific thing, and then that’s what it is.
ELIAS: That is closer.
AARON: So, a signal that what we’re paying attention to.
PARTICIPANT: A signal to what needs to be addressed.
ELIAS: Not actually. But that is the closest in the definition. What is pain? Yes, it is a signal. Why? What is it a signal of?
NAOMI: Not paying attention.
PARTICIPANT: Resistance?
PARTICIPANT: Frequence?
ELIAS: Signal of pain is very simple, regardless of what it is, whether it is emotional pain or physical pain. The signal of pain is your mechanism to alert you that there is some dangerous experience occurring. Something dangerous is occurring. Pain is a signal of danger.
ANN: Uh-oh. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: This is what your body signals you when you are experiencing danger. If it is physical danger, such as a physical dysfunction or a physical expression that is damaging, your body is signaling you that danger is occurring. If it is emotional, and you are experiencing pain in some emotional capacity, your body is signaling you that there is some danger that is occurring.
And this is the reason that you generate this type of signal, which is one of your strongest signals that your body consciousness produces, that of pain. It is a clear signal, and it generally is loud. You don’t misinterpret pain. Whether it is physical or emotional, you all recognize pain. You know what it is. You have no question. You might question why, but you know what the signal is. It is very clear.
Now; what do you do in relation to that signal? When your body is signaling you in relation to pain, whatever type it may be, what do you do in relation to that? First, think about what you likely automatically do.
PARTICIPANT: Get rid of it.
PARTICIPANT: Go away from it.
PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible) concentrate on it.
PARTICIPANT: Focus on it.
ELIAS: You do focus on it. You do concentrate on it. And you also do want to get rid of it. You want it to go away. You want it to be done. You want it to stop. You want to not have it. But you also do automatically concentrate on it, which that is a natural response, to concentrate on it, because it is a signal of danger. Therefore, the reason it is such a strong signal is because there is some threat to your physical person. Regardless of whether it is physical or emotional, it matters not. There is some threat that is strong enough and big enough that your body is signaling you with that pain, and the purpose of that is to encourage you to pay attention to it, to concentrate on it, to do something about it.
Now; generally, the reason individuals react to pain in the manner that they do is because you don’t define it in what it is. You listened to each other in your definitions of what pain is, and what is it? It is danger. And none of you defined it as danger. Because you don’t define it as danger, you react to it in capacities that are either inefficient or that are not successful or that don’t actually stop it. And that leads you to react more in concentrating your attention on it, and what you do is then you move your attention to how uncomfortable you are.
And then you begin paying attention to that, the discomfort. And that perpetuates the pain, because what happens when you don’t acknowledge a signal? It continues to signal, and it gets louder. And it continues to move and express over and over and over again. And although you may actually experience temporary reprieves, it also returns, because it was not addressed to.
Now; if you break a bone and you are experiencing pain, what do you do? You address to it. You engage a physician, and the physician sets the bone, and you perhaps incorporate a cast and you encourage it to heal. You are doing actions that encourage healing, and you are concentrating on that healing process.
What do you do when you have an anxiety attack?
BRIGITT: Stop and breathe.
ELIAS: What do you generally do—
ANN: Keep thinking about it and trying to fix the darn problem. It doesn’t work. And you know it, but you keep thinking—
ELIAS: And you pin it. You continue to concentrate on it. Then you begin concentrating on your body consciousness, because it is uncomfortable. And then you begin to concentrate on certain organs of your body consciousness, because your heart begins to race, your breathing increases, your stomach is in knots, and you feel more and more and more uncomfortable.
What are you concentrating on? Are you concentrating on the direction of healing? No. You are concentrating on how uncomfortable you are and how much it is continuing to BE uncomfortable. If you hammer your foot, you will likely express a moment in which you register the pain, but then you will likely very quickly be moving in an action. You will be DOING in a direction to address it and to heal it.
If you are expressing being depressed or panicking, what are you likely doing? You are paying attention to the panic or the depression, and you continue to pay attention to that, and it increases, and you become more increasingly uncomfortable. And you are not moving in a direction of action, and you are not moving in a direction of concentrating on healing. You are concentrating on “stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.”
Emotional feelings are equally as strong as physical feelings. The difference is that you likely, all of you, experience emotional feelings much more frequently than you do physical feelings. Most individuals don’t generate consistent and frequent physical pain. Some do, if they are generating some physical manifestation that becomes in your terminology chronic, but most individuals experience physical pain much less frequently. But emotional pain, or mental pain, you experience much more frequently. And the difficulty with emotional or mental pain is that you don’t know what to do about it, because you don’t associate with it in the same manner that you do with physical pain. But they are the same. Pain is pain, whether it is physical, emotional, mental—pain is pain. It is an extreme discomfort, and it is a signal of danger.
In that, because you don’t associate with emotional and mental pain in the same manner that you do with physical pain, you do the opposite with it that you do with physical pain. You don’t address to it. You don’t immediately move in the direction of healing. You concentrate on it, and you push it. You push it and push it and push it, attempting to push it away: stop, stop, stop, push away. And that creates a solid foothold in concentration. And remember: concentration is different from attention.
Concentration is what you generate in a constant ongoing manner, and you don’t have to think about what you concentrate on. It is always present with you. What you pay attention to can definitely influence your concentration and it can aid in changing your concentration, but your attention is NOT your concentration. That is an important factor to be aware of, once again, because many individuals express, “But I wasn’t thinking about that,” or “I wasn’t paying attention to that subject. Why am I feeling this? I am not paying attention to that.”
It matters not whether you are paying attention. Generally speaking, that is part of the difficulty, is that you aren’t paying attention. You aren’t paying attention to you or your abilities, and you are complicating the situation by thinking, thinking, thinking.
Pain can be alleviated in the same manner as physical pain, relatively quickly, because it is a signal. If you smash your foot and it hurts, you immediately begin to generate actions that nurture it. You immediately begin to generate actions that don’t irritate it, that don’t perpetuate that uncomfortable feeling, that pain. You stop walking on it, you place it in an elevated position, you may place ice on it or heat on it—you do actions to address to it.
When you express an anxiety attack or a panic attack, what do you do to nurture yourself in that? What actions are you engaging to comfort yourself? Generally speaking, none. You are reaching for medications. You are reaching for anything you can think of—and this is an important point—and you are thinking and thinking and thinking, “What can I do? How can I stop this? How can I get away from this?”
JOHN: With physical pain, there’s danger, and it’s obvious what the danger is. In a way, you’re sort of addressing to what that danger is. But with emotional pain, if that’s what you want to call it, it’s… You haven’t defined what the danger is.
ELIAS: Very well. With emotional pain or mental pain, this is also a signal of danger. Something is occurring in your experience at the time that you are perceiving as a threat—a significant threat. Whether it actually is or not is not important; you are perceiving it as a definite, significant threat. It could be in a moment that you purchase a new car, and you leave the car dealership and you return home and you have a panic attack, because you just spent a tremendous amount of money and you don’t know if you HAVE that money. That was an impulse, you wanted to do it, you did it, and now you are evaluating the situation and you are afraid because you don’t know in that moment that you have the ability to maintain what you just did.
Therefore, the perceived threat is that you can’t maintain yourself. You may be in a situation, and another individual may express in a manner that is not actually threatening. They may be having a conversation with you, and they may express in a particular manner and it may be a trigger. It may trigger some aspect in you that you have an association with, and suddenly you discover yourself breathing fast, and your heart is pounding and you are experiencing an anxiety attack. The threat is that association.
Some experience happens that you have generated an association with and something triggered it, and now you are generating that signal: something is very threatening. It may be as simple as you may be attempting a new action, and suddenly you are nervous and you begin to feel anxiety or some panic because “this is unfamiliar and I don’t know if I can do this. I am not confident enough to do this.”
Or you could be doing nothing, in your terms. As we know, you are never doing nothing, but you could be doing nothing in your terms, and suddenly you begin to generate anxiety or some beginnings of panic merely because you are thinking about what you didn’t do or what you did do, or what you should do, or what you shouldn’t do, or what you haven’t accomplished, or what other individuals expect of you, or what you are about to do and you don’t know if you want to. It could be anything. Thinking itself can create feelings, and those feelings may be connected with old experiences, past experiences, and that can generate that signal of pain: “Danger! You are moving in a direction that is threatening! This is a threat to you. It is uncomfortable. Pay attention.” And you pay attention to the feeling, but you don’t pay attention to how to address to a feeling.
Therefore, what you generally will do is react to the feeling, which of course perpetuates it and increases it. And therefore then the feeling grows; and in that, you merely move in this direction in which it seems that you cannot stop this machine from continuing to move. And you feel helpless, almost as if your body is a separate entity from yourself. Which, I would express to most of you, whether you think about it or not, you do generate somewhat of an association that your body IS a separate entity from you.
[Speaking somewhat facetiously here] There is you, which we don’t quite know what the definition of you is (group laughter)—perhaps your mind, which is not your brain, but it is some thing that is the actual you. And then there is your body, which is an entirely separate entity from you, and IT has a mind of its own, and it makes choices of its own that you are not necessarily always involved with or privy to. And then there is the other entity, which is your essence. That is definitely a separate entity from you. You are not that at all. That is merely an idea, that you are your essence, but actually your essence is some overlord god that floats through the cosmos (group laughter) and generates choices for you and somehow sometimes guides you, but sometimes moves in directions that you are not quite familiar with either, or you don’t quite understand because it has different agendas from you. But they’re always good, because your essence is all knowing, and therefore it always moves in a good direction. But we don’t quite define what good is, either.
Now you have created the picture of yourselves which is the holy trinity. (Group laughter) And you are all--(group laughter)—you are all God in that trinity: your mind, your essence, your body. The three of you exist together, always.
--No, you don’t. Your body is not separate from who you are. Your essence IS you. You are all one. There are no parts. It is all you.
ANN: Can’t we just blame Christianity for this?
ELIAS: You can, if you are so choosing. (Group laughter) Or any other religious empire. (Group chatter) But I would actually express to you that those religious philosophies are more accurate than you realize, because you do it yourselves every day of your existence. This is how you perceive yourselves. God the Father is the essence, God the Son is the mind, God the Spirit is the body. Or Krishna and Vishnu (Elias pronounces Vishnu like “Finou” here, resulting in much group laughter) and Shiva and Brahma and Allah and all of the others. They all have their places, and all of those philosophies actually are extensions of how you perceive yourselves. Therefore, it is not so unusual that you would create these types of philosophies and these types of gods, because they are images of you and how you perceive yourselves.
But in relation to pain, although the body consciousness is responsible for generating that signal, for it generates all signals, you are involved with that. You are not separate from your body, regardless of what type of pain you are engaging.
In this, another piece about pain that is and can be applied to both physical, emotional and mental pain is that it can incorporate the form of “then” feelings. And that is when it becomes complicated, because as I have expressed to you before, “then” feelings grow. They linger, they grow, they continue, and “now” feelings don’t.
Therefore, “then” feelings become somewhat pesky, for they are more difficult to address to. But what I will express to you is the encouraging aspect of all of this in relation to pain is that you incorporate a tool that is tremendously effective, if you use it. That tool is attention.
Now; note that I am not expressing that the tool is thinking, because you already use that mechanism of thinking, and it generally moves you in unsuccessful directions. But you do have a very effective tool in attention, and you don’t require thinking to use it. You don’t think about what your feet are doing when you are walking. You don’t think about how you arrive at a different room in your home when you want to move from the kitchen to the bedroom. You don’t think about how you transported yourself there, you merely do it. It doesn’t REQUIRE thinking.
Remember what thinking is. This is somewhat ironic, for you think so much, and you rely on thinking so much, and you forget to think about what thinking is. Thinking is a translating mechanism. It does not create your reality. It is not an avenue of communication. It translates information that you input to yourself. Therefore, it follows whatever you pay attention to.
If you are not paying attention to the river outside you are not thinking about it, because your thinking is translating whatever you are paying attention to. If you engage your sense of smell and you smell a fragrance, your thinking immediately is evaluating: what is that smell? What is it attached to? That is its job. That is its function. That is what it does.
When you give your thought mechanism nothing to translate, then it translates old information, and it loops and it loops and it loops. And when it does that, it encourages feelings. It taps into that aspect of your body consciousness that produces feelings. And then it has more to translate, because now you moved your attention from it. When it has nothing to translate, what are you paying attention to? You are paying attention to thinking. And that is the reason it has nothing to translate, because you are paying attention to only IT. And when you are paying attention to only IT, it has nothing to do. Therefore, it attempts to FIND something to do.
Therefore, it begins to translate old information, and when it does that it invokes feelings, and then it has something to translate: Ah! You are feeling. Now I have information to translate to you. But it is OLD information to translate. And then you develop a circle. You think, you feel. You think, you feel. You think, you feel. You think about what you feel. You feel about what you think. And it continues, and it moves in a circle, and it has no beginning and no end.
And you become uncomfortable, and you develop in a direction of pain. And then you think more: “How do I get rid of this pain? How do I stop this pain?” The first piece is STOP THINKING. And then give yourself something else to translate, something else to think about. Walk outside. This is not tremendously complicated.
You do not have to be a physicist to stop pain. All you have to do is a different action than you are currently doing. That different action may be a smile. That is very simple; you don’t even have to move to do that. A different action may be you may sitting—stand up. Walk around. Go outside. Move to a different room. Give your thinking something else to translate. That is what it does. That is its function.
Merely telling yourself to stop thinking, you will not be successful. The more you tell yourself to stop thinking, the more you think. The more you are instructing yourself, “Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking,” it is astounding how many thoughts will flood into your awareness, thoughts that have nothing to do with what you are doing. “Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking—mayonnaise.”
LYNDA: That’s so good to know. (Group laughter) I may not be Dory fish after all.
ELIAS: “Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Shoes?” Your thought mechanism fights to be translating because that is its function, and you have so many avenues of communication. You have all your outer senses—that’s five to begin with. You have your inner senses—that is another three. Now you have eight avenues of communication. You have your intuition, your impressions, impulses—you have so many avenues of communication that are constantly inputting information, even when you sleep. Every moment of your existence, you are inputting information continuously. That is why you HAVE a thought mechanism, to translate all of that information which is continuously being inputted.
And in that, when you move your attention to your thinking, you immediately sever all those avenues of communication. You stop them all. You stop paying attention to any of them. They are continuing to input, but you are no longer paying attention to them, because actual information is not important. What is important is to be paying attention to what you are thinking, which is merely translated information.
[To Rodney] Yes?
RODNEY: I apologize to you and to the group, but I’m running very low on oxygen, not only in my tank, but in my body. And I know that what I need to do is to go outside and walk to a fresh tank. So, I’m going to bid everybody goodbye for now. I look forward to seeing you with a bigger tank next time. Okay? Thank you.
ELIAS: (Gently) Most definitely.
GROUP: Good-bye, Rodney.
RODNEY: I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine. I won’t die.
ELIAS: Very.
LYNDA: You will. Definitely.
RODNEY: Bye-bye. Thank you.
GROUP: ‘Bye Rodney.
ELIAS: Excellent example, Zacharie.
LYNDA: Did you hear that? An excellent example.
ELIAS: Of listening to that signal of discomfort, and moving in a direction of addressing to and healing, rather than thinking about it.
I acknowledge to all of you that the most difficult pain to address to is that pain of anxiety or panic or depression, which is an inward pain. And that can be tremendously challenging to address to. But what I am expressing to you is that it also can be addressed to. But it is a matter of generating that willingness to generate an action and to move your attention and to do something different. And I very much acknowledge to all of you the difficulty in that action also, that it appears to be very simple, but when everything in you is screaming not to do something different: “Don’t change, don’t do a different action, you CAN’T do a different action,” and that inner voice is continuing to pound at you and express, “No you can’t, no you can’t, no you shouldn’t, no you won’t,” it can be very challenging to override that voice and express, “I will anyway. I will engage that step even if that step is that I will only walk outside, and how many different colors of green can I find in this moment?”
That gives your thought mechanism something very different to translate. Now you are not telling yourself or your thought mechanism, “Stop, don’t think.” You are giving it something else to think about. And in that, you CAN be successful, and you CAN do it. And it doesn’t require complicated scenarios or actions or time-consuming actions. You can do it in a few moments, and you can do it immediately.
Now, I will acknowledge to all of you, dependent upon the degree of that pain emotionally, the signal may not immediately disappear. Just as if you smash your foot, that pain does not immediately disappear either when you address to it. It continues to hurt. It continues to throb. But you know you are generating steps to address to it, and you are nurturing it. That is the important piece in relation to other pains, emotional and mental pains, that you address to it but you know you are addressing to it and you know you are nurturing yourself, that you are being gentle with yourself. You don’t continue to hammer your foot once it is smashed, but you continue to hammer yourself when you feel anxious, or when you feel distressed, or when you feel depressed. You are harsh with yourself: “I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t feel this. I should be beyond this. I should know how to not do this. I should be better than this. I have information. I should know how to not do this.”
You should know how to not do what? Express a signal of danger? There is a reason that you are feeling a pain. You are not feeling it for no reason, and that requires addressing it. And before you can address it, it is important to what? Treat the symptom. Address to the pain first, that you can be clearer because—you are correct, it is very difficult to think in a beneficial manner if you are concentrating on how uncomfortable you are. It is difficult to give yourself answers when all you can concentrate on is that discomfort.
Therefore, the first piece is address to the symptom, which is the discomfort, which is the pain. In that, what do you do? You do something simple. You give your thought mechanism something else to think about as quickly as you possibly can. You change your environment as quickly as you can, because that encourages your thought mechanism to move in a different direction, to translate differently. And you DO something different, but doing does not have to be tremendous. It can be smiling when you feel terrible. It can be breathing natural, not (inhales and exhales loudly). You are not engaging a yoga exercise. You are merely breathing natural, because whenever you are experiencing pain, your body immediately reacts to that signal with tension. Always. That is an immediate reaction.
Your body is designed in a particular manner, in which it is exceedingly difficult for your body to maintain two states at once. It cannot relax and be tense simultaneously. Breathing is an action that automatically, naturally, relaxes your body. You can experiment. You can be crying, you can be hysterical, and if you breathe you will stop, because your body cannot maintain two states at the same time. It can maintain being tense, or it can maintain being relaxed, but it cannot do both at the same time.
Therefore, breathing naturally also gives your thought mechanism something else to think about. Now it is thinking about breathing. What are you doing with your breathing?
Walking outside—now you are engaging your senses: your sight, your hearing, your sense of touch. Paying attention to those, which ARE communication avenues, also gives your thought mechanism something else to process.
It is also very difficult for you to be thinking in different directions at the same time. You can think about many subjects, but in doing so you are moving from one to another to another. You are not actually entertaining many subjects simultaneously. Why? Because it involves the body consciousness. Again, your thought mechanism is not part of your body, but it directly INTERACTS with part of your body, which is your brain. And your brain is a part of your body which can only do one action at a time. Therefore, your body, your physical brain, cannot process many thoughts at once. This is the reason it can easily be distracted.
But if you experiment, you also notice that, as I have expressed many times previously, with “now” feelings, anything can break that immediately. You are feeling a tremendously intense feeling. That can be interrupted in a moment. A dog can bark. Your attention is immediately diverted, and as soon as your attention is diverted the feeling disappears, because it is a “now” feeling, and “now” feelings are designed to not be maintained. Even when you want them to be maintained, you have difficulty doing that because they are not DESIGNED to be maintained.
The only feelings that can be maintained are “then” feelings, something that is not “now.” And remember: “now” feelings can be from five minutes ago. It does not have to be something from your childhood. It can be from an experience that occurred a few minutes ago, but it is not occurring now but you are continuing to concentrate on it and perpetuate it.
The point with feelings is that they are signals and they have a reason, and that reason is a message that you are giving to yourself about whatever is affecting you in the moment. And that is important to pay attention to. What distracts you is that the feelings are designed to grab your attention, to be attractive. Attractive does not mean you like it; it merely means you are attracted to it. And it does attain your attention. That is what they are designed to do.
But in that, because they are designed to do that, this becomes a conflict, because then you begin to pay attention to what you are feeling and you allow that to dictate what you do—unless it is a physical pain. You note that, you allow yourself to express it immediately. If you smash your foot, I would express that most of you are likely to yell. And even if you stop yourself from yelling, you will yell initially. And then, after you have expressed that feeling, then what do you do? You let it go, because now it is the time to address to what that feeling was signaling you about.
You don’t stand and watch yourself bleed. You don’t evaluate it and express, “This is so very interesting, watching myself bleed. And the color is so vibrant, and it is so interesting how it swirls as it is moving across the floor. And the volume of it is amazing! And that feeling is not going away!” You don’t DO that! You see blood and you yell, and then you immediately are looking for some action to stop the blood and to address to the wound. You aren’t evaluating it. You aren’t analyzing it. You aren’t thinking about it. And you aren’t thinking about the feeling, either. You are too busy acting to quell all of it, because you are not separating the feeling from the wound.
[To Sandra] Yes?
SANDRA: I just wanted to say, when you talk there’s always a broader context that you could put this in. So when the pain isn’t in your toe but the toe of your neighbor or a friend, and then you have a sympathetic pain or an empathetic pain, if I’m saying that right—but media right now is—even you, Elias, please, have presented some things in these sessions that have been a little bit unnerving or anxiety producing or that are a change-deal thing. So, how can we put this information you’re giving us now into this outer world context?
ELIAS: Ah! And that will be what we are addressing to in the next half.
SANDRA: Thank you.
ELIAS: And that is an excellent point to generate a break.
GROUP: Thank you. (Applause)
(Session breaks after 1 hour 1 minute and resumes after 45 minutes.)
ELIAS: Continuing. Now; the next subject, which ties to the first subject, is about satisfaction versus the lack of satisfaction.
Now; in this, let me also express to all of you that what you don’t like or what you aren’t satisfied with or what you are uncomfortable with is equally as important as what you are satisfied with, because it gives you information, and it aids you in determining what you do like, what you are satisfied with, what you are comfortable with.
Therefore you, as you already know, exist in a reality in which duality is a part of the basis of your reality. Therefore, what is unsatisfying is not necessarily bad; it is a matter of perception. And in that, it gives you that opportunity to choose what you are satisfied with.
Now; I am aware that there is a considerable amount of dissatisfaction with many, many, many individuals, and I would express a step further and express there is a tremendous amount of dissatisfaction in your world at this present time framework. But as we were expressing in relation to pain and the action that is associated with that, dissatisfaction and satisfaction [are] very similar. And it does tie to the first subject, for when you are in pain and when you are uncomfortable, you are also dissatisfied.
And in this, there are many other subjects that you engage that you may be dissatisfied with, but what are you doing in relation to that dissatisfaction, other than thinking about it, once again, or talking about it? And that is a significant piece, for many times in many situations you disempower yourselves because you identify something that you are dissatisfied with, but what you do with that is think about it or talk about it, but you don’t DO about it. You become complacent.
And that leads you in a direction of disempowering yourselves, because then you justify the not doing by expressing that you can’t, or that it doesn’t matter, or that you are not important enough, or that you don’t have enough power, or that what is important to you is not important to anyone else.
What you forget is that you are all interconnected. And what you feel and what you experience and what you are satisfied with and what you are dissatisfied with, there are millions of other individuals that are experiencing the same. You merely may not be talking to them.
But you ARE. You merely are not paying attention to what you ARE expressing to yourself. When you are dissatisfied with something, generally you will talk about it and express it to other individuals. And in many situations, many of the other individuals that you are talking to about it will agree with you, and will be expressing their dissatisfaction also with the particular subject. But you continue to not do, in relation to that. You merely echo each other and continue to think about it or talk about it and be dissatisfied. Which does what? Once again, disempowers you, and you continue to perceive yourselves as small and powerless.
Obvious case in point: how many of you presently, in this present room at this present time, are entirely comfortable and satisfied with what is occurring in your country? (Pause)
And I am aware that there are different countries represented in this room. How many of you are entirely satisfied and comfortable with what is occurring in your respective countries?
You are?
PHIL: In the sense that I know that it’s leading us where we want to go.
ELIAS: No. That is not the question.
PHIL: Okay. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: The question is, are you satisfied and comfortable NOW? Not might you be, or you speculate that you can be, or you are searching for the silver lining and therefore you probably will be eventually because you can turn anything into satisfaction that you are not satisfied with, because you can turn anything into enough or not enough—no, you can’t. You do not make enough from not enough. If your attention is focused on not enough, no matter what you do or how you try, you don’t make enough from not enough; you just don’t.
Therefore, what the question is, is are you satisfied now? And I will interpret your silence as none of you. And you are definitely not alone. And this small group is representative of most of your world. You think you are one individual, you are one grain of sand on a vast endless beach of countless zillions of grains of sand, and therefore you are insignificant and unimportant—wrong.
You are not insignificant, and you are not unimportant. And what I would express to at this point literally—LITERALLY—each individual seated in this room, in this moment, represents one million other individuals that are also dissatisfied. Therefore, each one of you is expressing dissatisfaction for a million other individuals. That is a considerable number of individuals.
And what are you doing with that dissatisfaction? You are thinking about it, and you are talking about it. And what does that do? It doesn’t change what you are dissatisfied with. It DOES reinforce not enough. And I have expressed to you in no uncertain terms, you cannot make enough from not enough. It is not successful.
And in that, it also reinforces that you have no power. You have no voice. You are all now blind, deaf, dumb and quadriplegics. (Group laughter) You can’t move, you can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t speak. You can’t engage anything because you are entirely powerless.
No, you are not, and I am expressing to you very definitely you are not. And it does not require tremendous actions to be heard, to be seen, to be empowered and to change. It does not require tremendous effort or time or thinking. It merely requires one step and a willingness to acknowledge yourself, that you are important, because you are. You are very important, each and every one of you. Singularly, individually, you are very important and valuable, and you are worth being heard.
If you are dissatisfied with anything, then it is a matter of engaging change. And in that, change can be very simple. Just as I was expressing in relation to what you feel, you are not victims of your feelings, and you can change what you feel by what you do and what you pay attention to. You can change by merely walking outside or smiling when you feel angry. You can change by generating very small actions that require very little effort.
Let me express to you, you are dissatisfied with your country, with your situations, with your leaders, and you all express, “There is nothing I can do about it. They are who they are. They have all the power. I have none. I am one individual. I can’t do.” Very, very incorrect.
Your leaders are not infallible. They also are not, for the most part, dictators. They are chosen. You choose them. You all choose them. And even if you didn’t choose them, if you were part of a group that did not choose the present leaders, that does not mean you don’t have a voice. It does not mean you don’t have power. Because all of those leaders, from the lowliest one to the most mighty one, all of them are subject to what? You. And if you are dissatisfied, they risk their job, because you place them in their job or you determine whether they keep their job or not.
Let me express to you, many of you are very focused on your leaders, your ultimate leaders, your presidents in your respective countries, your prime ministers, the top leaders. They are not the individuals that incorporate most of the power. They are the figureheads. Most of the power lies in the extensions of you, which are all of the other individuals that comprise what you recognize as your governments. And those individuals will listen.
But you don’t speak! You don’t give them information. Therefore, what you are giving them is free rein. You are expressing to them, in your silence, “You choose. You choose for me. I am unconcerned, I don’t care, I trust you, and I give you all of my power.” And they take it, because you are giving it to them.
And in that, they choose. They choose what is important to them, not necessarily what is important to you. But there are many more of you than there are of them. How many hundreds of thousands of you are there to each one of them? But you have no voice, and you have no power, and they hold it all.
I have expressed recently this is not a situation that requires tremendous thinking or ingenuity or tremendous inventiveness. All that is required is that you find your voice. And your voice is not difficult to find. Rather than talking to each other about what you are dissatisfied with—which you can continue to do, but perhaps in addition to that you may each, one individual, engage your conversations with all of the individuals that agree with you and express the suggestion to them, “Give me two sentences. Give me one word that you are not satisfied with, and give it to me, and I will send it.” I would imagine each one of you could collect twenty-five, fifty expressions of other individuals of dissatisfaction. Now you are no longer one individual. Now you are fifty individuals.
And all that is required in that is five minutes of your time—no money. You have devices now. You don’t even have to engage postage. You don’t have to engage a telephone call. You can write one sentence, two sentences with your device, press a button and done. And you can’t motivate yourselves to do that two or five minutes of expressing no effort, no cost in time, in energy, in money, in anything to yourselves, but to express yourselves and move in the direction of change.
You all have the ability, you all know you have the ability, and you all don’t do it. And likely, all of you will return to your homes, you will listen to what I have expressed, and you won’t do it. And what I would express to you is that in not doing it, then I express to you in the same manner that I would for yourselves individually: if you refuse to move in a direction in which you take a step, then perhaps your complaining is not worthy of hearing.
If you are merely willing to complain and echo each other in complaining, but you are not willing to generate a step, I can offer you information in volumes. I have, for a considerable time framework, and I will continue to do so, because I genuinely value each and every one of you, and I genuinely express a type of love for each and every one of you that you will not understand until you are not human any longer, and that is very genuine.
But regardless of how much I can offer to you in information and love and encouragement, it means nothing if you don’t do. And it is always your choice. I cannot do for you. You have to do it yourselves.
And I will continue—until Michael’s body is no longer able to continue—to encourage, to support, to offer information, to offer methods and to be that blanket of comfort for all of you, and willingly and in grace and love. And I genuinely encourage you each to take a step. Not for myself, for you. I am not dissatisfied. I am always satisfied. (Group laughter)
YOU are not satisfied, and THAT is what is important. It is that YOU deserve more. You deserve so much more. You limit yourselves, and you stifle yourselves, and you fold yourselves in pages. And you deserve so much more, because you are important. You are valuable. There is no diamond that you can find on your planet that is more precious than each one of you, more valuable. Do you not deserve to be as valuable as that diamond? It is merely a stone. You are essence! You are glorious! You are beings! And you have power.
And in that, you are not victims, none of you. You have power, and you each have grace. And in that, each of you deserves to be satisfied, comfortable, happy, abundant, freedom. You deserve to move in whatever direction you choose and to have whatever you want and to explore wherever you want.
[To Ann] I am aware that you offered gifts to some of the individuals.
ANN: Mm-hm. I would have given them to everybody, if I had them.
ELIAS: And what does it say?
ANN: Togi?
TOGI: Oh no! [Lifts top shirt up to show T-shirt underneath that says “I Do What I Want.”
ANN: “I do what I want.” (Group chatter) You guys—Phil, Debbie—hold them up.
ELIAS: And that is your mantra! (Group applause) That is your mantra, because you deserve it.
ANN: I’ll get that on the back. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: You are not victims of anything or anyone. You are not victims. You are powerful, and you CAN—not you can’t, you can. And you do what you want because you deserve it. THAT is ultimately important.
And if I can impart no other information to you, that is the most important information that all of you can engage, that you are not victims, and you are not small. You are not a grain of sand. Each of you possesses the power of the gods. Literally you do, because you invented the gods. (Group laughter) Therefore, actually you are more powerful than the gods because you invented them.
In this, BE the gods that you are. Express that satisfaction. Notice that dissatisfaction, whatever it may be. Acknowledge what you aren’t satisfied with, what you aren’t comfortable with, what is painful to you. And then engage a step, and let that power show. Radiate it out from you. One step, one action, regardless of how insignificant or how small you believe it to be.
I have expressed many times, you don’t have to believe to begin. You WILL believe. It does not matter that you don’t believe initially. If you feel tremendously frustrated and angry or distressed, you don’t believe you are happy. You believe what you feel. It doesn’t matter that you don’t believe that you are happy. You can express an action anyway, and you will become. But you won’t if you continue to only focus on what isn’t enough.
I would challenge each and every one of you for one week to pay attention to every time you think or feel or express anything not enough, each day: I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough coffee, I don’t have enough ideas, I don’t have enough intention, I don’t have enough money, I don’t have enough work, I don’t have enough vacation, I don’t have enough freedom, I don’t have enough many, many, many, many things. I don’t have enough shoes. I don’t have enough clothes. (Group laughter) I don’t have enough chocolates—it matters not. ANYTHING. Any moment, any feeling, any thought—for one week. How many times do you automatically focus on what you don’t have enough of, rather than how many times do you acknowledge that you DO have enough? Not many.
PARTICIPANT: Not enough.
ELIAS: Definitely not enough. (Group laughter)
And in that, it will give you a definite, very real perception of what you pay attention to and what you don’t do. What step do you do when you tell yourself not enough? How do you change that? Or do you change it? And in most situations, you don’t. You allow it to be not enough, and you accept that. You are worth so much MORE than that. Why do you settle? Why do you express such devaluing of yourselves?
Do you devalue the engineer that creates a space rocket that travels to Mars? No, you are in awe of that individual that invented that. Each and every one of you is the same. That is a human that did that. Each and every one of you is the same. You are all humans. You each have talents, you each have value, you each have interests. You each have gifts, regardless of what they are. And each of you is touching thousands and thousands of other individuals in your lifetime, just as much as that engineer that created the rocket that everyone watches on the television is touching other individuals. But that individual SEES that they are touching. You may not see what you are touching, but that does not mean that you are not doing it.
How do you want to touch? Do you want to touch in not enough, and communicate that? Or do you want to touch in excitement and exhilaration and encouragement? And remember: all those thousands of individuals that you touch within your lifetime, all of them are touching thousands of individuals that you have also indirectly touched. Therefore, now you have touched millions. And you think you are one individual that is insignificant and unimportant and you don’t have a voice and you can’t change anything.
ANN: So, can I ask a question?
ELIAS: You may.
ANN: So, I hear you. But a little confusion, apparently. So, let’s say, and I know you’ve used examples of writing a letter to our…
ELIAS: Not even a letter!
ANN: Okay, or a word or whatever, but it’s to these quote-unquote people that are representing us, or quote-unquote people who are in power. So, what is the difference? Let’s say that instead of doing that, I… my thing, I want clean water, clean air. The environment is my thing, that I want it cleaner. So, I do things. I say well, I took a step and bought dryer balls and then washer balls so I don’t have to put detergent in there. So, is that as powerful as writing a letter to someone who we think is in charge? So what’s the difference?
ELIAS: There is a difference.
ANN: Yeah?
ELIAS: Now, I would very much acknowledge what you are doing. That is a step that you are going for yourself and for what is important to you. And that is tremendous and to be acknowledged and to credit yourself with.
Does it change your dissatisfaction with other expressions? Does it change your dissatisfaction with your leaders?
ANN: No.
ELIAS: No.
ANN: So then the next question leads to… But then, now all of sudden we’re going to be starting that instead of focusing on our satisfaction, now we’re going to—and I know, it’s duality and helping focus on our dissatisfaction leads us to our satisfaction. But all of a sudden, if I start thinking to myself, okay, everything I’m dissatisfied with and taking action on all that, I feel like it could be a (inaudible).
ELIAS: I am not expressing to you to itemize. (Group laughter) I expressed simplify.
ANN: Okay.
ELIAS: And in that, what was I expressing to you in the first half of our conversation? Too much thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking. Repeat thinking. Analyzing. How unnecessary all that thinking is. And in that, paying attention to the thinking, and therefore thinking about thinking. It moves you in circles. And yes, it can overwhelm you. And what does that do? It leads you into—
ANN: To do nothing.
ELIAS: — pain.
ANN: Oh. Or doing nothing.
ELIAS: Yes. Because you are in pain. And in that, that is not the point. Simplify. When I was expressing to you about pain, what did I express? Smile. Walk outside. Not think about, complicate. That is what you already do. You already do that!
ANN: Okay. So can I ask another question? So in my mind, from the things, listening to you and learning from you, if I get myself in a good place, that’s enough. Then that will trigger everything else. I don’t need to focus on… to…
ELIAS: That is the point.
ANN: To having other people change.
ELIAS: That is the point.
ANN: Okay. So, why am I writing a letter to them—
ELIAS: Because you are—
ANN: — to get them to change?
ELIAS: No. That is not the point.
ANN: Okay.
ELIAS: It is not to make them change. It is to help YOU change. It is not about changing them. It is not about changing the outside source.
ANN: And see, that’s what it feels like.
ELIAS: It is about changing you.
ANN: Yeah.
When you engage an action, this is the tie. When you engage an action in relation to what you are dissatisfied with, then YOU generate a perception that you accomplished, that you DID an action. In that, YOU feel better.
ANN: That’s true. Okay.
ELIAS: It doesn’t matter what the other individuals are doing. The point is not the other individuals. The point is what you—YOU are dissatisfied, YOU are in pain, YOU are uncomfortable. The outside source doesn’t change that. The outside source doesn’t take away pain. The outside source doesn’t take away dissatisfaction; YOU do that. Therefore, what YOU do influences your perception, how you perceive your world.
Let me express to you a simple example. You all are aware that there are many places in your world in which there are significant numbers of individuals that are ill or that are starving or that are disadvantaged, in your terms. Now; as an individual, you also, once again, view yourself as one small individual: “I can’t change this situation by myself. I can’t make a difference.” But if you as one individual are looking at those types of situations in your world, and you choose to buy a chicken for one individual in another area of the world, to help them in some capacity, are you changing the world? No. Do you feel differently? Yes. Because you did something.
You expressed yourself in something that is important to you. You were dissatisfied with the situation. And instead of merely talking about it and thinking about it, you engaged a step that SEEMS insignificant, that you know is not the cure for world hunger. But YOU perceive yourself differently because you engaged a step. You connected and involved yourself in what is dissatisfying to you, but you did it in a manner that is positive, that you perceive as positive, that you perceive as beneficial. Therefore, your perception of yourself changes. You are NOT entirely powerless.
ANN: And that was the missing link for me, because I could think about myself, like writing a letter, and actually I did not like that feeling because it accentuated the powerless me. Because I could think about writing this letter and sending it off and feeling bad because it’s not going to do anything. So, the missing link for me was realizing I am powerful, and not necessarily that, but it’s the feeling that goes along with that action, I think.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: We have to know our power.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: And almost have a trust that okay, this is what I am going to do, even if—like you say, take an action—even if you don’t necessarily fully believe it, but just know this is I am doing it, I chose to do it, it’s what I want to do. It’s what I want to do (singing) and so… (Group laughter)
NUNO: A small thing here. You started out by saying, talking about the government, and you said that these people’s jobs—
ELIAS: They are.
NUNO: — depend on you.
ELIAS: They are. And what does that do? It empowers you.
NUNO: It does. But that’s empowerment in a different way than she’s expressed. Because you were just saying if you give somebody a chicken and does it really solve world hunger? No. But it has different effects. It has effect on her, because she’s doing the action. But what you were referring to earlier was an action that affects them.
ELIAS: No.
NUNO: That’s not what you’re saying?
ELIAS: No. What I was expressing was the same. YOU derive the perception of your power, knowing that these individuals derive their power from you. That yes, their jobs are dependent on your support, or the lack of your support. But what they do is not the point. The point is you re-empowering yourself as important, recognizing that you are not subject to them, they are subject to you. They are not the power—YOU are the power, unless you do nothing or express nothing, and then you automatically give them the power. It is a choice of the point being satisfaction or dissatisfaction, comfort or pain. And you choose it. You choose to be dissatisfied by not choosing otherwise. You choose to continue pain by not choosing otherwise.
And I am not expressing that that is easy. I am not expressing that that is not challenging if you are experiencing pain or dissatisfaction. It IS challenging, because your messages to yourself are reinforcing the feelings. And in that, because the feelings are strong and attractive you want to listen to that, and forget that you are the one that is directing it.
Remember what I began with: you are not three entities in one. You are one entity. Therefore, what you feel is not merely that your body is expressing feelings and you have no control over that or you can’t be directing of that, feelings are what they are, they happen when they happen—no. Feelings are not reactions. They are signals. And in that, you are the one that is directing them! They are not SEPARATE from you. If you are dissatisfied, or if you are uncomfortable, it is a matter of generating a step and generating a choice to change that or to be it and continue it. But you have the choice.
It is not a matter of what you think of as the powers that be, that you are changing them. You don’t have that power. Because none of you have the power to change any other individual or their choices, because you are not creating their reality. But you do have the power to give them your power or to keep your power.
It is not about the outside sources; it is all about you. I am not speaking to them, I am speaking to you, because you are important and you are assimilating this information for you, not for them. It is not about changing other individuals or what they do or what they think or what is important to them.
NUNO: I understand that. But what I was confused with was your introduction to the subject, in which you—perhaps I misunderstood it, in which it sounded like by sending a message to them, because we are so many and you said we could collect opinions of fifty people and express it to them and so on and so forth—maybe I misunderstood it, but it sounded like you were saying that in so doing they would be aware of our dissatisfaction.
JOHN: Yeah, that enough number of people do this has a cumulative effect, that does effect change (inaudible).
ELIAS: Yes. That is a byproduct. Yes. And it likely WOULD be influencing. And in that, that is an action that has been borne out throughout your history, that in expressing yourself, especially en masse, when you gather more individuals of like mind or like opinion, you DO change actions. But in that, what the most important factor is that you are unhappy or you are dissatisfied or you are uncomfortable. What can you do to alter that? And in that, it is not enough to think about it; it requires action.
DAN: Okay, so I have a side comment on that. (Group chatter as microphone is passed) Now that I have a microphone in front of me, (inaudible). Adam Sims does the greatest massages. (Group laughter) Please make sure it makes it into the transcript.
ADAM: And my email is adamsims@gmail.com. (Group laughter and comments)
DAN: So, now the question: So (inaudible) the country is divided, right, into liberals, conservatives. So, anything I feel dissatisfaction with, the other side will feel totally satisfied. Like last night, I see a person deported, and I think it’s awful and I started making comments on the article, and there are all kinds of people who get excited about it: oh, he broke the law, he was here illegally, just kick him out, his son can go with him, whatever. So, I [inaudible] the Elias material, I probably should try to accept that as a sign. (Group laughter) What is it that is bothersome about that? So, how does that relate? Anything I am dissatisfied with, someone else is satisfied with.
ELIAS: Precisely. Precisely. And that is the subject of differences. And what have I expressed about differences? You don’t have to agree with them. Accepting doesn’t mean you agree with them. It doesn’t mean you like them. It doesn’t mean you sacrifice your guidelines or what is important to you, to move to the other camp. Accepting only means that you acknowledge that for what it is, and that you don’t necessarily perceive in itself that it is right or wrong, but you acknowledge you don’t necessarily agree with it.
The point is not that you gather everything to your side! The point is not that everyone changes their opinion or their guidelines to match yours, and then the world is perfect. If that is the world that you want to exist in, then you can create your own world and clone yourself in thousands and exist in a world of your own clones. And you will be not happy. (Group laughter)
But in this, the point is not what you are changing outside. That WILL change when you change what YOUR reality is. When you change YOUR reality, the reality begins to change. And in that, I cannot emphasize this strongly enough. I have expressed this over and over and over, and I will again, willingly, because it is important: (emphatically) a natural byproduct of you being primary, of you being satisfied, of you being happy, of you being content and comfortable is that everyone around you is more content and comfortable and satisfied.
When you are not satisfied and not comfortable, the individuals around you are not comfortable either. Therefore, you are the nucleus. You are the center. You all want to be the center of the universe—you are. You are now the center of the universe. And if you are generating choices and actions that allow you to be satisfied, the reality around you changes. It is a natural byproduct. It isn’t that you change the outside. You change you, and the outside changes.
DAN: And so I posted on Facebook, and I feel better. And then someone named Robert says I am a liberal idiot and (group laughter). And I say, “Well, Robert, let’s agree to disagree,” and he says again (inaudible), and I block him and then we are okay. (Group laughter)
NATASHA: What would be—in his example, what would be a good scenario to follow, to be happy, not to be—you are naturally upset (inaudible). He was upset, I was upset, and… for me, my reaction is extreme irritation, aggravation and anger, when I see that. Because everybody’s stupid about it. People are stupid. (Group laughter) But then, what I do, I avoid. I just stop thinking about it, as you said. I distract myself with other things, but somewhere there it’s eating at you. So, what do you do in this situation?
ELIAS: What I would express to you is first, you acknowledge your own guidelines. And you can express your opinion, that other individuals are stupid, and that is what you believe. And in that, you may feel strongly in disagreement from the actions of other individuals.
Now; in that, what do you do after you acknowledge? And this is important, acknowledging what you feel. Most individuals don’t do that. You feel it, and then you keep paying attention to what you are feeling, which then dictates your behavior. Then you become angry, and you ACT angry. And it affects your mood, and that affects what you do. Even if you are making dinner, you are now slamming spoons and dropping food and becoming more angry. Or another individual enters the room, and rather than expressing to them in your usual tone, you are “YES?” (Group laughter) And you are snapping, because what are you doing? You are paying attention to the feeling, and you are allowing the feeling to dictate your behavior.
The first piece is acknowledge that feeling. What does that mean? You define it. You accept it. What does that mean? You identify: “I feel frustrated. I feel angry. I feel irritated. People are stupid.” Then you accept it. What does that mean? You let it be what it is. You don’t attempt to change it. You don’t attempt to squelch it. You don’t do anything with the feeling. You express, “It is what it is. I am angry, and it is what it is.”
Then, after you acknowledge that feeling, then you remind yourself, “What am I doing?” What you saw on your television is not occurring in your living room. It is not occurring in your kitchen. “What am I doing? What am I doing? I am allowing my guidelines to be vomited outward, that the rest of the world should be following MY guidelines. And if you are not, you are all wrong and stupid.”
Your guidelines are perfect and excellent for you. And you don’t have to agree or like other individuals’ guidelines. You can dislike them and disagree with them until the day you disengage. But you also acknowledge. “What am I doing? Am I holding to my guidelines?” Perhaps not. If you are projecting that energy that “People are stupid. I hate them,” what am I doing in that expression? I am not expressing to deny what you feel, not ever. But what are you doing?
And in that, let me express to you, how many of you have in your core guidelines consideration? Or respect? Or loyalty? Or image? (Group chatter and laughter) You are opposing all of those in expressing that projection of energy. Not that you are not entitled to what you feel and what you think—you are, definitely. Your opinion is important, because your opinions are formed by your guidelines, and they are ultimately important to you.
In this, it is a matter of not allowing the feelings to dictate your behavior, but rather pausing, expressing that feeling, recognizing, “This is contrary to me. I don’t like this.” Acknowledging that, and then, once you have expressed it, not allowing the feeling to dictate that behavior, but rather pausing and asking yourself, “Now what am I doing?”
It is so common and so easy for all of you to immediately project your attention out and focus it on something other than yourself. And when you do that, it is so easy for you to blame. And blame accomplishes nothing, other than devaluing. It doesn’t devalue any outside source. It devalues you, because when you blame, you are defending. And if you are defending, you are perceiving yourself as less than. Because if you are not less than, there is nothing to defend. There is nothing to justify.
Therefore, that outside source is not being affected by you being angry or by that effect that you are allowing to occur with yourself. You are being affected. You are being discounted. Do you deserve that? When you remain angry, when you blame, you justify being angry. What is angry? You are angry when you have no choices. Therefore, you are disempowered.
In this, what I would express to you is that you injure yourself when you express in that manner--not that you cannot be irritated. I would, as always, advocate tremendously ALL expressions of emotional communications and feelings, not only the ones that you perceive to be positive or good. You are not eliminating duplicity. All feelings, all emotions are valuable and are important. But none of them are deserving of your attention in the capacity that they dictate to you, and blame is ALWAYS discounting.
LYNDA: And blaming myself for not being perfect and doing it wrong, and I should, is an exercise in futility. But it’s very motivating, because—
ELIAS: At times.
LYNDA: It can be. At times. But for me it is, because if I express the emotion of it, and I know that I’m trashing myself, and I go okay, I’m mad about this and this and this, I think expressing it is a huge step in dissipating it.
ELIAS: Definitely.
LYNDA: And then I go count a few clouds. Seriously. And then—I don’t know if this is off topic or on topic, but falling back into resting in desires, individual desires and the power of that. I do have a strong desire. I have lots of strong desires. And taking an action and projecting my desires out doesn’t have expectations. It doesn’t. Honest Injun. Most of the time, it doesn’t. But because I… In that, I trust the manifestation of it. That’s a different way to live. I prefer it personally, after so many years of trashing shit on myself. And I’m okay if I do it again. I’m just saying.
ELIAS: I would agree.
LYNDA: Thank you.
ELIAS: And I would express that it can be motivating. I would also acknowledge that for many individuals, yourself included—previously, not now—but I would express that for many individuals, discounting themself and moving in that direction and blaming themselves can be considerably devastating and can lead them in a direction in which they perceive themselves to be in an endless hole that they can’t climb out of.
And that was the reason that I have been expressing the encouragement to all of you that you are not powerless and that you are not victims. And regardless of the strength of what you feel, you can alter that. You do have abilities. You do have a voice. And in that, you do have choices. It is never a subject of changing what is outside. It is not a matter of changing the world—it is a matter of changing you, and that changes the world.
ANN: And to change you, you realize you have power, and you can access the power. So, the actions, yeah. Even if you don’t know, just taking an action…
LYNDA: I agree with that. Taking the action of… I can’t tell you how many times people say this is like grains of sand, I have no power here. But I can talk to five people at work and say give me a sentence, give me a minute, and I could put it in an email and send it to the two people that are at the head of Vermont.
ELIAS: Yes, you can.
LYNDA: And it’s NOTHING, it’s nothing. And it’s stupid, and it’s not the intelligent, educated thing to do. I just listed a few things. I’m not even sure about the issues. I just don’t want this guy in office any more. That’s my… I just don’t. That’s my choice.
ELIAS: And it matters not—
LYNDA: It doesn’t matter.
ELIAS: — whether he remains in office or not. What matters—
LYNDA: --is feeling the power. Expressing my—
ELIAS: --is what YOU are expressing.
ANN: Feeling your power of expressing you.
SANDRA: I want to ask a question behind that. On a personal level, the same issue, how does one come to terms with the feeling, acknowledge it, and then move on to share it? Because sometimes the sharing becomes passing the ball, the energy ball and negativity, or it becomes complaining and blaming the self, and then you see it ripple out and [inaudible]. Would you help there?
ELIAS: The key point is expressing it. Now, understand: expressing is not explaining. Therefore, when you smash your foot—let us use that as an example again. It hurts. You are feeling the pain. What do you do? How do you express that? You are not explaining that you smashed your foot. You yell.
SANDRA: Ow!
ELIAS: Yes. Expressing a feeling is not explaining it. It is expressing, which generally is not done in words. Generally, when you are expressing a feeling, you do it in sounds.
ANN: Or tears.
ELIAS: Which also generally will invoke sounds. (Group laughter) Generally, you engage a physical action that involves some type of push-out of energy, and with that push-out of energy, it generally does involve sound with that push. You cry. You yell. You yawn. You sigh. You scream. Generally, you are generating some action that involves sound. You pound, but it makes a sound. In this, what you are doing is you are pushing out that energy. Think of it as, well, as when you are releasing energy and you are expressing a feeling, you are retching. And when you are releasing the energy, you are vomiting. Before you vomit, you retch, you cough, and then you vomit. And that creates a release.
Now, what happens after you vomit? You feel what? Empty. You feel a release. You feel fatigued, but you do feel lighter. You feel empty. You can feel the difference in your body. When you actually express a feeling, you release it. You automatically release it when you actually express it. And when you express it, you feel it go. You feel that energy push out of you.
And what you usually will feel is a slight fatigue, empty. You feel very similar to a balloon that has popped. You feel it when you get excited. When you are very excited and you are elated and you are expressing that, your voice raises, your volume raises, and in that, you are pushing out energy. And after, you feel lighter. You feel a slight empty with that.
This is the reason that when individuals are happy and they are excited, they want to continue to be excited, because they do feel that empty. And they want to do it again. That is the feeling that you generate with ANY expression of feeling. And you know that you have expressed a feeling when you experience that. If you don’t experience that, then you know you didn’t express that feeling and you didn’t let it go.
Another indicator that you didn’t express a feeling and you didn’t let it go is if you continue to think about it, over and over and over again. And if two days or a week later you are continuing to think about that same subject, and you are continuing to generate or you build feelings about it, or you can pull up the feelings about it easily, you didn’t express it, and you didn’t let it go, or you wouldn’t have that energy to do that with.
Therefore, there are simple, easy expressions that are indicators of whether you were successful at releasing energy. And let me express to you: in expressing the feeling, this is another point, that you don’t have to believe. If you are irritated or frustrated or angry, you don’t have to believe that screaming will help. If you do it anyway, it likely will. You don’t have to believe that punching something will release that energy. But you—regardless of whether you believe it or not—when you do it, you discover that it does.
It doesn’t have to be an expression of what the experience was. You have an argument with another individual. It doesn’t have to be an expression of that argument to release that energy. You can do any action that allows you to push out that energy. You can throw rocks into a river. It matters not. You can throw rocks into a river intending to strike fish. You likely won’t strike any of them, but you can have that intention because you are angry and you want to hurt something.
You are not evil, awful individuals if you want to hurt something. You are not bad or wrong if you want to hurt something. Everyone wants to hurt something at some point; you all do. That is not the criteria for you being evil. It is frustration. It is a natural reaction. It is merely frustration, and you want to release that.
And in that, you want some other outside source to feel what you feel, because that validates to you that you are important, that what you feel is important because something else can feel it too. That does not mean that you actually accomplish hurting something; most of you don’t. But it is important to acknowledge to yourselves feelings are not bad. They are not wrong. What you think in conjunction with them isn’t wrong either. It is what you do with it that is significant. And for the most part, what you do with it is to yourself, not to outside sources. That is what we are addressing to.
I will engage one more question, and then we will be disengaged.
Yes?
JASON: At the top of the hour, you expressed about generating satisfaction first, and that that is the way to go about change.
ELIAS: Yes.
JASON: So, I just wanted to bring the conversation back ‘round to that. Now we’ve expressed our feelings and generate some sort of action that will bring us satisfaction. Can you continue down that vein?
ELIAS: In what capacity?
JASON: In how that will… well, you had suggestions about writing a letter, or—
ELIAS: Yes.
JASON: — or doing some sort of an action that would generate a satisfaction. It seems like there’s one more piece to that, perhaps, in generating that satisfaction for ourselves and how that will be a benefit.
ELIAS: What I would say to you, as I expressed previously, reiterating, what you do in relation to yourself generates a natural byproduct and spills outward. Therefore, in most situations, when you do generate a step and you are expressing yourself in relation to your satisfaction and what is important to you, eventually you generally will observe actions beginning to move in a direction in relation to what you were expressing. It may not be precisely, but you will give yourself evidence that your expression is generating a movement. It is generating some difference, in some capacity.
And in that, the first piece that it does is it begins to change your perception, and that is the most important, because when you change your perception, you change your reality, literally. Your reality changes as your perception changes.
And in that, that is the piece about it genuinely does not matter what the outside sources are doing, because whose reality is it? It is yours, and you are creating it. And if you are creating it, then what the outside sources are doing matters not, because you are creating your reality. You are not creating their reality. You are creating your own.
And in that, your perception is the most important, because it is what projects your reality. That is the projector. That is the camera that projects that reality. In that, all of the outside sources are color. They are the shadows, they are the color, they are the background to your reality.
Now; as I have expressed, and I will reiterate for your clarification: you are not changing any other individual’s reality. They are creating their own.
And in that, in their reality you may be agreeing with them. You don’t change other individuals’ realities. You all individually are creating your own individual realities. You are intersecting with other individuals, but even that you are doing precisely. You are placing yourself in positions every moment of every day to be encountering whatever is in your reality.
When you draw to you, it is not that you are pulling something into your reality—you are putting yourself in its path. You are placing yourself in that scenario, in that place, in that time. That is what is meant by you draw to yourself or you create everything. You do, because you created being in that time in that place in that moment in that interaction with that individual or with that scenario very precisely. You do it every moment of your existence in physical focus. In that, it is exceptionally precise. It is immaculate.
That is how powerful you are. And you do it without thinking, and for the most part without even knowing that you are doing it, with no effort whatsoever. That is considerably powerful.
Therefore, stop concerning yourself with what is occurring outside. If you are not satisfied with what is occurring outside, I am not expressing that you are not aware of it. Stop concerning yourself with it. And remind yourself: “If I am not satisfied with what is out here, then I change me and my perception, and out here changes too.”
ANN: So to kind of sum it up, if I’m not satisfied with what’s out there, I’m doing it for me. I’m changing me. I’m not doing it to change them. I’m saying, “I don’t like this so I…” and to follow my guidelines while I’m expressing, too. And I don’t want to discount people, so you’re right. So I would write a letter to say, “This is what I want, and I’m expressing it because that is what I want.” Not because I will need a change, but that is what I want and I’m powerful and I deserve what I want. I think I got it! (Group applause)
ELIAS: Precisely. Yes. Yes.
JASON: Elias, just to clarify. We talked a lot about government officials, but it’s the same process no matter what the dissatisfaction is?
ELIAS: Most definitely. It matters not if it is that subject or if it is your cat or if it is your partner or if it is your job or if it is your yard. It matters not what it is. Whatever it is that you aren’t satisfied with, that you perceive is something outside of you, what aren’t you satisfied with? What part of that outside source is dissatisfying to you or uncomfortable for you? What is it in you that isn’t comfortable? That is what you address to. And what can you do? What action can you do to change that, or to express it?
JASON: That’s what I thought you said.
ELIAS: Excellent!
I express tremendous encouragement to each and every one of you, great exhilaration in what you are capable of, and a tremendous acknowledgement to each of you of what your power can do and what it is already doing. (Chuckles)
Until our next meeting, in tremendous lovingness and great supportiveness as always, and in the reminder of how important each one of you are, in tremendous lovingness as always, au revoir.
GROUP: Au revoir. Love you. Thank you.
(Elias departs after 1 hour and 34 minutes. Total session time was 2 hours and 35 minutes)
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