(A link to Mary's talk before the session is available here)
“At this point, you incorporate so much information and you have practiced to a significant degree, that this movement isn’t difficult. It is merely a matter of paying attention.”
Saturday, October 21, 2017 (Group/Hinsdale, New Hampshire)
Participants: Mary (Michael), Aaron (Todd), Adam (Avril), Ann (Vivette), Bonnie (Lyla), Brigitt (Camile), Britt A., Daniil (Zynn), Debbie (Tamarra), Hernan (Hernan), Jason (Spensar), Jean (Lyla), Jim (Marion), John (Lon), John (Rrussell), Karen (Turell), Kathleen (Florencia), Kyla (Amie), Linda (Robert), Lisa T., Lynda (Ruther), Magdalena (Michella), Natasha (Nicole), Naomi (Kallile), Phil (Patre), Sandra (Atafah), Val (Atticus) and Veronica (Amadis)
NOTE: Elias was very animated during this session and made many of gestures.
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
GROUP: Good afternoon, Elias!
ELIAS: (Laughs) And today, I present to you a question: how self-aware are you? What would your estimation be of how self-aware you are? And because you are so fond of percentages (group laughter), what percentage would you give to yourself in how self-aware you are?
ANN: As a group or an individual?
ELIAS: As individuals.
ANN: 75.
ELIAS: 75! (Group laughter)
ANN: (Laughs) Don’t sound so shocked!
KATHLEEN: 44.
ELIAS: And?
VERONICA: It varies from day to day.
ANN: Just pick a number.
ELIAS: In general.
VERONICA: Percentage? 50.
ELIAS: 50. Very well. (Group chatter) What would you say?
JIM: If I’m lucky, 20-25%.
ELIAS: Very well. What would YOU say?
LISA: 50. (Group chatter)
ELIAS: And what would you say?
SANDRA: 62.18 (Group laughter)
ELIAS: 62.18. Very Sumafi. And you?
JASON: 45.
ELIAS: 45. And you?
JOHN: 49.
ELIAS: 49. You?
FEMALE: 71.
ELIAS: 71. You?
FEMALE: 30%.
ELIAS: 30%. You?
FEMALE: Probably 30.
ELIAS: 30%. You?
HERNAN: Ah! With luck, 3%. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: (Inaudible) And you?
AARON: 60%.
ELIAS: And you?
KAREN: 59%.
ELIAS: And you?
VAL: Probably about 48.
ELIAS: You?
FEMALE. Point 25. (Group laughter).
KYLA: I would say maybe about 50, but I’m not sure. I’m on the fence.
ELIAS: Very well. And you?
NAOMI: 60.
ELIAS: 60. And you?
DEBBIE: I would say zero.
ELIAS: No.
DEBBIE: It’s like zero and at the same time, because wherever I am, that is where I am.
ELIAS: Choose a general. (Group laughter)
FEMALE: 50 (Group laughter).
PHIL: Irrelevant.
ELIAS: Ah, but it is relevant.
PHIL: Okay. In the 80s.
ELIAS: Very well.
BONNIE: 62.
ELIAS: And you?
FEMALE: 75.
ANN: We didn’t get John yet.
ELIAS: And you?
JOHN: I’m at 60.
ELIAS: And you? (Group laughter)
MALE: It has to be a number.
FEMALE: 75. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: Now; what I would express to all of you, those of you that estimate yourselves to be between 30 and 50% self-aware are correct.
ANN: Oh lord. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: Any of you that estimate yourselves to be higher than 50% self-aware are incorrect.
SANDRA: Well! (Group laughter) So there.
ELIAS: Now; define what is being self-aware.
JIM: That’s what I was about to ask you. (Group laughter)
JASON: Aware of what you are doing.
ELIAS: That would be partially.
JIM: Paying attention to what you are doing.
ELIAS: Partially.
VERONICA: In the moment.
ELIAS: That is another part.
KATHLEEN: Aware of your all-ness.
ELIAS: What does that mean?
FEMALE: Aware of the what?
KATHLEEN: Your all-ness. Your multidimensional aspects. The multiplicity of yourself. The not-just-this-physical-body pieces of yourself.
ELIAS: Now; what I would express about that is yes and no. Yes, but not in the manner that you perceive it.
ANN: Aware of our connection to everything?
ELIAS: Yes.
KAREN: Aware of our journeys?
BARBARA: Aware of how we’re treating others?
ELIAS: That is part of it.
BRIGITT: Aware of our constructs?
ELIAS: That is a VERY definite part of it.
KAREN: Aware of our energy?
ELIAS: Yes.
AARON: Connection to our essence.
ELIAS: Yes and no. Again, yes, but not in the manner that you perceive it because you still perceive your essence to be something other than you.
KYLA: Intentional. (Group chatter)
ELIAS: Yes.
DEBBIE: Separation, non-separation simultaneously.
ELIAS: Yes. Yes. That would be a piece.
ANN: And aware of how we’re creating our reality.
ELIAS: Which means what?
ANN: Knowledge. Which means we’re aware of what we’re doing. Choice! Yeah.
ELIAS: Choice.
ANN: We’re aware of our choices that we’re making.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: And all big choices. (Group chatter) There are no small choices. Because all choices are big choices, apparently. I’m just reiterating.
ELIAS: Correct.
ANN: I didn’t come up with that on my own. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: You are correct.
ANN: Even though it was brilliant. I would love to take credit.
ELIAS: And beyond choice, what would be connected with choice?
LYNDA: Action.
ELIAS: Yes.
BRIGITT: Motivation.
ELIAS: Yes. (Group chatter) Yes. What motivates your choices. Why you do what you do whenever you are doing it, in every moment.
This is not an exercise in work. This is not an exercise in effort. This is not a subject of “This is so exhausting. There is so much to think about.” No, there is actually not much to think about at all. You generally are thinking about much too much and complicating everything that you are doing.
Remember our first formula about you project energy, you reflect energy and then you react or you choose. Reacting is the automatic, not being present. Choosing is intentional.
Now; in that, we have discussed reflections considerably through time. But I would ask you at this point, how do you generally perceive reflections? Do you think about them? What do you see with them? How do you perceive what you reflect to yourself? Everything is a reflection. Therefore, what does that mean to you? What does it mean that you are reflecting?
ANN: At this point I still do… my first thing is "It's them, not me." I mean I’m still there, but I am aware that I’m there. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Which is significant.
ANN: Right. Yeah, yeah.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: So, but I start—like if I remember, I will play around with the idea that that is me, like I’ll change myself and see how the other changes. Not as often. I’ll probably do it more now because I want to be more self-aware, but yeah.
ELIAS: Let me give you another formula in relation to reflections that you can actually use and implement. And it is applicable to anything: to interactions with other individuals—and that is what will we use as an example—but it is applicable to anything. You can use this formula for every reflection.
Now; when you project energy, you generally aren’t objectively aware of what you are projecting—which is the reason that you generate reflections, to allow you to be aware of what you are projecting. But you don’t necessarily see what your projection is in that reflection. You automatically move to mirrors, and you don’t necessarily see what is the interaction that is occurring. What are you projecting? What are they projecting? What is the interaction? What is the connection that is occurring? Even if it is what you don’t like.
And I have given you much information about reflections and that there is always a piece of a reflection that you want, but even that, it is somewhat abstract and difficult for you to actually apply in practical terms in actual interactions.
I would ask one of you to offer an example of an interaction that you may have engaged with any other individual that may have been confusing or bothersome to you.
LYNDA: I have one.
ELIAS: Very well?
LYNDA: This is Lynda. I had a difficult interaction with a coworker this last few days. (Sighs) I need to be concise here. He interpreted…he got very mad at me and he… I felt like I triggered him, I triggered something, and he felt like I was dismissing him by asking him to do a certain thing. And we got into a very heated conversation, and he had a lot to say about my relationships in the office, and he was pretty strong and angry at me. And I said, “Really, I am genuinely sorry if you’re frustrated.” And I felt so bad about myself. And I asked him to forgive me, and he said, “It’s not about forgiveness.” And we sort of ended the conversation.
And the next day was very difficult. We sort of avoided each other and I really… I just felt bad. And I know what to do when I feel bad. I looked for what I was telling myself. I got the dismissive part, and I got the feeling like an invisible part, and then I decided that no matter what, I really have known this guy fifteen years and we’re going to be friends, and I’m just going to back off and let us chill.
And it did reconfigure itself, and he started to relate to me again. But it was a pretty intense scenario, and it was just discounting all the way around.
And that’s all I’ve got.
ELIAS: Very well.
LYNDA: Okay.
ELIAS: Now; do each of you incorporate a device or paper?
GROUP: Yeah. Yeah.
ELIAS: Engage them now.
GROUP: Okay. (Group chatter)
ELIAS: This is your formula. We will use this as an example to illustrate and outline the formula.
Now; what did you feel? (Looks at Lynda)
LYNDA: Horrified. Let me just describe that.
ELIAS: No. I am not asking for description or explanation. What I am asking is define the feelings that you were experiencing. It may be more than one. Therefore, you may have one, you may have two, you may have three. What were you feeling when the initial confrontation occurred? What did you feel?
LYNDA: At first I felt confused. Confusion.
ELIAS: Very well. Write that down.
LYNDA: Confusion.
ELIAS: [To group] All of you write that down. (Group laughter)
Now; what other than confusion did you feel?
LYNDA: Disappointment.
ELIAS: Disappointment. Did you feel anything else besides confusion and disappointment?
LYNDA: Sadness.
ELIAS: Sadness. Anything else in that moment? Not later—in that moment.
LYNDA: (Pause) I wanted to be defensive, but I tried to shut up. I felt like that. Is defensive a feeling?
ELIAS: Yes.
LYNDA: Okay. Because… okay.
ELIAS: Now; what do each of those mean? Place an equal sign after each word. What does the confusion mean to you?
LYNDA: I felt misunderstood.
ELIAS: Misunderstood. (Pause)
What is your next feeling?
LYNDA: Disappointment.
ELIAS: And what does that mean? What did it mean in that moment?
LYNDA: I thought he knew me.
ELIAS: Exposure.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: That disappointment in that moment meant exposure.
And the next?
LYNDA: Sadness.
ELIAS: And what did that mean in that moment?
LYNDA: He’s like my kid, and I felt sad that I hurt his feelings.
ELIAS: What did that mean in that moment? What did you lose?
LYNDA: I thought I lost his friendship.
ELIAS: Very well. Loss of friendship.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: And the final word: disappointment. In that defensiveness—
LYNDA: Just defense. I wanted to defend my…
ELIAS: And what does that mean? What did that mean in the moment?
LYNDA: I wanted to defend my position and tell him I was his friend and here’s why.
ELIAS: What did that mean in the moment?
LYNDA: To defend myself?
ELIAS: Yes. What is a word that…? (Group chatter)
LYNDA: Justification?
ELIAS: Very well.
LYNDA: Okay. Yes. Justification.
ELIAS: Justifying your position.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: Now; create an equal sign for ALL of those.
LYNDA: Okay. For misunderstood, exposure…
ELIAS: ALL of them. Yes.
LYNDA: Okay.
ELIAS: All of them, together, equal what?
GROUP: Discounting (chatter).
ELIAS: All of them together.
Look at your paper. All of them together would equal what?
JOHN (Rrussell): Disconnection?
ELIAS: Could be.
NAOMI: Separation. (Group chatter)
ELIAS: Therefore, each of you write your word of what it all means.
NATASHA: Equals.
ELIAS: Yes.
LYNDA: One word for all of them.
ELIAS: Yes. What does ALL of that equal? To each of you. (Pause)
Now; let me express to each of you: whatever that equals, all of it equals, is not any of the words you’ve already used. It must be what all of that that you have already expressed equals, not what you have already included. (Group chatter) Write it down. (Pause)
Now; what have you expressed? What is your equal to all of it?
FEMALE: Unvalued.
ELIAS: And yours?
JOHN (Rrussell): Disconnection.
FEMALE: Unacknowledged.
KAREN: Fear.
VAL: Discounting.
NAOMI: Separation.
DEBBIE: I think mine is neutral. Neutrality.
ELIAS: Neutral! With all of that? All of those feelings.
DEBBIE: Well, let me tell you why. Because I came up with powerless, but I don’t stay there. Maybe I should, but I…just because it was about control, that powerless. And I'm like, but I don’t feel that. So maybe I’m moving, but I didn’t stay in that powerlessness. But that was what it came up with, that it disintegrated.
ELIAS: But write the powerlessness.
DEBBIE: I shall.
ELIAS: Excellent. Very well. I am understanding. But for the point of the formula and the exercise, write that. [To Kyla] Yes?
KYLA: Self-judgment in my construct of belief systems.
ELIAS: One word.
KYLA: Okay. Self-judgment. Does that count?
ELIAS: That will.
KYLA: Okay.
AARON: Self-discounting.
HERNAN: I don’t know if it’s the word, precise. Bowled over?
ELIAS: Yes. Very well. Excellent.
MAGDALENA: I don’t know. I think misunderstood?
ELIAS: Very well.
FEMALE: It’s not one word, but it’s loss of self-importance.
ELIAS: Very well.
MALE: Betrayed.
ELIAS: Very well.
FEMALE: Validation of self. That’s more than one word.
LYNDA: Oh. That’s exactly how I felt.
ELIAS: Validation?
FEMALE: Of self.
ELIAS: That is what all of those equal to you? Or INvalidation?
FEMALE: Ah! Okay. (Laughs) You’re correct.
ELIAS: Very well. Very well.
ANN: I did, first of all, I'm not connected. And then the second word I got was unsafe.
ELIAS: Excellent.
JOHN (Lon): Unworthy.
VERONICA: Disequilibriation.
ELIAS: Very well. Yes, I am understanding. Yes. And you?
FEMALE: Pain. And then underneath that I put injury.
ELIAS: And you?
FEMALE: Fear.
ELIAS: And you?
MALE: Separation.
ELIAS: And you?
FEMALE: Disconnection and not mirroring what really is.
ELIAS: And you?
DAN: Mostly unsure.
NATASHA: Not enough of me.
LYNDA: What?
NATASHA: Not enough of me.
ELIAS: Very well.
Now; the next step is to incorporate this formula. Now reverse it. Now move from the end to the beginning. What you are doing, now understand: this is not about understanding the other individual. That is NOT the point.
Reverse the formula. This is what the other individual is expressing to you. All of this, what you ended with, that is what the other individual began with. And all of those pieces in your formula are what the other individual expressed to you.
VERONICA: Not your perception but what (inaudible)?
ELIAS: No. This is what the other individual is expressing to you. YOU projected all of that energy before you were even aware of it.
GROUP: Wow.
ELIAS: And the other individual reflected that and began at your endpoint and expressed ALL of those points back to you.
Now; the point in this formula is not understanding what the other individual is doing, or in your terminology where the other individual is coming from. No. That is not the point. The point is to illustrate this action of energy being projected and reflected for what reason? Choice.
LYNDA: Yeah. Mm-hm.
ELIAS: Because if you know all of these pieces, if you know what is being reflected back to you through this formula, then you have choices, not either-or. While you are experiencing this, you don’t see any choices. You are reacting.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: Whether you speak or not, within you, you are reacting. Your attention is fixed on the other individual and what they are doing and what they are expressing and how they are speaking and what their tone is and what their energy is, and you are feeling. You are receiving that energy, and you are feeling.
And you are, with your thought mechanism, attempting desperately to catch up to the feelings in interpreting what you are feeling, what is happening in this moment. And your thought process is attempting to evaluate and interpret and translate all of that. And your feelings are moving faster than your thought process.
Therefore, it is attempting to catch up and process. And what it does is generates explanations. Which distract you and reinforce the FEELINGS, because that is the seat of your concentration: the feelings, what I am feeling. And you reinforce that and you become tense, and you react more.
And what do you do when you react?
FEMALE: You ignore choices.
FEMALE: You perpetuate and limit your choices.
ELIAS: (Chopping hands together on each word for emphasis) Fight, flight, freeze.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: You either react by moving towards the other individual and expressing aggression towards the other individual – which is a defense, but all of them are defense – or, you become very distressed and you want to run away. Even if you don’t physically run away, you run away within you. You start thinking of other things. You start thinking about all the justifications and how the other individual is wrong, and justify, justify, justify. That is the running away. Or you freeze and you become blank. You don’t think anything, you don’t respond to anything, you don’t move—you merely freeze.
JASON: Elias, just to clarify, what did Lynda do before this happened that projected that energy? Is that generating the confusion, disappointment, sadness at a prior time, previous to this interaction?
ELIAS: In the moment.
JASON: In the moment.
ELIAS: In the moment.
Now; understand. Understand. One of the key pieces in this formula – this is enormously key. Therefore, I will express to you: write this in BOLD letters. (Group laughter and chatter) Underline it five times. (Group laughter and chatter) REMOVE THE PERSONAL PIECE.
LYNDA: Oh god.
VERONICA: Remove the personal what?
LYNDA: Piece. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: Because the projection wasn’t personal, and the reflection isn’t personal, either. Remove the personal piece.
Which automatically moves your thought process in the direction of diverting to understanding the other individual. Because now you are looking at the formula in reverse, and you are – without the personal piece – you are moving in the direction of analyzing the other individual and the formula and what they were doing. That is NOT the point. It matters not what the other individual was doing or what their motivation is. That is unimportant.
What is important is what YOU were doing and how you reacted, and how you aren’t looking at the reflection and what you are DOING with the reflection within yourself. What are you automatically doing? Do any of you recognize what you are actually doing, what you were doing in that moment? What were you doing?
LYNDA: Personalizing.
ELIAS: And in doing that, what were you doing?
LYNDA: In personalizing the situation?
ANN: Projecting.
LYNDA: I projected my personal— No, wait. Just a second. Okay, I just want to say one thing. Make that 40%. (Group laughter)
That was number one. Number two: … (group laughter and chatter)
ELIAS: This is an important clue.
LYNDA: No, let me just get this, because the personalizing thing is a big—is like in my face.
ELIAS: And it is very definitely significant with most individuals.
LYNDA: Oh, I know. I’m not alone. (Group chatter) Okay.
ELIAS: What are you doing in the reaction?
LYNDA: I’m just going to say I’m making it about Mike. I'm making it about him.
ANN: Losing your choices.
FEMALE: Disconnecting?
LYNDA: Oh! I had no choices. (Group chatter)
ELIAS: This is one of the pieces that is so in front of your face—
LYNDA: —that you can’t see it. Right.
ELIAS: —that you don’t see it.
LYNDA: Okay. What is it?
ELIAS: And it is something you do so frequently.
MALE: Make it important.
ELIAS: You pay attention to the feelings, and you (emphatically) let the feelings dictate your behavior.
LYNDA: Yes! Okay, can I just say one thing about that? Okay, I’m not going to blame it on being emotionally focused, but I just did. (Group laughter) But I stood there and I went, “Okay. I am insane with a lot of feelings, and I know I’m personalizing.” What I tried not to do is slam myself into the next millennium for personalizing. I did sorta take the high road with myself, but I couldn’t do anything else. The feelings were so overwhelming. I was riveted.
ELIAS: And that is the point.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: That is the point.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: That is why I am expressing—
LYNDA: Yes.
ELIAS: Listen.
LYNDA: Thank you.
ELIAS: That IS the point. Because this is what you do. This is what most of you do. You become caught and trapped in the FEELINGS. Whether it is anxiety, whether it is sad, whether it is angry, irritated, frustrated, confused, you become caught in the feeling, and you automatically allow it to dictate your choices and your behavior.
What is your behavior? How would you define your behavior? What is it?
JIM: It is your reaction to almost everything.
LYNDA: How I act.
ELIAS: Your behavior is not necessarily a reaction.
ANN: Your actions.
FEMALE: A response? (Group chatter)
ELIAS: It is your actions, but how?
SANDRA: Your perception.
FEMALE: Constructs?
VERONICA: A projection of where you are in the moment.
ELIAS: No.
JOHN (Rrussell): The physical action of projection.
ELIAS: Partially.
LYNDA: How it presents?
ELIAS: Yes. (Group chatter)
FEMALE: How you automatically deal with things.
LYNDA: Yay! (Group chatter)
ANN: How she presents herself.
ELIAS: It is how you present yourself in every moment. Which includes your mannerisms, your posture, how you hold yourself, how you speak, your inflection in your voice, your tone, your volume and your mood.
FEMALE: Aren’t those all your projections, Elias? What you’re expressing?
ELIAS: It is what you are expressing in every moment, but HOW you are presenting yourself. It is your presentment of yourself. It is what you do.
ANN: It's how you behave!
BRIGITT: Can it be confused with personality?
MAGDALENA: It is to be in control with yourself? Controlling yourself?
ELIAS: No. No. Now you are complicating. I am merely expressing to you the definition of— (participant inaudible) Yes. And in that, yes, there are many, many, many different behaviors that are influenced by different expressions and different subjects. But in this, what I am expressing to you is that when you focus on what you are feeling, which for most of you is entirely automatic, you automatically focus on what you are feeling.
And it is not merely emotional feelings; it is physical feelings. If you are in pain. If you are experiencing some dysfunction, some irritation. I would say that if you are itching, you are FEELING that irritation, you pay attention to it. It doesn’t matter whether it is a physical feeling or an emotional feeling. All feelings— write this down and underline it five times: (Group laughter) ALL FEELINGS ARE SIGNALS.
KAREN: Mm-hm. Elias 101. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: They are not communications. They are not explanations. You do that later. (Pause)
Feelings are signals. Some signals are very subtle, some signals are very loud. Some signals are very intense. But they are all signals, the same as a stop sign or a traffic signal or a yield sign. Those are all signals. They aren’t explanations. You don’t stop and stare at them for hours at a time. (Group laughter) You see them, you know what they are, and you move beyond them.
That is what feelings are. They are very important. They are expressions to be acknowledged, most definitely. They are not to be ignored. (Slowly and clearly) But they aren’t designed to dictate your behavior and your choices, and you have moved in a direction of allowing them to do so.
How self-aware are you, if your feelings – which are only signals – are determining what you do, how you do it and when you do it? “I am distressed." "I can’t go to dinner." "I can’t think." "I can’t interact with my children because I can’t do anything.” “I am depressed. I can’t function.” “I am anxious. I can’t sit still.” I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t."
“I am sad. I can only express that. I can’t do. I can’t connect.”
“I am excited. I can’t listen unless you are excited with me.”
“I am jubilant and happy. I can’t be in your presence because you are too negative.” (Group chatter)
Many, many, many, many "I can’t, I can’t, I can’t," all being dictated by what you feel. And all those feelings are only signals. You aren’t genuinely paying attention to what those signals are alerting you to, because if you were, you would have choices. But when you aren’t, all you know is what you feel.
And then, with the feeling you move automatically into the justifications about the feeling. And how do you do that? You explain and explain and explain and explain: “Let me tell you what happened and why, and what I felt and more of what I felt and why I felt it, and then what happened and then what I felt and why I felt it.” And on and on and on and on and on. And if you don’t do it with other individuals, you do it with yourself. And you churn and you churn and you churn, and you cannot escape this pit that you fall into of all these feelings that you can’t escape.
The point of this formula is that you can see choices. You have choices. You are not subject to your feelings.
Do your traffic signals regularly fall from their posts and collide with your head? (Group laughter) And knock you unconscious? I would venture to say not. But that is what you allow your feelings to do. You allow those signals to knock you out. The one-two punch. A traffic sign that is a yield or a stop sign does not jump from its post and attack you, but you let those signals of feelings do that. (Slowly and deliberately) They are only signals.
JIM: So, every time I have a feeling, I am supposed to sit down and write out this formula?
ELIAS: You didn’t have a feeling. You were merely listening and responding. That wasn’t a feeling.
JIM: Oh, okay.
ELIAS: But, I would express that the more intense a feeling is, the more disoriented you become with it.
LYNDA: Right.
JIM: Right.
ELIAS: And the more you don’t know what to do because you are reacting in those automatic expressions (chopping hands together): fight, flight, freeze.
The more self-aware you are, the more you recognize what your natural expression is. (Chopping) Fight, flight, freeze isn’t wrong or bad. It is a natural response that each of you has to what you perceive as danger. When your feelings are expressed in intensity of overwhelm or fear or sadness or defense, that is because there is a perceived danger.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: Your SELF, each one of you, has an automatic, in-built response to danger. It’s not all the same. Some individuals express move towards the danger and fight it off, fight it away. Some individuals run away from danger. And some individuals freeze and be invisible—whatever the danger is won’t see you.
Every species in your world is agreed with this piece. It is a natural, automatic piece of your physical being. It is your automatic protective system to ensure your existence. But you have TURNED it in a manner in which you pay more attention to the signal and to what the signal is about. Or—or, you don’t pay attention to the signals at all.
LYNDA: And they get bigger.
ELIAS: You have learned to NOT pay attention to the signals, and you — that does not mean you don’t respond to them. You do. You merely aren’t paying attention to HOW you are responding to them, because you aren’t paying attention to what you FEEL. Therefore, you don’t notice the feeling. You definitely don’t notice what the response is to the feeling. You merely do it.
Therefore, you either are not aware of what you feel and respond to it—without being aware of that either—automatically. Or, you are aware of the feelings and you pay attention to them to the degree that you allow them to overshadow everything else, and they become the central point that directs you. They are now directing you. Who is steering the boat? The feelings.
And when the feelings are steering the boat, that can be dangerous because you might steer into a storm or into a rock, or you might capsize the boat entirely. Because YOU aren’t steering it. The feelings are.
SANDRA: So the same thing may be true even in a positive sense, if your reflection—
ELIAS: Oh, most definitely.
SANDRA: Because if your reflection is a positive one, then everything you do is happy, amazing and joyful, and we go through this whole thing again where we feel connected and loved and appreciated, and then the final thing—I don’t know—is worthy? Say the final outcome, it’s still a reflection. We go through that process because when we get to the end of that process we can choose how we will respond?
ELIAS: Yes.
SANDRA: Okay. And then, what I’m sensing with all of this – by the way, this is Sandra talking to the mic. (Group laughter) No, it’s okay now. The things is, then you’re in a kind of neutral place, aren’t you somewhat? In other words, when you’re looking at choice and there’s a spectrum of choices, the witnesser of all that choice is somewhat neutral, isn’t it?
ELIAS: In a manner of speaking, but that doesn’t mean that you DON’T feel.
SANDRA: No, no. Right.
ELIAS: And it doesn’t mean that you don’t have importances.
SANDRA: Right. Right.
ELIAS: But the piece that is different is the reactive piece and the intentional piece.
SANDRA: Right. Would you explain that intentional part again?
ELIAS: (Pause) That is being present and intentionally choosing—not automatically choosing, but choosing in an intentional manner in which you know what you are choosing, and you know why you are choosing it, and you know what the ripple is of it.
Therefore, one of you expressed including other individuals. I would express that when you are self-aware, you are automatically also aware of everything and everyone around you. You are aware of your choices and HOW they ripple. Not only what they mean to you, but what they mean in the big picture and how they ripple out, with not only the individuals around you or whatever is around you, because it isn’t only individuals that you affect, but everything.
Therefore, being responsible to you is being self-aware. And when you ARE responsible to you and you allow yourself to expose to you – exposure is not about other individuals or what you put out to the world. Exposure is about you and what you expose to you.
And in that, when you are self-aware and you are being responsible to you, you expose to you, which gives you more choices and changes your importances and INCLUDES everything else, because you are aware and you know that whatever you do is not only affecting you; it is affecting everything.
VERONICA: So your intention – this is Veronica. I’m trying to understand. Your intention causes your reflection?
ELIAS: In a manner of speaking, but you might not know what your intention is. If you are self-aware, then yes, then you are aware of what your intention is when you are projecting energy, and you are actually directing it.
VERONICA: Well, in an interaction with another person, a conversation, it is your intention that is building or manifesting in a reflection?
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: Would a self-aware, a 100% self-aware person, ever want to cause harm to another individual?
ELIAS: No. Because in doing so, they would be aware that they would be harming themself.
ANN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Because you are.
ANN: Yeah.
JOHN (Rrussell): This is a question about the fundamentals, so if it’s tedious for everybody here, just skip it, but I’m stuck. With the equation, I’m sort of stuck in what it means and as to how it works to put it in reverse. But could you walk me through that very quickly?
ELIAS: You reverse the equation. Now; on the other side of the last word—
JOHN: Disconnection, in my case.
ELIAS: — the last part of the equation is the other individual.
JOHN: That’s the other individual.
ELIAS: Now; the other individual is beginning with that last word.
JOHN: Okay. And so…
ELIAS: Therefore, that is what THEY are projecting. That is what THEY are experiencing, what their expression is, what their energy is, maybe influenced by some issue of their own or in the moment, some expression that is irritating or bothersome to THEM. But that is the beginning point for THEM.
Then you move in reverse through the equation. All those pieces, the other individual is expressing.
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: And that energy is being projected to you.
JOHN: The secondary…
BRIGITT: The first word.
JOHN: The first word. The second word.
BRIGITT: Or the last word.
GROUP: The last word.
ELIAS: The last word is their beginning point.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: Then they move through.
JOHN: They start with disconnection and they move—
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: — thusly—
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: —to defensiveness.
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: Justification.
ELIAS: Yes. Yes.
KAREN: So that those other words after their initial word are not OUR projections--it’s them.
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: But it is what I’m feeling.
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: That’s the connection.
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: Okay. My feeling originates with them.
ELIAS: No, your feeling originates with you. You project—you first, you project. How is the equation initially engaged? With you. Your feelings. Those are your feelings, correct?
JOHN: Correct.
ELIAS: It starts with you and what you are projecting. Then you reverse it, and that is what the other individual is projecting to you.
BRIGITT: In response.
ELIAS: Yes. Which is the same in reverse. Now, that doesn’t mean you SPOKE first. The other individual may have come to you and began to fire at you. It doesn’t mean that you expressed in a physical manner first, but your energy was doing that first.
That is the equation. You know because you can identify what you felt, what you felt when the other individual expressed to you. You didn’t know what you were expressing. You didn’t know what you were projecting before the other individual entered the room. You didn’t know what you were projecting.
JOHN: Correct.
ELIAS: You may have been feeling neutral, feeling fine, feeling calm. Remember: feelings are not an indicator as to what energy you are projecting.
LYNDA: I was, too. That’s exactly how I felt.
ELIAS: You can be feeling fine, and the other individual bursts into your room and begins to yell and is firing these accusations at you, and you are immediately stunned, you immediately incorporate the automatic protective reaction—fight, flight, freeze—then you begin to feel. And all of this happens within a fraction of a second.
And you begin to feel. And what you are feeling is in response to what the other individual is doing. But the other individual is reflecting. They wouldn’t BE there if they weren’t a reflection. They would not be in your presence if they weren’t reflecting. Therefore, they ARE in your presence, therefore they ARE reflecting, therefore your question immediately is, “Why did that happen? What did I do?”
KAREN: Okay, Elias, just to go back with Lynda’s example. I just want to walk through this. Lynda was sitting in her world, by herself at the office. She was feeling confusion, disappointment, sadness and defensiveness in her own world?
LYNDA: No.
KAREN: No? This is Karen/Turell.
LYNDA: I was in the warehouse doing work, and Mike came up to me.
ELIAS: It is not the feelings.
KAREN: Yeah. Right.
ELIAS: You are not understanding. That is acceptable. (Group laughter)
KAREN: Thank god.
ELIAS: It is the energy.
KAREN: Okay.
ELIAS: She’s not feeling the energy that she is projecting. She may be incorporating a week of confusing and irritating or discounting situations.
KAREN: Right.
ELIAS: And in that moment, she may not be feeling anything.
KAREN: No, I get that, that she’s not actually feeling that consciously, but it’s under the surface.
ELIAS: Yes.
KAREN: She’s not recognizing it.
ELIAS: Yes.
KAREN: But that’s where she’s at.
ELIAS: Not being self-aware.
KAREN: Not being self-aware.
ELIAS: It doesn’t… Therefore, there aren’t feelings being generated in that moment because they are signals. There are no signals in that moment—
KAREN: That’s what I meant.
ELIAS: — because she isn’t necessarily doing anything in that moment to signal her of anything new.
KAREN: Yes. I understand that.
ELIAS: Or anything different. She’s already been experiencing, therefore the feeling is unnecessary. She already knows what is occurring that she is engaging.
KAREN: Right.
ELIAS: Therefore, her body is not necessarily signaling her.
Now; that set aside, the formula is designed for you to have a means to decipher what your projection is and how it was reflected, and therefore know what you can choose because of that information and because of that reflection. If I see all these pieces, what can I do in relation to this or this? What are my choices in this moment, [louder and emphasizing] other than only feeling?
KAREN: Okay. And so, the middle emotions, once you asked us to choose the second list…
ELIAS: That is what it means to you.
KAREN: Okay.
ELIAS: The beginning is what you feel.
KAREN: Yes.
ELIAS: Define it. Give it a word. What is the feeling? That equals this meaning.
KAREN: It’s more specific to us.
ELIAS: To you individually, because one feeling can have many different meanings. You have a finite amount of feelings. They mean many, many, many different expressions. Therefore, in that, you define the feeling and then you express what it means. And then with the whole of it all, you define what all of that means together.
Now; when you get to that point, that is what the other individual began with.
DANIIL: Okay. So, if we step back for a moment, right, and look at this formula, more often than not the beginning will be not too far from the end, right? So, if someone comes out of the blue and makes me feel insecure, and I begin to analyze that unusual insecurity (inaudible), the end result may be different, but it is likely to be some degree of confusion or whatever on the part of the other individual, right?
So, the first thought that comes to my mind is okay, I'm feeling all those negative or disturbing feelings, but maybe, just maybe, the individual also is feeling those feelings as well—similar, not identical, but something similar, right? Now I can decide further, but the thing is that my end result may be somewhat similar, so now there is a camaraderie. Now I feel that, the other person probably also feels that. Maybe [he doesn't] mean to harm me, maybe [he is] just as insecure, just as shaken, and [he] project[s] that, right?
Now, this is a gross oversimplification, because sometimes my manager gave me some instructions. I felt discounted and directed and this and that, and I came to the conclusion that really he didn’t mean all those things, he was just repeating the procedure that I chose to ignore. So, that may have been a signal to me that I am ignoring my place of worth and I am opposing my own position and all that. But the initial benefit, I think, of the formula is that the person who is reflecting me is feeling somewhat similar to what I am now feeling, and hence I can step back and say… or again, he doesn’t mean it entirely. He feels similarly. Is that accurate?
ELIAS: That would be, in what you’re describing, the piece of not personalizing, taking out the personal aspect. You are expressing that in recognizing in the reverse of the formula that the other individual is beginning with those feelings, yes. Therefore, you are removing that personal aspect of it.
And that is ultimately important, because regardless of what the other individual is expressing to you or how, let me say to you in your wondrous percentages (group laughter), 98% of the time whatever is occurring between individuals isn’t personal. Even when it seems to be, it actually isn’t, because it isn’t about the other person. When you are expressing in a manner and you are blaming or you are expressing an instruction or you are moving in an aggressive manner with another individual, it isn’t personal to them—it’s you. When they are doing it, it is the same. It isn’t personal to you—it’s them.
In this, let me express to you, in that 2% of the time that it actually IS personal, it is either an offering of acknowledgement, a connection, an expression of appreciation – not hatefulness, not anger, not blame, not instruction, none of those. Not frustration—none of it. That is not personal.
When an individual actually IS expressing in a manner that IS personal to you, in that small 2% of the time it is either that in which it is an acknowledgment and appreciation in some capacity, or it is an expression of the other individual entirely throwing off any responsibility of their own onto you and intending it to be personal to you. And most of the time when an individual does that, you don’t incorporate accepting it as personalizing it. You laugh at it. You automatically don’t accept it.
FEMALE: That’s true.
DANIIL: So, the first benefit of the formula is that misery loves company.
ELIAS: No. (Group laughter)
DANIIL: So, the other guy feels just as bad as I do. That’s a beginning of camaraderie and making friendship. The second one is yeah, I can chill now because he feels just as bad, and he's (group talking and laughter)—and then the next benefit of the formula is that there is something he’s telling me about myself. Right? Or there is something that I’M telling me about myself. And that is what the formula is designed to help out, to zoom in on. Is that…?
ELIAS: No. (Group laughter)
I would express that that is excellent that you would use it in that manner, but that is a tremendous complication of the formula. The formula is merely simply designed to allow you to see choices.
JOHN (Rrussell): You talked about what choices could be, right? You talked about what those choices could be in generalities, right? But going back to the example, and maybe to put you on the spot, Lynda, or just hypothetically, if you were to relive that situation knowing the equation, what would you have done differently? How would you have behaved differently, and what would the other outcomes be?
NATASHA: Good question.
FEMALE: What would the choices be?
JOHN: Yeah.
SANDRA: Could that be after the break?
LYNDA: I think I would have recognized betrayal right away and went “Ha! I know betrayal.” And I may have. In hindsight it’s really hard to say 'cause I was overcome, but I may have recognized the betrayal thing and got a clue to start reconfiguring my energy, maybe. That would have been my trigger, maybe.
JOHN: You’d behave by smiling, or maybe…?
LYNDA: No, I wouldn’t do anything. I may turn around like my cat and walk away, I don’t know. But I would not feel threatened. I don’t think I would feel as threatened as I felt—
ANN: Maybe you would have chosen to be more present.
LYNDA: Yeah. Yes. All of that.
MALE: Just accept it.
LYNDA: Definitely. I would have chosen to be more present.
ANN: And acceptance. Chosen acceptance.
LYNDA: But realizing first that I was reflecting something very familiar to me may have triggered me to take action to step back and do all those things.
JOHN: But you didn’t have a preferred outcome in that situation?
LYNDA: Do what?
JOHN: You didn’t have a preferred outcome in this interaction?
LYNDA: A preferred outcome. Yeah, but it never happened, actually. But that’s me.
ELIAS: We will continue that and address to it after the break.
GROUP: Okay. Good.
ELIAS: That is a good point. Very well. We shall break.
GROUP: Thank you. Thank you, Elias. See you soon!
(Break after 1 hour and 17 minutes for 45 minutes)
ELIAS: Continuing. [Addressing John/Rrussel] We will begin with you.
JOHN: Oh yeah. Okay, so what we had left it off, my asking [if] the point of the equation is to offer ourselves more choices. So therefore I’m looking at the example, and I’m saying what other choices might you have made? And the only way you can answer that question… That’s one question, but I also made a comment that the only way you can answer that question is if you have a preferred outcome of any given interaction. [Elias reacts as if to question that] Maybe preferred outcome is too strong of a word, because that would suggest a scenario (group laughter in reaction to Elias' face)…
FEMALE: Automatic response.
JOHN: But an intention. And…
ELIAS: Not necessarily.
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: Because in the moment you might not have an intention, although you automatically, in a scenario such as that, don’t want to be experiencing what you are experiencing. And you already know that. You’ve already generated an assessment and an evaluation, and you’ve already made an association in that moment that you don’t like what you are experiencing, that you aren’t comfortable and you don’t want that. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, that in itself is an intention.
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: But it isn’t necessarily an intentionAL intention.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: But in that, the reason that we continue with that is because that is actually an excellent question and point, of once you have reversed the formula, if you did that, the point would be that you would have choices. Therefore, what would your choice be? What choice can you see, NOW, in reversing the formula? If you look at your formula and you reverse it, what choice can you see? Or what choices can you see from reversing that formula?
LYNDA: I want to say this and not expose too much of a personal motivation here, but I think I was too forthcoming with the scenario because I… In this person’s eyes, I lied to him. And I confessed that I lied to him. And saying that is pretty much what triggered his even stronger response.
He was already strongly responding, but I would not have felt compelled to confess all of my reasons for why I did what I did. I don’t know how that sounds, but I definitely would have paused, because I didn’t call it lying. I called it making a decision in a moment that was my choice to make. And I felt good with the choice. He didn’t need to know that. He didn’t need to know that. I was directed in one direction and saying that took it off another…
I don’t know if this is even right, what I’m saying, or if there is a right, but I would not have been so in the confessional of and exposing something that genuinely was none of his business, if I had been more paying attention to myself and paused. I don’t even know if that’s close, but that…
ELIAS: I acknowledge what you are saying. And I would express that I understand what you are expressing. And what you expressed now is an excellent example for this, because it didn’t answer the question.
LYNDA: Okay.
ELIAS: And the reason it is an excellent example is because this what all of you automatically do—you explain.
LYNDA: Right.
ELIAS: You continue to explain. And the continued explanation continues to move in that direction of justifying. And the more you justify, the more you feed the feelings, and the more you let them direct you. Therefore, this is a wonderful example.
LYNDA: Well, I feel exposed right now and really uncomfortable, because I just confessed my sins to my friends, which is probably (inaudible) we had talked about. Yes, this is very useful. Thank you. I love you. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: This in itself is an excellent example, what you are feeling now.
LYNDA: Now.
ELIAS: Which is what?
LYNDA: Exposed. Uncomfortable.
ELIAS: What does that mean?
LYNDA: That I’m… oh boy, here goes.
FEMALE: Not safe?
LYNDA: No, I don’t feel safe. I also feel like I’m not such hot shit. And that’s embarrassing.
ELIAS: [Nods and smiles] I’ll stop. (Group laughter)
LYNDA: Stop, Lynda!
ELIAS: Now, let us use that. And this is a scenario in which you are not engaging one individual. You are engaging an entire group of individuals.
FEMALE: We all do it.
VAL: We all do it. We love you, Lynda. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: Stop! The point is not to fix it. The point is not to be expressing reinforcement of the feeling, to encourage the individual to continue to be focusing on the feeling: “We love you.” “We feel for you.” This is encouraging the concentration on the FEELING, not on the choices.
Therefore, this is not only about you. They are ALL participating in this.
FEMALE: Oh god. (Group laughter and chatter)
FEMALE: We're pooling for her to continue with that by doing that.
ELIAS: And when you are thinking and feeling you did something wrong, now all of them are thinking and feeling they did something wrong by encouraging you. None of you did something wrong. All of you are following the FEELING, which is the point, which is precisely the point of what I am expressing to you.
You are following the feeling and allowing the feeling to influence and dictate what your behavior is, what your choice is. And this is an excellent example, because you think you are being good. You think you are helping. You think you are positive. This is the point. It is not about positive or negative.
This equation applies to all of it. Feelings, whether they are positive or negative, does not matter. It does not dictate necessarily what energy you are projecting. You think if you feel good that you are projecting a positive energy—not necessarily. You think that if you are being sympathetic, you are projecting a helpful energy—not necessarily. What you FEEL isn’t an indicator in relation to what your energy is doing. What you DO is the indicator. What you FELT was sympathy or empathy; that is acceptable. What you DID was express the encouragement to pay attention to the feeling.
ANN: And we were doing that wanting her to feel better.
ELIAS: Yes. Yes. But no.
ANN: Right. Right. Yeah.
ELIAS: You were doing it because YOU want to feel better.
GROUP: To feel better. Okay. Oooooo. Wow.
ELIAS: You want her to feel better—
ANN: So we can feel better.
ELIAS: — because YOU want to feel better. Because she feels not good or uncomfortable, now you feel uncomfortable.
LYNDA: And I’m starting to feel RESPONSIBLE for them. (Group laughter) Seriously. It’s not a good combination. I don’t like that. Okay. (Hums)
ELIAS: This is carrying it on. What are you doing?
LYNDA: Focusing on the feeling. Okay.
ELIAS: Yes. And then what are you doing? Creating another one in the same direction.
LYNDA: Of responsibility.
ELIAS: When you look at the formula and you reverse it, and you can see what these feelings are, what they mean, then you can choose. Do you want that? Is that what you want to express? What DO you want to express?
FEMALE: To the person?
LYNDA: (Pause) What I want to express is getting back to me and being comfortable in myself.
ELIAS: You want to express being comfortable.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ELIAS: And what you do is you choose that and DO.
LYNDA: And feel it.
ELIAS: No.
LYNDA: I mean, not feel it—do it.
ELIAS: You DO. You do a different action.
FEMALE: And what could she do?
LYNDA: Go outside. Do anything. Start doing stuff like that. Just shift maybe.
ELIAS: You could.
LYNDA: I could.
FEMALE: Like walk away?
SANDRA: You could spin the ring on your finger while you sat there.
ELIAS: No. That is not accomplishing, is it?
FEMALE: No.
SANDRA: You mean if you spin your ring, it’s not…?
ANN: You could accept yourself.
ELIAS: She isn’t changing anything.
LYNDA: No. My energy is still hanging.
SANDRA: Oh. So that wouldn’t be a…
ELIAS: Very well.
LYNDA: Listen, don’t say too much, though. Oh, I’ll hear the tape. Thank you.
ELIAS: And if you walk, what are you choosing to do?
LYNDA: Count clouds, trees, hug a tree. I’ll go hug a tree.
ELIAS: Stop thinking.
LYNDA: Oh yeah. Stop thinking. AND hug a tree.
ELIAS: Do something different. Choose to DO something different.
LYNDA: Okay. [Lynda leaves for a period of time]
FEMALE: How interesting.
SANDRA: Does that mean get up and move the body?
ELIAS: (Clearly) Choose to do something different.
ANN: Okay, can I ask a question? Sometimes if I am uncomfortable and I would just say, “Okay, I’m just going to accept it.” And I’m not DOING anything different, but it does give me relief sometimes. Is that a different action?
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: So that IS a different action.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: When I say, “I’m just accepting…”
ELIAS: You can do that—
ANN: And feel relieved. Then I know.
ELIAS: — because what are you doing? You aren’t fighting with it any longer.
ANN: Right.
ELIAS: You ARE doing something.
ANN: And that’s a different action. I’m not fighting.
ELIAS: It IS a different action.
ANN: I let go of fighting.
ELIAS: Yes.
KAREN: So, Elias, with Lynda’s example just now, where we felt sympathy for her—Atticus said, “We feel for you,” or “We’re with you”—I think the danger for myself personally is, in the face of something like that, sort of blocking Lynda out. You know, like “I’m not feeling you, Lynda.”
ELIAS: And that is an excellent point also, because that is another automatic action, and that isn’t helpful either—not to you, not to the other individual. Because when you block out the other individual, you are blocking you.
KAREN: I think you talked about, with Spensar’s session a couple of months ago or a month ago, about leaving the situation but you’re still with the people. Can you go through that again? Because that was a little… So, how can we be with Lynda without blocking Lynda?
BRIGITT: And without sympathizing with Lynda.
ELIAS: Ah! It is not about not sympathizing.
ANN: So, could I say—
ELIAS: It is not about not empathizing, not sympathizing. You feel what you feel. It is not about not FEELING.
BRIGITT: But it’s about not expressing that feeling.
ELIAS: It is not about not EXPRESSING a feeling. It is a matter of what you are doing and knowing what the motivation is.
ANN: Okay, so what if I wanted to… Like I’m thinking, “How DO I want to act towards her right now?” Like obviously, I’ve just been told sympathize and it feeds into the feeling, but I’m thinking… To me, what is an honest feeling that I could share with her, or honest whatever? As I’m sitting here, I’m still a bit confused. But it is bringing more clarity, this whole example, so I am feeling a little gratitude towards her, so could I share my gratitude with her?
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: And say, “That was very helpful to me.”
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: And that’s a choice, and kind of being more intentional in these choices is your guidelines. It’s weird, because it’s your feelings that you’re not supposed to be paying attention to, but then my feelings—
ELIAS: No! No! No!
ANN: No, I know, I know, I know. We’re not supposed to keep going and feeding.
ELIAS: Correct.
ANN: Don’t feed the feeling. But the feelings are also the indicators of what I’m doing!
ELIAS: Precisely.
ANN: Okay! Maybe a little piece, a little piece, a little piece of it! (Group chatter).
ELIAS: Yes. Your feeling is indicating what you are doing. It is signaling you that you have compassion, that you are empathizing because you have reference points that you have felt that. Therefore, your processing mechanism moves so fast, so quickly.
As I have expressed with some of you previously, if you imagine within you [that] you have little tiny individuals inside of you, and you have volumes of filing cabinets inside of you and they store all of your memories, all of your experiences. And in any moment—a MOMENT—you are experiencing, you witness another individual display an emotion. And your little individuals are so fast, they immediately (claps) have found your file that you felt that at some point. They immediately (claps)have the reference point. You don’t think about it. You begin to feel. That is YOUR signal. You are empathizing. You are sympathizing. You have compassion for what you are witnessing, what you are observing.
In that, rather than choosing—because you aren’t processing in a manner objectively in which you are aware of your choices—you are merely reacting. You react with an immediate expression: “I am so sorry.” You aren’t recognizing what the motivation for that “I am so sorry” is. You automatically think that that expression is showing the other individual that you sympathize, that you empathize, that you have compassion, that you care. But actually the motivation is: “That is uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable. Stop!” Therefore, I express out and then I can stop feeling.
Which is very similar to the block. The block is merely more obvious. It is a more obvious choice. I am choosing: “No, I block that out. I won’t feel anything. I don’t receive that.” (Emphatically) It is coming from the same motivation. It is being expressed from the same center.
In that, being self-aware, knowing that your feelings are signals, knowing that that is beneath that a statement as to what you are doing in this moment: “I am accessing. I am referencing my own feelings. I am feeling compassion. I am feeling compassion, not feeling sorry for. I am feeling compassion. If I want to express that, what are my choices? How do I want to express that?”
You might merely approach the other individual and touch them. You might not even embrace them; you might.
ANN: How come her feeling compassion…? See, I’m a little fuzzy again. So, how come feeling compassion, like she’s saying, “We’ve been there,” sharing it…? Because you know, sometimes when you are feeling sad and someone says they’ve been there, you feel better. You do! If someone says, “I’ve been there, it’s been painful.” Or, you know what feels better? It’s just knowing the other person wants to be with you.
ELIAS: Precisely.
ANN: Okay. I kind of get that. It’s fuzzy.
ELIAS: Not necessarily—
ANN: Okay. I get it. It’s very… It’s not solidified yet.
ELIAS: Not necessarily. If you actually, if you actually evaluate what you actually feel when another individual expresses, “I know what you feel. I have felt this,” and if they offer an explanation—
ANN: Then it takes away from you sometimes.
ELIAS: — you are entirely lost.
ANN: Yeah.
ELIAS: They have already, for the most part, lost your attention.
ANN: Yeah. And it’s really that, like you say that—
ELIAS: Because that isn’t a validation.
ANN: Okay, I kind of think I’m getting it.
ELIAS: The individual wants the validation, but in a genuine validation. Your terminology of relating, that is you accessing your own experiences, and now the subject is about you, not about them.
ANN: Yeah, I think it’s easier if you say… You’re right! I think I’m getting it. If you ask yourself, “What is my motivation?” and then it’s easier to know what to do.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: Okay.
ELIAS: Precisely. And in that, if you know what your motivation is, you don’t have the personalizing. Even in this, there is personalizing occurring because you are accessing your information, your experiences that are similar, the same, and therefore now you are personalizing the other individual’s experience. Which is what you are always doing when you personalize—you are personalizing the other individual’s experience.
In that, when you remove the personalizing piece—when you remove the personal—then it is a matter of: “This is my feeling in this moment. Do I want to express an action with it?” You may or you may not. You may merely feel it. If you want to express an action with it, what are your choices? What is a genuine expression of that? It may merely be to not express words at all. It may be to [Elias leans forward and touches John]. The other individual in that one touch knows that you see them and that you heard them.
ANN: Can we do one on me right now?
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: Just because it’s such a familiar feeling that I want to bring it up. So, even in this, where I’m a bit excited that I’m starting to get it, but coupled with that is anxiety that I’m not going to be able to keep this understanding or not fully understand it, or that I’ll lose it. So I’m feeling more anxiety right now. I can feel it, like the more anxiety that I’m not understanding what I think I’m understanding, that I’m not getting right what I think I’m getting right. So, then, I take…
ELIAS: And what does that mean?
ANN: That would mean that I’m incompetent. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Very well.
ANN: Okay.
ELIAS: And what does all of that mean together?
ANN: That I can’t do what I want to do. That I can’t accomplish.
ELIAS: Now; you are once again—in a very similar situation in this present moment, you are not encountering one individual. You are encountering an entire group of individuals, and therefore your interaction is not with one individual.
ANN: Right.
ELIAS: Or, we could express that you think you are expressing merely with myself, but you aren’t.
But in that, then reverse the formula. That is the energy that is reflecting to you. Therefore, if you see that energy coming towards you that is reflecting TO you, what choices do you see in relation to that? If you are only thinking about what you are feeling and attempting to decipher “what are my choices in relation to my feeling?”, you are automatically about to move in the direction of attempting to decipher how to change them.
ANN: Right, right.
This is not about changing them. It is about choosing different. Therefore, in that, when you reverse the equation, then you see that from the other direction coming towards you. Now you are not thinking about your feelings; you are thinking about, “Oh, this is coming from the group. This is coming from—"
ANN: This energy coming from the group. Right. About not being able to accomplish.
ELIAS: Yes.
ANN: And then I could—
ELIAS: And what are my choices in relation to those statements?
ANN: Well, I could, for myself, remind myself at times I have accomplished when I didn’t know what I was doing, to maybe define myself. Or is that reinforcing the feeling? Actually, I’m lost now.
LYNDA: Can I ask something? Could you insert at this point – because this reminds me of a scenario at work that we discussed with another person, and you said this person is projecting their particular fear. It came from me, because I was anxious. But that—now that I remember that—actually set me free, because I realized it wasn’t me. It’s not me! Oh, my god. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: The removal of the personal.
LYNDA: Yeah.
ANN: But back to this. Yeah.
ELIAS: You remove the personal.
ANN: So it’s not me...
ELIAS: Remove the personal. And what are your choices in relation to those types of expressions? It isn’t personal.
ANN: It’s not personal.
ELIAS: Therefore, incompetence—
ANN: It’s not me.
LYNDA: It’s not the issue. You’re not incompetent.
ELIAS: Therefore, it doesn’t hold the significance and the importance that it did, because it isn’t personal.
ANN: Right. Ah!
ELIAS: If you remove that personal piece, then you are merely dealing with ideas. You are dealing with words and the meaning of those words, but it isn’t personal. Therefore, you can choose in different directions. They lose their intensity.
ANN: So, what are the…? Give me some choices.
SANDRA: Yeah, what would it be? Would it be appreciation? "Thanks for sharing," or…? What do you say?
ELIAS: To the other individual?
SANDR: Yes. The example she just gave.
ELIAS: What would be the response from you?
SANDRA: No, from her.
ELIAS: Ah!
SANDRA: What would she say now to us?
ELIAS: What would you choose?
SANDRA: What would you choose?
ANN: Okay. So, now if I’m taking out the personal, and I realize it’s words and ideas, I would choose maybe just to listen to the words and ideas more. (Laughs) I would just start listening with a different—more interest and curiosity. I would listen in a different way.
ELIAS: Which is different. Yes.
ANN: Right. Right. Okay.
ELIAS: A different action.
ANN: Which would actually help me probably understand it better, when I get rid of the “I’m not going to be able to figure this out.” Then I probably wouldn’t, but when I’m like “Oh, that’s interesting,” then I’ll probably understand quicker.
SANDRA: So, "I hear you"? Would that be a good thing to respond?
ANN: So, what? Thinking doesn’t offer new information?
SANDRA: “I hear you?” Or “I understand you?”
ELIAS: No, because she is speaking to herself. Her own choices.
ANN: Yeah. Myself. My own choices to myself.
SANDRA: Oh! Oh!
ELIAS: Her own choices. She is not responding to you or to myself. She is responding to herself, what her choices are.
LYNDA: Stop being the other person.
SANDRA: Okay.
ELIAS: Now move in the other direction. What of those of you that aren’t necessarily aware of feeling much?
ANN: (To John) Right here, baby! (Group laughter and chatter)
SANDRA: I don’t even know what feelings are. I just wanted to say, I’m not aware of… When Lynda said that she was confused and disappointed, I didn’t even know those were feelings. I thought those were just some belief or construct. But a feeling? I’m going to look up the list of feelings I would say.
ELIAS: Safe is a feeling.
SANDRA: Yes. That’s an odd one also. I only know sad, anger… the five or seven of them, and that’s all I really know. Because I don’t think I’ve let myself go out far enough, or they weren’t part of my reality for some reason, growing up.
ELIAS: Which is a situation and a reality for many, many, many individuals, that they aren’t aware of their feelings. I have expressed several times that all of you express between thirty and fifty feelings a day. How many of you are aware of that many feelings? How many of you are aware of that many signals that you give yourself every day?
BRIGITT: The same feeling forty-eight times. (Group laughter and chatter)
ANN: That many different feelings?
ELIAS: Between— (Group chatter) No; not necessarily different. They might MEAN different things, but I would say between physical feelings and emotional feelings, between thirty and fifty a day. But you don’t notice them because you don’t pay attention to that. You aren’t self-aware to BE aware of all of those feelings.
And let me tell you this: none of you are an exception to that. Merely because you don’t notice them doesn’t mean they don’t occur.
But another point in this, in being self-aware, which is also significantly important is what I have expressed to you previously many times, but this day we will approach it slightly differently to emphasize it. And that is the piece that connects with also your motivation, but in relation to what you do, not necessarily what you feel.
And in that, every action you engage, everything you do, no matter what it is, there is a motivation for it. You don’t necessarily know what that motivation is, you don’t necessarily pay attention to it, and in many situations literally you don’t care what the motivation is.
But all of you have experienced time frameworks in which you feel good, in your terms, you seem to be moving in a good direction, you are noticing synchronicities—I know you love that word—(Group laughter) you are moving in a direction that everything you do is seeming to be easy for a time framework, and SUDDENLY (claps) something occurs, and you have an experience and it all is bad. And you are confused and you are expressing, “Why did I do that? What happened?” You are in a good mood, everything is moving smoothly, and you are in a car crash, or a bicycle crash [looking at Jason, who had a bike crash last summer]. (Group laughter) And you are significantly injured, and perhaps you can’t work, and perhaps your mobility is significantly limited. And you are expressing shaking your head and expressing to yourself, “Why? Everything was fine. Why would this happen? What happened? Why did I do this?” or “I didn’t do this. Why did this happen to me?” But many of you would express, “Why did I do this?” And then you immediately begin to analyze and attempt to decipher some significantly wrong thing that you were doing.
Or that you are moving in a direction and everything is wondrous and it feels good, and it doesn’t quite move in the direction that you expected. And you are disappointed and expressing once again, “What did I do? What did I do wrong?”
The point in this is about motivation and once again about what you do all day long, every day, repeatedly in these actions that you think of as being insignificant, little or small that you pay no attention to. You merely do them, and you have no awareness of what energy those actions are doing.
Now; let me incorporate the question to all of you: what is the most frequented room in your house?
GROUP: The kitchen. Kitchen and bathroom.
ELIAS: I would express it is likely you engage your kitchen more than you do your bathroom. That you enter that room more times than you even incorporate your washroom.
Now; as I have expressed to some individuals, every time you move into your kitchen, which all of you have in some form or another, you are looking for something. It may not be significant in the moment. [Looking at Jean and smiling] It may be ice cubes. (Group laughter from those who are familiar with Jean's "ice cube" session) But every time you move into that room, you are looking for something. Therefore, this is a significant room in your home.
Let me also express to you, for most of you this room is likely the most frequent room in which conflicts begin. They might not end in that room, but they begin in that room.
VERONICA: You mean within yourself or with others?
ELIAS: With other individuals, but also with yourself. But conflicts between individuals generally do initiate in that room. The reason for that is because in that room you also create expectations in relation to what you are looking for and in relation to what you don’t find.
You develop the "not enough" in relation to your kitchen more times every day, and that energy is building and accumulating every day. “But I am thinking about abundance!” (Group laughter) “And I am doing actions about abundance. I am putting a dollar bill into a container every day to be practicing paying attention to abundance.” And every day you put one dollar into a container, once per day, to be practicing abundance, and you enter your kitchen TWENTY times in that day and find something that is isn’t enough. (Group laughter and chatter)
ANN: The moral of the story: put a dollar in your container every time you go in the kitchen. (Group laughter)
ELIAS: Ah! That would be an excellent exercise. I would express that generally most individuals’ reaction to that would be, “That would be too much.”
ANN: Oh, I’m doing it!
ELIAS: Automatically, “That would be too many dollars in one day.” Therefore, even in that, immediately your reaction would be, “That is too much. I can’t afford it.” What are you doing? Not enough, not enough, not enough.
In this, I would express when you enter the kitchen to wash the dishes, are you aware of your motivation? No, you merely go into the kitchen and wash the dishes. If you go into the kitchen and you follow another individual that you reside with and they happen to leave the bread on the counter, and you walk in and you find the bread on the counter, what is your automatic expression? Not enough cooperation.
ANN: “I have to do everything myself!”
ELIAS: Not enough help. Not enough consideration. Not enough paying attention—on the part of someone else.
Now; let me illustrate to all of you, which I have with a few of you previously, but let me illustrate to all of you now: it isn’t merely that one time. You walk into the kitchen and another individual that you reside with left the bread on the counter, and that individual isn’t present at the time. You log that. (Group laughter) You hold that energy. You might not remember when you encounter the individual initially, but as soon as the other individual is also in the kitchen, then you remember and then you express, “Don’t leave the bread on the counter,” or “You left the bread on the counter again,” or more passive, “The bread gets stale if you leave it on the counter.” (Group laughter) In those statements, all of them, there is an expectation, and that carries.
And later in the day, you are both in the kitchen again and the individual places their teacup on the counter instead of in the sink, and the bread energy resurfaces and builds. And now you are slightly more agitated and you are expressing, “Cup in the sink, please.” And the energy is building. And then you are not in the kitchen, you are in another room, and the other individual simply does some action. They may walk in front of you, maybe as simple as that. And you snap. And you express, “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?” (Group laughter) And the other individual is looking at you and is generating eyes as large as saucers and is expressing, “What did I do?”
The point is, what did you do? And carrying that energy. And in that, how often it is reinforced. And even if it isn’t reinforced in that capacity, which it is in many, many, many situations, but even if it isn’t reinforced in that situation or that type of situation or leading to a conflict in that, “I am concentrating on abundance. I am concentrating on abundance. I will create abundance.” And every time you enter that kitchen, fifteen, twenty, thirty times a day – and you do enter the kitchen that many times – and every time you do, there is SOMETHING in the kitchen that isn’t enough—something. The floor isn’t clean enough. There is something. And that energy you don’t even notice. You don’t pay attention to.
You generate an instantaneous thought or feeling, and you immediately dismiss it, and you don’t think about it and you aren’t aware of it. And then you wonder, while everything is moving smoothly and you feel good and you are happy, and you are thinking that your energy is moving in a wonderful direction, and something dramatic or painful or distressing or conflicting occurs, and you are wondering why that happened. Or, you are wanting abundance and you are thinking about abundance and you think you are doing in the direction of abundance, and it seems that everywhere you look, something in your home is breaking, (Group laughter) and you are continuously paying out rather than pulling in. Why? You are concentrating on abundance. No. You are practicing with not enough, over and over and over and over and over again. This is the reason that what you do every day in those mundane actions is so important, and why it is important to pay attention to that.
It doesn’t mean “I have to pay attention to every single action I do and be logging that and express all this energy”—no. You can be aware of what you are doing in less than a second. That is how quickly you process. In less than a second you can know what you are doing. In less than a second you can be aware of what your motivation is, and you can notice what you are doing. How much time does it require to reach for an ice tray and pull it out? Two seconds? That is very quick. Within that action, in the time that it requires for you to do that action, which only requires two seconds, you already can be aware of why you are doing it, what your motivation is. What are you doing? You already have all that information. It is not difficult. It is not time consuming. It doesn’t require all this effort. It isn’t hard. It actually is easy.
And let me express to you, my friends, what is the payoff, the reward for being more self-aware? It is that action of not walking through mud any longer and floating in your life. Does that mean you will never engage any type of conflict? No. But you will know what it is, very quickly. Does that mean that you will never experience loss? No, but you will experience it differently. Does it mean that you will never incorporate a moment in which you are confused? No, but very quickly you will understand, in the bigger picture, it isn’t that your intuition was wrong or that you aren’t continuing in a direction of what you want. You merely haven’t unfolded it all yet. You merely haven’t observed or seen the bigger picture yet.
Your energy IS moving in a direction that you want. It IS following your desire. What are you paying attention to? How much you are accomplishing, or what you don’t have yet?
KATHLEEN: How much you love what you’re doing. And can I equate what you said to what our little innovative not-quite-yet science wave offers us? And that is the pop-up. It’s like a trigger or an association that pops up in your experience. And when you are experiencing lots of joy and lots of being satisfied with your creations, and where you’re projecting your energy and what’s being reflected back to you, you get those pop-ups. Because we want to dig as deep as those actually are constructed, and they are constructed very deeply in our psyches, right? So, they’re going to keep popping up with each instance that indicates them, because there’s still another piece left.
It’s kind of like a molar they didn’t get all of out or something. That’s a bad example, but it’s like the pop-ups on your phone that you hate, but they’re there to tell you something. And it gives you a moment that you take the opportunity to make that choice, to either go “Oh, that sucks!” or “Okay, I’m getting a moment here.” Take it, breathe, whatever.
ELIAS: Everything is an opportunity. Even what you hate. Even when you are uncomfortable.
JASON: Elias? So, as you practice this paying attention to your expectations and noticing when you’re finding not enough, and each time I assume you notice it, those expectations kind of just fall apart? Is that what happens?
ELIAS: At times, yes. Merely being aware, at times, is enough. With some, it may be a matter of changing a habit. Therefore, it may require paying more attention because you fall into habits that you do that you don’t realize that you are doing.
Even in how you speak to each other there are manners in which you speak to each other automatically at different times, and you don’t necessarily notice. Or a tone of voice that you have at times that is automatic that is responding to what you feel in relation to what you are interacting with. Or it can affect how you speak, faster or slower. Because even in that you are responding to feelings that you have in the moment. That doesn’t mean the feeling may be immense. It doesn’t mean that it is overwhelming. It is a very slight feeling, a very small, slight signal. But it is enough of a signal that it alters how you speak, how you stand, how you carry yourself, what your inflection is, whether you speak fast or slow. And in that, you don’t notice.
But I would express that yes, in many situations, in many subjects, that being aware of it is enough. Once you are aware of it, then you continue to be aware of it.
Let me express in this manner: with some expressions or some things that you notice, it is very similar to women when they are pregnant. When a woman is pregnant, she seems to notice every other woman around that is pregnant. Every woman that she encounters seems to be pregnant also, because she is pregnant and this is a significant change for her. She doesn’t think about that change, but she is aware that something is different with herself—SHE changed. She is now pregnant. Therefore, it seems that there is a population explosion about to occur because every other woman seems to be pregnant.
It is very similar. You buy a red car, and suddenly everyone has a red car. In that, when you give yourself something that you notice, that you genuinely are aware of and it is important, that revealing is important – not necessarily the subject, but the reveal is important. That in itself, in many, many subjects, is enough, because then you remind yourself of it automatically. You see it everywhere. You see other individuals express in a manner—that reminds you again. You see yourself. You begin to see yourself NOT doing it, and you see yourself not doing it over and over and over again, and THAT reminds you. Therefore, for many subjects, yes, that is enough.
This is another piece. It isn’t hard. You are not as dense as you think you are. (Group laughter)
FEMALE: Or as we used to be.
ELIAS: You never were.
And you ARE shifting. And you ARE expanding. And you ARE becoming more self-aware. And at this point you incorporate so much information, and you have practiced to a significant degree, that this movement isn’t difficult. It is merely a matter of paying attention. That is all. And it isn’t as hard as you think it is, and you aren’t as thick as you think you are. And you know more than you think you know. And I have expressed THAT from the onset of this forum. You have always known more than you think you know.
In this, I would express to you, we would not be engaging this subject if you couldn’t do it, if you weren’t ready to do it, if you weren’t aware enough to take that next step. I would not have this conversation with you if you were at 10%. (Group laughter) But 30-50%, you are ready. (Group laughter)
BRIGITT: What’s going to happen about 80, 90%? (Group chatter)
ELIAS: At that point, our discussions will be VERY different. (Group laughter)
SANDRA: And the shift in this is related to awareness? In what way?
ELIAS: Most definitely. Most definitely. Because that is the point.
SANDRA: Is that equal?
ELIAS: Yes.
SANDRA: So, if you’re completely shifted, you’re completely aware?
ELIAS: Yes. Yes. I would express that that is the point. That is the reason you are inserting this shift into your reality. Because with the awareness that you had, you were too limited. You hit the wall.
BRIGITT: I like how you put it in someone’s session, that if you’re not being aware, even every moment – it seems like a lot of work – of your life, basically you’re burning time.
ELIAS: Yes.
BRIGITT: When you put time that you’re not aware, you’re just wasting it; you’re not living it, I guess. Right? I like that.
ELIAS: You are existing.
BRIGITT: Yeah, exactly.
JOHN (Rrussell): Is everybody on the planet now gaining in self-awareness?
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: Is that part of the shift? Everybody is. You can’t opt out of… (Group laughter and chatter)
ELIAS: They are doing it in varying degrees, yes. Some more than others, but yes. Everyone is doing it. Everyone is, in some capacity. Yes.
ANN: Would you say most of the planet is between 30 and 50?
ELIAS: No.
ANN: Is most of the planet between 30 and 50?
ELIAS: I would express, perhaps half. And it is increasing. And once again, the more you do, the more you ripple. And the more you ripple, the more other individuals do also.
VERONICA: The population in the hurricane areas, was it self-awareness developed in conjunction with what’s happening there? I mean, do people realize whether in the loss of everything, the lack of faith and the helpers, so to speak—is there more a reflection, more awareness on that population…?
ELIAS: Now?
VERONICA: Yeah.
ELIAS: Yes and no. Not entirely. Disaster does not necessarily motivate individuals to become more self-aware. I WILL express to you, significant loss frequently does. You will notice that individuals that experience significant loss through death or through their own what you term to be near death, those experiences, in many, many, many situations, do generate a stimulus and an inspiration to be more aware. Those situations – not from fear – through significant loss, individuals in many, many, many situations are influenced to pay attention to what isn’t lost, and what is.
Therefore, you all are aware that you have stories, or may even know individuals that seem to have life-altering experiences or tremendous revelations or realizations around those tremendous losses. That is not unusual, because when individuals significantly lose, and they don’t move in the direction of losing themself, they are generally motivated to pay more attention to what is, and to seek out more expansion. It generally becomes motivated initially by the "why" question, but it very quickly moves from the "why" question into a tremendous curiosity of what is and what isn’t lost.
BRIGITT: Would that be the situation with Michael and Polly?
ELIAS: Yes. Definitely. And you, also [looking at Jean].
JEAN: Yes.
ELIAS: Yes. I would agree with that. Individuals very much do that in relation to what you would term to be near-death experiences that seem to incorporate these revelations and this tremendous inspiration. That is very real, because they are inspired in relation to what is and what isn’t lost, and there is, in a manner of speaking, a renewed appreciation for that.
And THAT is a piece that you all can also look forward to in becoming more self-aware, because that is the direction that you are moving in. And what that produces is many individuals will identify it as a feeling, but in actuality it isn’t necessarily a feeling. It is PARTIALLY a feeling that they create over and over and over again, but more so it is a sense. They identify it as a feeling, but it is more a sense, which is more a knowing. And in that, they are inspired. There are many individuals that write books about their experiences.
Whatever their experience is, that isn’t what is actually significantly important. It is what they do with it and how they move with it, and in that, allow that inspiration. But that creates what many of them will term to be a feeling of appreciation or a feeling of gratitude. Those are generally the most common expressions that individuals generate. It is a renewed sense of the importance of life.
You have it when you are small ones, and you float when you are small ones with that sense, and it is a regaining of that and the revealing beyond a significant number of constructs, therefore the falling away of a significant number – not all, definitely not all, but a significant number of them. This is also what some of your monks experience, but after years and years and years of practice, because they have such rigid rules about what their experiences are. But they eventually do reach that point also. That is what you are moving into, that same brilliance.
Be glad my friends, of what you are accomplishing. And be assured that paying attention is not hard. (Group laughter) And encourage yourselves with inspiration. And use those imaginations [looking at Naomi, who'd asked before the session if that would be covered]. (Elias laughs and the group laughs)
I shall greatly be anticipating our next meeting, my dear friends. And I express a wondrous, wondrous, glorious lovingness to each and every one of you. You are majestic beings—all of you. Now shine as brilliant as you are.
Until our next meeting, in dear friendship, au revoir.
GROUP: Au revoir. Thank you. Thank you, Elias. (Group applause and cheering)
(Elias departs after 1 hour and 15 minutes. Total session time was 2 hours and 32 minutes)
Copyright 2017 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.