Contemplating Significant Changes and Trusting Self
Topics:
“Contemplating Significant Changes and Trusting Self”
“Climate Change in Places That Resonate”
“Choosing for YOU”
“The Grape and Raisin Analogy”
“An Exercise for Thinking Outside of the Box”
“Definition of a Complement”
Sunday, October 17, 2021 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and John (Arry)
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
JOHN: Hello, hello!
ELIAS: (Laughs) And how shall we begin?
JOHN: I’ve got a couple questions for some other people that I want to get through, and then we will continue the bigger picture.
So first off, Kristin wants to know how many focuses she has, and she has no impression. This is all very new to her, but she wanted me to ask so I’m asking.
ELIAS: Very well. (Pause) 822.
JOHN: All right. And she also… She didn’t ask me to ask this specifically, but I’m curious. She just went on a trip to Colorado, and she’s been to Colorado multiple times, and she always has a very strong emotional response to being there and she was curious about why that is. And she also feels like there may be a connection to… This may be a bigger thing; I don’t know if it’s related to Colorado, but she was talking about the connection to Colorado and then also this connection to this sense she has of falling to her death at some point in some other life.
ELIAS: Those are two different—
JOHN: Okay. So does she just have a strong connection to Colorado from other focuses, then?
ELIAS: Yes. Yes. Very much so.
JOHN: Would that be a place that she would resonate with? I mean, she already does, obviously, but she’s talked about potentially moving there at some point. Would that be a good fit for her?
ELIAS: Yes! Yes.
JOHN: Yeah. It seemed pretty clear. (Laughs) The falling to her death, is there anything else you’d say about that? Was that just one particular focus she’s remembering for some reason?
ELIAS: Yes. I would say that this is a focus that is, in your terms, more recent. This is not unusual. Many times people will remember certain aspects of another lifetime in relation to the physical closeness to their present lifetime. This lifetime, I would say, was in the time of your 1900s, in the 1940s.
Now, I would also say that people also generate, in a manner of speaking, triggering memories in relation to what they may be engaging in a present lifetime. Therefore, if they drowned in a lifetime and they are a swimmer in this lifetime, they will likely trigger those memories.
JOHN: Yeah. That makes sense, because—
ELIAS: Therefore in that, I would say that what is also a connection with that lifetime is climbing.
JOHN: Yeah. That’s what I was about to say. (Laughs) Yeah. All right, I’ll pass that on to her. I won’t spend a ton of time on that, but I’m sure she’ll be… It’ll be validating.
And then one more related to her: We’ve been talking about you and these conversations much more over the last couple of days. She’s been very interested. She may even want to have a session at some point. But it was interesting. We had a long talk a couple of days ago, and then that night I went back home to my parents, and she called me at 1:30 in the morning because her alarms, for no apparent reason, were going off in her apartment and only her apartment, and she ended up having to cut the power to her room to get the alarms to stop. And I just thought that there seems like there was some connection there. Obviously it was not a coincidence, but I don’t quite know what the connection was, so I’m curious about that.
ELIAS: And your impressions?
JOHN: (Laughs) I don’t have a specific impression. Somehow I felt like it was related to us talking about you, so whether that was you saying hello or just some other energy seemingly popping in to…
ELIAS: Congratulations!
JOHN: So that was…? (Both laugh) Well, you definitely scared the crap out of her and her dog. (Both laugh)
ELIAS: And you can express that that was not the intention. (Laughs)
JOHN: Right. Yeah. (Elias laughs) I mean, luckily I was awake when she called and I was able to kind of be somewhat supportive when she finally figured out to turn off the power. I thought that was something like the case, so I just thought I would ask. (Elias laughs)
So yeah, one other question for… Mel didn’t ask me to ask this, but I’ve just been curious for a while, so I figured I’d ask. But she’s been dealing with a lot of health issues for as long as I’ve known her, pretty much, but the most recent thing is she’s been working with some doctor related to her issues, and they have come to the conclusion that it’s very much related to mold issues that probably started when we lived in Eugene, in Oregon, and there is also a potential connection with Lyme disease. I think she’s currently waiting to get the results. I don’t know if she’s got the results back about the Lyme disease test, but I’m just curious. I’m curious if that is accurate information, this path they’re going down, or if that is more just this particular doctor, that’s what they specialize in so that’s kind of the path they’re going. I always am questioning that, because people sometimes are so, in a sense, desperate to get an answer that when something makes sense and there’s some amount of physical evidence for that that they go down a certain path. I don’t know that that’s the case here; I’m just curious. I’m curious what you would say about her current situation and is it actually related to mold, is it actually related to Lyme disease, or is it something else entirely?
ELIAS: Lyme, no. Mold, yes.
JOHN: Okay. All right. Well yeah, that was kind of just more like a validation question for myself, but I’m actually going to see her in a couple of days, which will be nice. But I’ll pass that on.
ELIAS: Very well.
JOHN: That was more of my own personal curiosity.
ELIAS: Very well.
JOHN: All right. So yeah, the bigger picture we talked about last time, it’s definitely been an interesting month since then. I actually have another kind of validation that I’m curious about. I have noticed definitely in the last month, but maybe even starting the month before, basically the last few months I feel like I’ve been having symptoms of what I’ve never experienced and I would never have thought… I don’t really know, because I’ve never experienced it. I don’t know what the actual symptoms are, but I’ve had experiences that I would describe as almost like panic attacks or anxiety attacks, based on what I’ve heard people talk about that have that. And I would say that what I’ve experienced is probably very mild, but that seems to be the only thing that I can kind of label it as. But I’ve had multiple rounds of experiences of that where I just feel extremely uncomfortable. It’s almost hard to breathe. My body just feels extremely like my senses are heightened, like I’m on edge – all of the classic symptoms, I guess, of what people describe. And it can last for hours and then kind of subside. But I’m just curious, is that actually what I’m experiencing?
ELIAS: That is a considerably long panic attack, if it is going on for hours.
JOHN: Right. Which is why… Yeah. I don’t quite know how to define it, but I guess overall—
ELIAS: Generally speaking, a panic attack may actually last for perhaps… if it is very severe, it could last for an hour, but longer than that is very unusual.
JOHN: Yeah. So I guess what I’ve experienced is more there’s some type of trigger that happens and for a while – maybe an hour, maybe a half hour, maybe two hours, I don’t know – there’s definitely a very intense peak and then it just kind of has levelled off a little bit but does last a long time. I think it’s related to a sense of anxiety, but regardless of the label I use, I’ve been having more intense experiences that I guess I would just say are my usual responses to this same trigger that’s been just getting pounded the whole time I’ve lived here, of feeling like I can’t express myself or feeling like something is upsetting me and I can’t do anything with it or I can’t express it or I can’t acknowledge it. Those types of experiences, when they happen now, are just getting so… My body’s reaction to them is just so intense now, I think because it’s just built up for so long here that… Yeah, it just feels like it’s reached a point where I feel like I’m going to explode when sometimes the smallest things happen.
ELIAS: That is actually understandable. And have you thought more about moving?
JOHN: Well, yeah, so… (Laughs) I mean, that’s basically… The latest piece of change that has happened is, I guess maybe a week or two ago now my boss told me that my position will either be eliminated completely, or if I want to stay working remotely from out of state that he’s going to have to make a pretty compelling case to keep me around, and one of the conditions of that is that I would have to go back to working full-time, which right now I’m only half-time and my schedule is very flexible, which I very much appreciate. There’s pros and cons to that, but if I go full-time and say yes, let’s go ahead and try for that, they still could come back and say no, because they’re basically… The campus is trying to eliminate as many out-of-state workers as they can for whatever reasons they have. And so, I think it’s interesting. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I mean, I’ve been struggling with this whole career thing for so long, and now it feels like here’s this opportunity to just say all right, well, I don’t have to keep doing this and this is a great opportunity to just walk away from that, because that’s what I’ve wanted to do anyway.
ELIAS: I would say that first of all, there are no coincidences.
JOHN: Right. Yeah.
ELIAS: That in addition to no coincidences, I would also say that you make things happen in relation to your desire. It doesn’t always follow in what you think of as necessarily your optimal idea of how to follow your desire, but it doesn’t matter because it follows your desire. Therefore, it makes that happen – YOU make that happen.
JOHN: Yeah. Well, I mean initially I… Well, my feelings about it have gone back and forth. I mean, I feel like it’s definitely complicated, in a way. The simple version, if I say to myself, “Well, this is what I wanted anyway. I wanted to not do this, I’ve wanted to kind of kick myself out of the nest and I’ve only been doing this for comfort and security, here’s my opportunity to do that. Great! Let me just do that.” But it is also scary.
And there is another factor as well that I’m thinking of now, since our last conversation, which is addressing some health concerns, or potential concerns that I have, because if I were to go full-time again at this job, I would have one, more financial abundance, which would be great because I haven’t had a normal salary in three years, but the main thing would be health insurance again, and that’s a huge factor in our time in my country. I mean, I have health insurance right now but it’s only like a catastrophic plan; I’d have to pay everything out of pocket, and my deductible is like $8,000. It’s ridiculous, but I have it just in case. But if I were to go, say, investigate my prostate or investigate other things, I don’t have the money to do that at this point. And I would like to do that, so that’s kind of the biggest thing making me question whether I should do that.
But alternatively, I am able to get insurance as a self-employed person or, in my current state, I have insurance. And in November I will find out what new potential plans are available, and I can potentially switch plans to something that would maybe work better. But I don’t know that until November, and even so, it’s just not going to be as good as insurance that I could get through a normal 9-to-5 job. So that’s my main crux of the issue, I think, is the health insurance piece.
Yeah, then the other main thing is just the fear of really stepping into okay, I’m going to trust you and I’m going to trust myself – most importantly that doing the business, doing the personal training and coaching and all of those things, I will make enough money. It might take a while, but I will get to a point where I will be secure, I will be abundant and I will be living much more in my passion. But it’s hard (laughs) in most moments to really truly trust that.
ELIAS: I understand.
JOHN: But I assume that would be the direction you would encourage me to move.
ELIAS: I would. But I would also remind you: This is not about trusting ME.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: This is about trusting you.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: And in that, I’m merely engaging you in a direction to encourage you to trust yourself AND to move in a direction that is a benefit to you, that you are not in a position of having panic attacks or being uncomfortable or not being productive because you’re constantly placing yourself in this position of… over and over and over again facing yourself with trauma. (Pause)
That, I would say, my friend, is the most important, is you – your health, your well-being, moving in a direction of safety and contentment, and moving in a direction in which you are expressing to your greatest benefit. Moving in a direction in which you can finally express yourself and BE yourself.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: I would say that is the most important factor. And in that, that’s not happening where you are.
JOHN: Yeah. So, related to the work piece, a very interconnected piece is the question of do I stay in Charlotte or not, at least for now. And I’ve thought more about your last question last time about how much is it that just the association I have here with family and all of that makes me feel so uncomfortable here. And I still think that ultimately it’s pretty clear to me that I feel generally pretty neutral about this area. I mean, I’m not horribly uncomfortable here in and of itself. I can think of many places that I feel like I would be much more miserable, based on the place. So I feel pretty neutral. If I was not spending time with my family, if I was not focusing on that, if I was not… If I was here and say, building a business and training people and coaching and delving into that world and putting myself more in those positions where I’m focusing on creating what I want to create, I think that I could be relatively happy here for now.
But that’s also part of what I’m thinking about with this career, because if I’m about to lose my job in a few months and walk away from that, and I’m going be building a business and building clientele and doing that in person, that’s a lot of time investment – time and energy – and it will take time to build that. And if I choose to do that, do I want to be doing that here, where I already feel like this is not a place I totally resonate with? Or would I rather decide to go somewhere where I feel very excited to be and then start working on this business and invest in a place while I’m also investing in myself in a business?
That feels like a really complicated question. I don’t know. Because I know that—
ELIAS: I would say that it’s not a very complicated question. (John laughs) I would say that you’re making it a complicated question, but actually it’s perhaps not a question at all. Perhaps it’s more a statement of you moving in a direction of what you want – PRECISELY what you want. No compromising, no moving in directions of settling, but genuinely expressing yourself in relation to what you want – and doing it to the fullest. And if you are expressing that, where would you be?
JOHN: Well, honestly, I don’t know at this point. I have ideas of places, but…
ELIAS: Such as?
JOHN: Well, ultimately even when I moved here I thought a lot about (laughs)… Immediately when I moved here I was like well, l I know I’m not staying here, so where am I going to go after this, whenever that comes? I have thought a lot about moving back to Tucson. I have thought a lot about moving back to Eugene. And obviously there’s another option of moving somewhere new, but I haven’t really explored enough to even have an idea of where that would be. But I’ve already asked you before, and I know that I resonate with Tucson much more than I do Charlotte, and I know that I resonate with Eugene much more than I do Charlotte. And I think that realistically I don’t want to live in Tucson again. I love it there in certain ways, I love Mount Lemon, I have great friends there, I would love to visit and continue to visit, but… I don’t know. There’s a few reasons why I would not necessarily want to live there again.
ELIAS: Such as?
JOHN: Well, I often had an issue with… So again, connecting this to this bigger-bigger-bigger picture of climate change and society and living in a place where I feel like is more in line with that. And to me, even just the thought of people living in Tucson and living in the desert in the way that we have just seems kind of crazy to me. It’s like 115 degrees, you know what I mean? It just feels inhospitable and unsustainable for humanity to continue to live in areas like that. So I’ve always kind of struggled with that internally, even though I did feel like I resonated there and I loved being there in a lot of ways. In the longer term I think that it’s only going to become more inhospitable there for humans, and even though there’s ways that maybe if en masse we moved in directions of, like, using more solar power there – which is abundant, you know – things like that, maybe I would feel differently. But I just don’t see that happening necessarily, and I just… I don’t know. Something about that kind of bothers me, I guess. It seems like water will become more and more and more of an issue. Heat will become more of an issue. It will just become more inhospitable over time. I don’t know if maybe that’s just a copout. I don’t know.
ELIAS: I would say that those are actually good reasons.
JOHN: Yeah. So then with Eugene, I have similar… (laughs) in the sense that really the thing that bothered me the most about Eugene at the point that I left was the weather. Like you said in our last conversation, thinking about the weather. It just rained there for nine months of the year, and I definitely got tired of that after ten years. Even though the summers are amazing and it’s beautiful and you can travel to the coast, which I love, and you can travel to the mountains and the high desert in Oregon, which I also love, the reality of Eugene at this point has been (laughs)… it’s pretty much most of the year you’re just sitting under clouds and rain, and I just got tired of that.
But the other piece with Eugene is that I feel like I have one very good friend – I have many good friends, but one in particular that I’m still in contact with, Aaron, and I think that I miss the sense of community, of real community, that I had in Eugene. I miss that, and I think of, again, the bigger-bigger picture of being somewhere where I feel like I can have more of a strong sense of community. I feel like the biggest takeaway that I got from my entire time in Oregon was the sense of community and developing what that means to me, and developing friendships that… I mean, they feel more like my family than my family there, and that’s really important to me. And I feel more invested in them and their families and their children than I feel like with my own family, to be honest. And that’s a huge draw for me right now, is being in a place where even if the weather is not necessarily ideal, I do love it there and I miss those people, and I think I would feel supported and encouraged in the directions that I want to move in my life.
So, honestly, I’ve kind of always been, in the back of my mind, feeling like at some point when I leave here that going back to Eugene, with all the factors that I know objectively, would probably be the best bet. But that does not take into account again [that] maybe there’s some place that I’ve never been where I would literally be completely starting over in a whole new place. Maybe there is some level of excitement with that idea, but it also just feels very overwhelming, because I’ve done that multiple times in my life and I just feel like I don’t know that I have that in me and I don’t know that I want to start over completely again, when I already have a place that I know feels like home to a degree and has so much to offer and has the sense of community and support that I feel like I would want. Yeah, Eugene feels like a really good bet, a really good option.
ELIAS: I understand.
JOHN: So (laughs), that’s my long-winded answer to that, but I am interested in what you would say.
ELIAS: I would actually agree with you. And I would say to you that all of your reasoning is sound. It’s understandable, it’s definitely sound. It’s taking into account you and what is important to you. And I would say that I would acknowledge that weather is a factor. I would say to you that weather plays a significant role in where people live, that it can actually have a significant effect on people in relation to how they function.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Therefore, I would say that I understand everything that you are expressing in relation to all the benefits to this particular place. I would ask you, what if you chose to live someplace that is not far from there but that might have slightly different weather? Even SOME alteration of the weather might be enough to be more tolerable.
JOHN: Yeah. I’ve thought about that as well. I mean, it’s roughly two hours from Eugene… One option that I’ve thought of is Bend, which is a cool little town. I’ve been there. It’s almost a completely different climate. I mean, it’s the high desert, so it’s significantly drier. So that’s something I’ve thought of, and I think that weather-wise that would be ideal, because definitely in my time in Tucson I learned that I love the desert. I really love the desert a lot. I love a lot of aspects about that. Tucson was very hot most of the time, so that was not ideal, but Bend is much more temperate, so I think that weather-wise a place like that would be almost ideal.
But then that puts me in the predicament of well, yeah, it’s very close to Eugene, but I feel like if I’m going to uproot my whole life and move somewhere again, I don’t want to move somewhere that’s close to Eugene and then I can maybe see Aaron and these other people more often than I do now… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just downplaying how important weather is, but I almost just feel like still those other factors are just more important to me. I want to be—
ELIAS: I understand, and that’s what I’m saying. I wasn’t expressing someplace that is as far as away as—
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: I was expressing perhaps something more in the middle, that you aren’t necessarily in an environment in which it is almost constantly raining, but you’re not in the desert either, but then you have access to both if you wish. Or, what if you were to explore closer to the coast?
JOHN: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that the weather is, as far as I understand, pretty much the same.
ELIAS: I understand that the weather is, for the most part, the same. But I would actually say to you that there is a difference. When you are near the ocean, even though you would basically have the same weather, the air is different.
JOHN: Yeah. I would agree with that.
ELIAS: The air actually incorporates more aspects of the ocean, which incorporates a considerable concentration of salt. And in that, it makes the air different, which makes you feel different.
JOHN: Hm. I mean yeah, one other thing I’ve thought about, which I’m curious to hear your response to, but when I’ve thought about this in terms of climate change and the longer-term aspect, I think that the whole Pacific Northwest in general, my understanding is that it is going to become more and more dry anyway. So (laughs) part of me is like, well even if I move back to Eugene in the next couple of years and it might be pretty much the same as when I left, it’s probably only going to get more and more dry as the years pass on anyway. Which would, at least in my personal selfish (laughs) perspective move in my favor, just to get a break from—
ELIAS: I would agree. I would agree.
JOHN: So I think about that also. I mean, ultimately, I kind of have the sense that if and when I move again, I don’t necessarily want to plan to move after that. I kind of want to just find a place, decide and really commit to a place and commit to the people there and commit to a life there and really just kind of hunker down for the long term. Which is why thinking about Eugene, I’m like well, it’s going to get warmer and drier anyway, so I can probably just suck it up. (Laughs)
ELIAS: I would encourage you to move in that direction, because you already know that this is a place that you do resonate with. You already have ties, you already have somewhat of an established situation and a relationship with the place. And in that, because of that, that in itself makes establishing yourself in relation to creating a new business and new friends and rooting yourself easier.
JOHN: Yeah, so… There’s so many things, Elias, so many questions. (Laughs)
ELIAS: And what I would say to you is what I expressed previously in this conversation. I would reiterate it’s not actually so much about so many questions. I would say that you’re asking a lot of questions, or you’re presenting a lot of questions to yourself, which is complicating the situation. And you’re presenting a lot of questions to yourself because you’re uncertain.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Because you are not sure what you want, because in that, actually I would even say to you that it’s not GENUINELY a situation in which you’re not certain of what you want but more so that you’re uneasy moving in that direction.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: It means making significant changes. It means leaving the people where you are, and even though leaving the people where you are would actually be tremendously beneficial for you, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have feelings about it. And I would say that another piece in this is that you’re not accustomed to putting yourself in that primary position.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: You’re not accustomed to being first and putting everything else second. That still seems somewhat selfish. It’s not, but I understand the association. What I would say is, it’s not only your family but likely also your girlfriend.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: And that is another difficult piece.
JOHN: When you’re saying that, it’s interesting to me because I feel like… Thinking about Oregon, I remember that when I moved to Oregon, my girlfriend at the time basically left it up to me to find a place and I chose Oregon. And after that, shortly after that, we separated.
And I remember when I moved to Lost Valley, I felt like that was the first time in my life that I actually made a decision just for myself, because that seemed like the most… It was listening to my intuition, putting myself first, listening to my heart, even though it didn’t make sense, even though I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what was going to happen. It was so different than anything I’d ever experienced, but I just felt this inkling in myself like this is the direction you need to go, and I did it. And it changed my life, and I’m so grateful for the time that I had there, and still to this day.
It’s just funny having this conversation now, hearing what you’re saying about I’m not accustomed to putting myself first and all of that. And I agree, and I feel like moving to Oregon originally, and Lost Valley specifically, objectively I was aware that this felt like the first time I’d ever done that in my life.
ELIAS: And look at what it yielded.
JOHN: Yeah. A lot. (Laughs)
ELIAS: I agree.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: The benefit that became. Therefore, I would be very encouraging of you to think about that and to perhaps stop asking so many questions, and rather think about how much of a benefit it is for you to BE simply paying attention to YOUR choice, putting yourself first and being intentional, being self-directing, choosing for YOU, not for anyone else. And in that, knowing that that is what leads you in the direction of your greatest benefit, and it does. (John laughs)
Or, you can continue in the direction that you’re in, and you can escalate as time continues, and rather than simply giving yourself panic attacks you might actually create some physical manifestation that is debilitating.
JOHN: Yeah, I don’t want that.
ELIAS: I imagine you don’t. And I would say, you have choices, but they are about making choices for you that are to your greatest benefit. And I would say that at this point, it’s actually becoming more and more important that you move in this direction… hm, sooner rather than later. (Pause)
JOHN: Because of—
ELIAS: Because you’re already escalating in a physical capacity.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Which is understandable. You are a physical person. What I mean by that is, you are an individual that enjoys experiencing life in a physical capacity. That’s the reason that you like climbing.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: But you also enjoy experiencing life in a physical capacity with people, and you’re stifling yourself more and more and more. You’re a grape that’s turning into a raisin. (John chuckles) (Pause)
Because you’re not giving yourself that nurturing. You’re not giving yourself that part of you that would naturally grow and flourish in that physical capacity with relationships, with affection, with engaging, with experiencing, with enjoying what you do and living your life rather than surviving one day to the next.
JOHN: Yeah. So, all things (laughs)… One piece I’m taking away from this – just to make sure I’m understanding you – is the idea of me moving back to Eugene and all the things that I said and all the pieces and factors – climate change and the future, basically everything that I just said –that would be a beneficial move, in your perception?
ELIAS: I would agree.
JOHN: Yeah. I do feel this sense… I know that there’s probably other places that I would resonate with. I mean, I’m sure there’s other places I would resonate with, and I’m sure that there’s other places that I could generate a great life, but there’s just something about… I don’t know. I guess I’m partially questioning, or I just want to make sure I’m not necessarily coming to that conclusion out of some sense of fear because I’m clinging to something that’s known versus something that’s unknown, which would be a completely—
ELIAS: No, I would say two factors in this. One, it’s understandable that you would be drawn to what is known and that you wouldn’t necessarily at this point want to move in a direction of what is unknown and unfamiliar. I would say that that’s not bad. It’s not wrong, and it’s not missing out.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: [Audio cut off]. And, the other point in this is that you moved to where you are to help your parents and, to a degree, heal yourself.
Now; part of that healing has been the recognition of what you don’t want in your life. Part of that healing is the realization of trauma, the recognition and the acknowledgment of what isn’t to your greatest benefit, the realization and acknowledgment of what stifles you. What you’ve done in bringing yourself back to this place is you’ve given yourself tremendous information. The actual healing aspect, the part of the healing in which you feel better, will come when you leave. The healing that has been done is the recognition of tremendous information and the realizations of what hinders you, what stifles you, what holds you back, what holds you down and presses down on you and therefore represses you.
And in that, then you have that information – which you do have now – and you have the experience and the realization, and you’re moving in the direction of the acknowledgment. That’s a difficult piece. And in that, I would say that once you do that, then you are free to leave and to move. And in doing so, then that will be the part in which you begin to feel better. (John sighs) The feeling better part of the healing is (chuckles) not going to come where you are.
JOHN: It certainly doesn’t seem so. (Chuckles) Yeah.
ELIAS: There is too much that presses down on you where you are. But as I expressed, I would say that the last piece is the acknowledgment piece. And what that means is acknowledging to yourself the parts that are difficult.
[The timer for the end of the session rings]
That you’ve already acknowledged the parts about your family, but the parts that are difficult are that you’re not a failure because you couldn’t fix them. The parts that are difficult are the acknowledgment that the relationship that you have with your girlfriend now is not to your greatest benefit, and moves also in a direction of pressing down on you or repressing you and encouraging you to not express yourself. The difficult parts of acknowledgment are recognizing that your family in general – not simply your parents, but all of your family – are not people that you derive joy from. You may love them, but that’s not the same as actually experiencing joy with them.
JOHN: Yeah. Absolutely.
ELIAS: And I would say that these are all of the factors that are the acknowledgment piece. You already have the information; you already have the experience; you already know the situation.
Another acknowledgment piece is acknowledging that yes, you feasibly could invest yourself and create a business there and be somewhat successful, but would you necessarily be happy? Likely, no.
JOHN: Right. (Chuckles)
ELIAS: And there is a difference between being successful and being happy. And you can be both, but you likely won’t be both there.
Another acknowledgment piece is the acknowledgment that you might like the place, but there are a lot of attachments that go with it.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Therefore, you might like the actual, physical place, but does it actually bring you joy? Does it actually make you happy to be there? No. (Pause)
JOHN: Well, yeah, I (chuckles)… I agree.
ELIAS: Therefore I would say to you, my friend, very sincerely, that this is the last piece: this piece of acknowledging to yourself these pieces, and when you do, then you will be able to leave.
JOHN: So acknowledging to myself is what you mean?
ELIAS: Yes. You don’t have to acknowledge to anyone else, only to yourself.
JOHN: Okay. (Pause) Well, the timer's gone off. (Chuckles) We will talk again, hopefully in a month. Hm. I have (chuckles)… I will ask Mary about this, but I’m also curious what you would say first. I’m tempted to have a little more time right now. I did want to ask about some other things, or I could just wait. Do you think it would be beneficial to just wait and marinate on what we’ve talked about? There’s nothing time pressing that…
ELIAS: I would say if you are so choosing, I will engage Michael and you can inquire.
JOHN: All right.
ELIAS: Very well, one moment.
JOHN: Well, then I will either talk to you soon or talk to you in a month. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Very well. One moment.
JOHN: All right.
(Break occurs after 1 hour 3 minutes)
ELIAS: Continuing.
JOHN: Yes indeed. (Both laugh) All right. One other thing I wanted to ask about in terms of career in the bigger picture, and I’ve never brought this up but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot more about and I was curious to get your input. Obviously we’ve talked about [that] I definitely want to move in the direction of the training and coaching and health coaching and all of that world. That’s kind of my main focus in terms of career change.
But I’ve also been thinking recently – I’ve been thinking for a while, but more seriously – I’ve gotten very, very into photography. I’ve kind of always been into photography for a long time, but I’ve actually upgraded my cameras recently, and over the last few years I’ve taken thousands of pictures. And I love photography so much. It’s been another kind of outlet for me here in particular, and a way for me to deal with my family and family events as I just focus on taking pictures, because I at least enjoy that aspect of it. But I’ve considered that more and more recently in terms of career, as another way to bring in income, and I don’t necessarily want to jump into… I mean, I have no interest in doing professional wedding photography or things of that nature, but I’ve just been thinking about other ways that I can essentially in some ways take it out of just a hobby and take it into actually making money – one of which is doing stock photography, which is the most passive way you can do it. And I’ve actually signed up with a service and I have, like I said, thousands and thousands of pictures, so a plan was to go through them and put them on his website and then just kind of have it out there, and if people want to buy them they can, or businesses or whatever, just as a way to bring in more passive income.
And I’ve also thought about taking that a step further and maybe offering some type of photography services just on a small scale to friends, or even maybe small businesses at some point. And so yeah, I’m just curious what your perspective on that would be, if that would be a beneficial direction or if it would maybe make more sense to just keep that as kind of a passion, hobby thing?
ELIAS: Very well. I would say that I have offered an exercise to people pastly in relation to finding what they would like to do to create a business, to make money and something that they would be passionate about and that they would enjoy. And in this exercise, I express to people to think about what they genuinely enjoy doing and to make a list of the things that they genuinely enjoy doing.
Now, I’m going to modify this considerably at this point for this conversation, because the exercise is actually somewhat lengthy. But – the point of the exercise is to move in a direction of, in your terminology, “think outside the box,“ to be thinking in manners that allow you to be creative and to engage in doing something different from what you would traditionally think of.
Now; let me actually offer you an example of this that a couple – two individuals – chose to do after engaging this exercise that I expressed to them. This couple, the husband left his job as an accountant and moved in the direction of photography. The wife chose to engage working with horses. And in that, her passion was painting, but she chose not to be painting herself but teaching horses how to paint (John laughs) as a form of therapy for the horses. Therefore she would engage with other people their horses that were incorporating some problems, difficulties, and the people would bring the horse to her and she would engage with the horse in a manner that would be encouraging the horse in a come-to direction instead of move-away-from – which traditionally, horse training is based in move-away-from; aversion.
Now; this individual developed a method of engaging troubled horses in relation to this come-to method of hers, and what she would have them come to was a canvas, and giving them a paintbrush and allowing them to splash paint on a canvas.
Now; the husband used this as an opportunity for his photography, in which he took pictures – photographs – of the paintings that the horses would create. The paintings were actually, for the most part, given to the owners of the horses, but the pictures, or the photographs, of the paintings were then put on a website and were matted and sold. And they created a business together of engaging the horses, painting and photography.
Now; these were three different pieces that between the two of them, in their lists of what they genuinely enjoyed, these were the pieces that they wrote. And then they mixed up – or they wrote many pieces, but these were three of them – they mixed up the pieces of what they enjoyed doing and came up with this idea, which was all part of the exercise.
But in this, the point of this recounting of this experience is that you could combine your photography and your coaching.
JOHN: Hm.
ELIAS: Be creative. This is the point of the exercise, is to combine different actions that you genuinely enjoy, that you genuinely love and that you’re passionate about, and to creatively create something new and different that you can actually incorporate more than one action with AND that you can involve other people with, because that’s how you create money.
Money is one of these physical manifestations that requires cooperation and involvement of more than one person. You don’t create money individually, alone, all by yourself – no one does. You create money through cooperation, interaction and connection, interconnection. That’s how you create money. There are other manifestations that you do this with, but money is one of the main physical manifestations that you do this with.
Now; in that, I would say I would be very encouraging of you to incorporate some time and to genuinely think about and attempt to construct a creative avenue in which you could combine your coaching and photography to create a business and create money. I would say actually, at this point, straightaway I would express to you that in the combination of those two factors you could actually be successful enough to sustain yourself in a very comfortable manner.
JOHN: (Laughs) All right.
ELIAS: I would say that it is merely a matter of being creative. And in that, there are many different directions you could actually engage with those two subjects. I would be very interested to hear what YOU would express. And, simply as an experiment, what would you express off the top of your head, let us say? How would you combine those two factors? (Pause)
JOHN: (Laughs) Honestly, the only thing that comes to mind immediately when you say that, which just sounds kind of silly, to be honest, in the moment, is… I mean generally, people with training and coaching, you know, before-and-after pictures or progress pictures are a thing, but they’re not necessarily professionally done or… (laughs) That’s the only thing that comes to mind, is somehow combining photography—
ELIAS: That is not creative at all! (John laughs) You can do much better than that.
JOHN: I might have to meditate on that one, because nothing else is coming to mind.
ELIAS: Very well. What I would say to you first of all is, that’s not combining the two actions; that’s still making them separate.
JOHN: I see.
ELIAS: I’m expressing to you to think about combining them together.
JOHN: Hm. I will definitely think on that and talk about that again in our future conversations, but I think that one might need some time.
ELIAS: Very well. In this, let me simply make a suggestion that you can think about and you can brainstorm with, or you can move in an entirely different direction. But – one direction would be that you could be engaging your coaching, and as part of your coaching you can be encouraging your clients to be engaging photography also in manners that make them feel good, manners that encourage them. What do they like? What is inspiring to them? That doesn’t mean that they are necessarily going to develop into a photographer, but that this is a direction that is creative; it’s encouraging in relation to paying attention, noticing things; it encourages the individual to pay attention to themself and what they like and what is pleasing to them. It can also be a method in which you can have the individuals do certain exercises with the photography during the time that you are not engaged with each other. Therefore in between, they can be encouraged to use the photography in a manner that is an exercise, in a manner of speaking, for whatever you are illustrating that week to them. In this, they can also be using it to track their own progress. They can use the photography as their own journal. That’s another avenue that could be engaged. Or, they can use photography as an avenue to illustrate metaphors for themself. How do they describe themself? What do they view as their difficulties? What do they view as their strengths? What do they want to improve? And to be illustrating all of that in pictures, rather than words. I’ve given you several ideas now.
JOHN: (Laughs) Yes. Those are all very creative, and honestly I was not thinking in those terms at all, so…
ELIAS: (Laughs) But that’s the point of, in your terms, “thinking outside of the box,” and in that, being creative – taking something that seems to be entirely unrelated with each other and putting them together and making something new.
JOHN: Right. I will definitely meditate on that.
ELIAS: Very well.
JOHN: You’ve got me very intrigued, that’s for sure.
ELIAS: (Laughs) Which is the point. (Laughs) I would be tremendously, tremendously encouraging of you, my friend. (Chuckles)
JOHN: I guess with the rest of this time, I’m thinking so much about Oregon now, (Elias laughs) and all the implications and all of the… Yeah. My mind is kind of swirling, but I’ve been very curious about… So, I guess let’s talk about relationship. I love Kristin and I feel like she is great. And one of the things we’ve been talking about, with talking about your information, is it’s interesting to me and doesn’t surprise me that we have the same stats, because I do feel like in many ways we are very, very similar. But I almost feel like in some ways that’s kind of part of what makes things not work very well with us. She’s almost like too similar to me at times.
ELIAS: I understand.
JOHN: But I mean I… Yeah, I need to… (Sighs) Let me backtrack. One of the things you said about, that I’ve never been in a relationship that is actually a complement: I’ve always been curious what you mean by that, like how you define that. And I guess I’m curious: Do I know anyone currently that you would consider as an actual complement to me in a partnership sense?
ELIAS: (Pause) No. Not yet.
JOHN: Not even in friends or anyone I’m close to or I’ve been attracted to or is attracted to me? Even with all of that, none of those people would actually be a complement?
ELIAS: Oh, I would say that there are people that are complements to you, but not that you would be partners with.
JOHN: Right. Yeah. I mean, in the romantic partnership sense. So, let me make sure: If I move back to Oregon, there’s going to be somebody there? (Laughs) At least one person that is a partnership complement to me, somewhere at some point?
ELIAS: Oh yes.
JOHN: (Laughs) All right. I like that answer.
ELIAS: Yes. Most definitely.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: It’s not that there isn’t an individual there; it’s whether YOU are in yourself enough to notice.
JOHN: To notice? Is that what you said?
ELIAS: Yes! Yes. And I know that initially that sounds to be somewhat of a paradox, that it sounds that that would be inconsistent, but it actually isn’t.
JOHN: No. No. It actually makes sense, because something that I heard years and years and years and years ago that I’ve only realized how true that is and thought about that in terms of myself, but… I used to listen to this show that was kind of about sex and relationships and advice, and one of the things that this – I believe he was a doctor, he was having a conversation with someone who had a lot of trauma in their background and was kind of complaining that they couldn’t find a good partner and everything. He said something along the lines of, “You need to realize that the people that you’re actually attracted to, the people that you end up with often, there’s a reason why you keep being attracted to these types of people and re-creating all of the same trauma and drama.”
ELIAS: Precisely.
JOHN: “And that really you need to be looking for people that you’re not necessarily immediately drawn to, because those are the people that might be a better fit, because you’re going to have that initial attraction and excitement with people that are actually not a benefit to you.”
ELIAS: Precisely.
JOHN: And I’ve looked back on my relationships, and I see very clearly how I have been very drawn to and attracted to and engaged with women who… a very common factor is kind of re-engaging the kind of trauma and dynamics that I had with my mom, and I don’t want that any more. I think it’s just so abundantly clear at this point.
ELIAS: I understand, and that was part of what I was expressing to you previously in our conversation about acknowledgment.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Acknowledging that your relationship now, you might love this individual—
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: And I don’t doubt that at all. But that isn’t enough.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: And what I would say is that it’s a matter of recognizing yes, whether an individual IS a complement to you or not.
Now; you expressed that this individual is… sometimes it seems too much like you. That’s actually an insightful thing to say.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Because that actually can be true, that a complement is not necessarily someone that is tremendously like you.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: A complement is a person that yes, you have commonalities with, you have some aspects that are in common with the other individual, and that you have similar intelligence and some – not necessarily all, but some – commonalities or similarities in interests.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Now; those are the foundations. Those are the foundational pieces. This is NOT a criteria list, because that is definitely a direction that will lead you into failure.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: Don’t move in the direction of criteria lists. But what I would say to you is, you have the commonalities and the similarities that are your foundation, because people are drawn to similarities. You aren’t drawn to people that are tremendously different from yourself, unless you are moving in a specific direction of learning something. But generally speaking, people are drawn to other people that have similarities with themself. It validates you, and it also gives you that foundation for moving in a direction of building an expression of connection. You are all interconnected, but you’re also in a physical reality that expresses considerable separation, and therefore, how you navigate that is through connecting.
Now; in this, complement is when the other individual is in natural harmony with you in relation to what you naturally express.
[The timer for the end of the session rings]
ELIAS: Ignore that.
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: Because this is important.
What you naturally express – and you can think about this, and I would actually encourage you to do more than think about it, but actually create a physical list of natural expressions of yourself. Begin with your day, what you naturally do, and think about everything that you naturally do. When do you get up in the morning? Are you an early riser or are you a late riser? When you get up in the morning do you like to be engaged immediately, or do you require time to begin your day? Do you NOT want people to talk to you in the morning, you want to engage your routine in the morning? Or, are you sparky from the beginning moment of opening your eyes? (John laughs) And some people are. And in that, are you engaging? Do you WANT to be engaging? Does it not bother you for other people to engage you? Think about these things.
When you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth, when you are engaging in the bathroom, does it bother you if the bathroom is messy, or do you not pay any attention? Does it bother you if the cap is off the toothpaste, or do you not care? Does it bother you if hair is in the bathtub, or do you not care? Do you like to take a shower in the morning, or do you like to take a shower at night? Or do you not want to take a shower EVER? Do you like to take a bath? (John laughs) Or do you want to soak your feet at a certain time of the day? When do you want to eat? WHAT do you want to eat? Do you do the dishes? Do you NOT do the dishes?
Think about everything in your life, in your routine, in how you move and what you naturally do, and write it all down. These are all the things that you naturally do, that you’re comfortable with. Do you want people to take their shoes off when they walk in the door, or do you not care?
JOHN: (Laughs) I do care. Take your shoes off! (Laughs)
ELIAS: These are all important.
JOHN: Yeah. Yeah.
ELIAS: Let me use that as one small example. If you are an individual in which it is important to you that people remove their shoes when they come into the house, and you have to repeatedly, over and over and over again, tell the person that you are involved with to remove their shoes (John laughs), it will become an issue.
JOHN: Yeah. Yeah.
ELIAS: Even though this seems to be something small, it will become something big, because it develops into “You don’t listen to me. You don’t care about me. You don’t love me.” (John laughs) “If you genuinely know me, you will know that this is bothersome to me. How many times do I have to express myself before you understand? Why don’t you listen?” It becomes an ongoing issue [audio cut off].
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: And everything has that potential.
Now; what is a complement? A complement is someone who may not necessarily have all of the same importances as you do, but whatever isn’t important to them that is important to you won’t matter to them. Therefore, they can easily move in a direction in which it doesn’t bother them to do something. Or, that YOU do something, it doesn’t bother them. Even though they might not have an importance with it, it doesn’t bother them.
In this, it’s a matter of a complement is someone that naturally harmonizes with you, that if you are an individual that is inclined to not do the dishes for three or four days, and you won’t do them until they pile up in the sink and then you will do them, because you simply don’t like doing the dishes and it doesn’t bother you that they may be sitting in the sink. You might be involved with an individual in which THAT individual, it IS bothersome to them that dishes be in the sink, but it isn’t bothersome to them that you put them in the sink.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: That they will simply move in a natural direction of washing them, because it doesn’t bother them to wash them – or, because they actually ENJOY washing the dishes.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: But even if they don’t naturally enjoy washing the dishes – which there are many people that do, but even if they don’t, if it isn’t bothersome to them that you leave them in the sink for four days or that you WOULD leave them in the sink for four days, and that they don’t like that and they don’t move in that direction but that they will simply wash the dishes and it isn’t bothersome to them to do it, that is a complement.
You may be an individual that loves to dance, that you want to dance all the time and that you want to go to places that have live music in which you can dance and that you can dance with many different people. And you may be involved with an individual that doesn’t dance at all but that enjoys going with you and watching you dance, and doesn’t have a problem with you dancing with multiple partners, or FLIRTING with multiple partners while you’re dancing. (John laughs) Dancing is a sexual and intimate action.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: But, you can be with another individual who is a natural complement to that, that it doesn’t bother them. They’re happy to simply observe and be your audience.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Those are examples of a complement. And what it is, is thinking about your day, making your list of all of the actions that you do automatically and naturally, and then, when you are developing a relationship with someone, notice what they do. Notice whether they are a complement to you or not. Notice whether they eat their meal in a manner that grates on your nerves. (John laughs) Or whether they are talking over you when you talk. Or, whether they are at times finishing your sentences for you and you actually like it.
JOHN: All right. Yeah.
ELIAS: But you notice.
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: Not whether the other individual reads the information from Elias. Not whether the other individual is a climber. Not whether the other individual has a great sense of humor. (Both laugh) That is your criteria list. (Both laugh)
JOHN: Those would be nice.
ELIAS: And that will be in the direction of destruction. (Both laugh)
JOHN: All right. We really have to go, but I hear you. And thank you. I will definitely, yeah, I will make that list. I will think more about that.
ELIAS: You have much to think about now. (Both laugh)
JOHN: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got a lot on my plate now.
ELIAS: (Laughs) Very well. That shall keep you full. (Laughs)
JOHN: Yes. Thank you.
ELIAS: You are tremendously welcome. I shall greatly be anticipating our next meeting – and your progress!
JOHN: Yeah!
ELIAS: In tremendous, tremendous love to you, in great support and encouragement, au revoir.
JOHN: ‘Bye for now.
(Elias departs after 1 hour 45 minutes)
©2021 Mary Ennis. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2021 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.