What Is Important to You?
Topics:
“What Is Important to You, and Why Are You Not Creating It?”
Saturday, May 4, 2013 (Group/Hinsdale, New Hampshire)
Participants: Mary (Michael), Aaron (Todd), Adam S., Axel (Ricarro), Ben (Albert), Brigitt (Camile), Carole (Aileen), Celeste (Raf-Yel), Christopher (Ailysta), Denise (Azura), Hernan (Hernan), Inna (Beatrix), Melissa (Leah), Patricia (Liva), Jenna (Nayreen), John (Lonn), John (Rrussell), Ken (Oba), Lynda (Ruther), Magdalena (Michella), Mark (Liam), Naomi G., Paul (Paneus), Paula (Jenn), Rodney (Zacharie), Sandra (Atafah), Suzanne (Zansa), Ann (Vivette), Wendy (Myiisha)
(Elias’ arrival time is 16 seconds.)
ELIAS: Good afternoon!
GROUP: Good afternoon! (Elias laughs)
ELIAS: We have recently engaged conversation in relation to this new wave, and I expressed in that conversation that this new wave is, for the most part, concerning attention. Therefore, this interaction and conversation will be about attention and what you are paying attention to and what you are not paying attention to, and in this, I will invite all of you to participate in offering your examples of what you are paying attention to and what you are not paying attention to in relation to, “What is important?” and “What is a benefit?” For as I expressed in our recent Open Session, when you ask the question of, “What is a benefit?” or “Is this a benefit?” following that question of, “What is important?” it can change the first question of, “What is important?” but there is also another factor in this that in engaging many of you in this recent time framework, it is obvious that many of you are incorporating difficulty with those two questions, in answering those two questions, for your automatic responses to those questions are generally what is important to you about a situation, an individual, and the question is not, “What is important about?” The question is, “What is important to me?” and following that with, “How is it a benefit?”
The automatic response is to evaluate and think of what is a benefit to me in the future. “How will this be a benefit to me?” That is not the question either. The question is, “Is it a benefit to me now?” and if it is not, it changes the question of what is important, for if it is not a benefit, it is not important, regardless of how you justify to yourselves that it is important. If it is not a benefit, it is not important. This is significant, and in this, we will be sharing and discussing your examples of what you think is important to you and why it is important to you. “Is it a benefit or is it not a benefit?” and in that, we will also be discussing how to be reevaluating when you discover what you are doing or what you are placing importance upon is not important, and how to move into new directions that allow you to genuinely be expressing what is important and what is a benefit to you.
Agreed? Very well. Then we shall begin, and who shall begin with their example of what may be important to them, but perhaps they are not necessarily creating, or they are incorporating difficulty with.
Yes?
KEN: This is Ken, Oba. I was placing, as I am known to do, things in an extreme manner. I was placing extreme importance on not being in the now, but what I refer to as living accommodations in the future for me. I am recently retired. I am living with my relatives who assured me I can live with them for the rest of my life with no need to go try to find a place for myself, but I currently, not at the moment, but recently owned a small condominium apartment which I was clinging to in a state of desperation as if sometime in the future I must have this. I was renting it out with the idea of moving back into it later, and I put importance on it to the point where I was creating lots of struggle with that, and I came to the conclusion eventually that this is not benefitting me at all, and it also ties in with my resistance to receiving because the receiving would be the generosity of my relatives who told me I could live with them; I don’t need to worry about it, and that I have this obsession with, “I must make do for myself. I must have my own place.” And they were saying, “You’re retired now.” I’m recently retired, so, “You’re retired. Be comfortable. Live with us. Don’t worry about trying to, you know, keep putting...you know, holding onto that money pit,” as the expression goes, and you know, and finally I had the revelation that it really is not important to me to be clinging to this place, and I turned it back over to the bank.
ELIAS: Excellent. This is an excellent example. This is an excellent example of attachments and how influencing they are and how automatic you respond to them. An attachment of independence...
KEN: Exactly.
ELIAS: ...that you are your greatest provider, that you must be providing and generating support for yourself, and in that, as you expressed, another aspect of it, which is in opposition to that attachment of independence, is the factor of the receiving. In this, receiving is a benefit. Receiving, I would express, is almost always a benefit.
KEN: Agreed.
ELIAS: Therefore, when you are evaluating what your situation is and what you are doing and even if you are not clear yet in relation to what is important to you—although that is a significant question—even if you are not clear in relation to the importance factor, the benefit factor in relation to what you are already doing is tremendous. I expressed previously, a very basic principle: you are consciousness. The nature of consciousness is expansion. That is the very nature of consciousness. In your terms, it is similar to you being a male or a female—you are that manifestation. It is an expression that strikes to a core element of your being.
In this, the nature of consciousness is expansion. What does that mean? The action of consciousness is continuous, ongoing, never-stopping more—more, more, more. In every moment, in every second of existence, and it matters not whether that existence is physical or non-physical. It is always more, more, more.
Therefore, it is a matter of, very simply, “What do you want to create more of?” For you will create more regardless, whether you are aware of it, whether you are thinking about it, whether you are feeling about it; it matters not. You automatically are always creating more in every moment of your existence. Knowing that basic aspect—that you are always creating more—it is a matter of recognizing within yourself and paying attention, “What do I want to create more of, for I am already creating more? What am I paying attention to?” For what you are paying attention to is the single greatest factor influencing your perception, and your perception creates all of your reality. Every moment, every manifestation is created by your perception. Therefore, in that, if your attention is the single, most greatest, influencing factor in relation to perception, attention is very important. What you are paying attention to is what influences your perception, and therefore, your reality in every detail of it.
In this, your attention is very flexible. It is moving continuously. There is one aspect of your attention that you may identify as the primary aspect of your attention. That would be the part of your attention that you are aware of objectively in what you are focused upon, but your attention is gathering information and moving in many, many, many other directions simultaneously to whatever you are focusing upon. There are many other directions that your attention is connecting to, but in this, in some manner, all of those directions will be connected to what you are aware of paying attention to, what you are focused upon. Remember, objective reality and imagery is abstract. Therefore, there are thousands of expressions or manners in which you can present imagery to yourself for one subject. There are thousands of manners in which that one subject can be manifest and can be expressed, and your attention is seeking out all of them, all that it can encompass in relation to whatever it is that you are focused upon. That is the significance of attention and how influencing it is.
In this, as in your example, you may not be objectively engaging your thought process and expressing to yourself, “Aha! I am expressing an attachment. I see that attachment of independence.” No, not necessarily, you may merely be feeling uncomfortable, for your association with independence is not matching what you are experiencing. That is not to say that you are not expressing some aspect of that attachment of independence, and it is not to say that independence is bad, but it is to say that what you are paying attention to—what you are focused upon—is the factor that what you are experiencing doesn’t match your idea of independence, and therefore, you send yourself a signal...
KEN: When that phone rang and rang and rang...
ELIAS: ...a feeling, and what generally occurs is you begin paying attention to the feeling rather than what it means. You are not necessarily paying attention to the message of the feeling, for as I expressed, feelings are very attractive. You like them. Even if they are not good feelings, they are attractive, and you are drawn to them immediately, and you are drawn to them in a very similar manner as an insect to a flame. It matters not that the flame incorporates the potential to be destructive to the insect. It will continue to be drawn to that flicker and that heat. You are drawn, in a very similar manner, to your feelings, to the flicker and the heat of them, and you are fascinated with them, and therefore, you pay attention to them and not necessarily to the statement that they are bringing. Feelings are designed, yes, to be attractive in order that you pay attention to them, but they are designed—it is their design—to be a signal.
When you are engaging your motor vehicles, upon your roads, and you encounter a traffic signal, do you linger and sit within your vehicle and contemplate the changing of the colors of the lights? Do you sit within your vehicle, for even five or ten of your minutes—minutes—and continue to watch the changing of the red and the yellow and the green? No, you immediately respond to those signals. You understand them; you know what they mean, and you respond to them, and you move, or you stop.
With feelings, they are designed to be the same. They are signals. They are not designed to dwell upon. They are not designed for you to continue to watch them and pay attention to them and be consumed with them. They are designed to signal you a message.
You incorporate computers in this time framework, and those computers incorporate new mailboxes, correct? And they signal you with numbers or sounds or some type of signal that you incorporate information or communications, correct? Do you dwell upon the number or the signal? No, you immediately move to the messages, and you investigate what the communications are. This is the function of feelings: to signal you.
But in relation to these factors such as an attachment of independence and not matching your idea of independence with your physical experience, that generates a signal: alert; there is a difference. This is not matching the information that I understand and that I know. In this, if you are noting the feeling, “I am uncomfortable,” what is uncomfortable? What has changed? What is different? “What am I expressing that I am uncomfortable with?” In that, it allows you to begin to move in the direction of reevaluating, and you likely would identify, “Ah, I incorporate this attachment of independence and this construct of my experience presently does not seem to match that idea or that construct that I have incorporated previously. In those differences, am I actually no longer independent, or am I independent?” You are not evaluating; you are reacting to the feeling, which blocks the information, for the feeling contains no information. It is a feeling; it is a signal. It does not communicate to you. Therefore, you continue to feel, and you continue to be confused and expressing, “I do not understand. What am I doing? Why is this feeling continuing? What am I not doing? What am I not understanding? What am I creating?” That is a very common expression with most of you. “What am I creating now?”
In this, how can you offer yourself the answers to these questions and understand what you are expressing and what you are doing if you are only paying attention to what you are feeling? Feelings are important. It is significant to pay attention to them, but not to pay attention to them beyond being a signal.
Another example. Yes?
MARK: This is Mark. I seem to spend a lot of time on the importance of being comfortable. I’m trying to wrap that into what you’re saying. It’s kind of like I focus on it’s very important for me to feel comfortable with the understanding that uncomfortable experiences have benefit. I still want to feel comfortable, and I pay attention to that.
ELIAS: And are you not comfortable?
MARK: In this present moment?
ELIAS: Yes.
MARK: Yes.
ELIAS: That is the point. In the moment, this is another excellent example of what you concentrate upon, what you think about, what you project to rather than recognizing, “What am I doing now?”
Now; in relation to your statement, “Being comfortable is important to me.”
MARK: Yes.
ELIAS: “I want to be comfortable,” asking yourself, “What is the benefit?” I would express that it is likely that you can answer that question also, what the benefit is to you to be comfortable.
In this, it is also a matter of paying attention to what you are doing now. “I want to be comfortable” is not “I am comfortable.” “I want to be comfortable” is a projection—future. Therefore, “What is the benefit?” will likely be a future answer also, but the question is, “How is it a benefit now?”
Therefore, when you express, “I want to be comfortable,” being comfortable is important to me. When you follow that with, “How is this a benefit to me now?” now it changes what you are paying attention to, for in the question, “What is important to me?” there is an aspect of you that is projecting what you want futurely, not what you are doing now, but when you follow that with, “How is this a benefit to me now?” it moves your attention back to now and influences you to be paying attention to now. That changes that first question, for you can express to yourself, “Am I uncomfortable now? No. Very well, what is the concern?” If you are already doing it, why are you concerned, and you are concerned or you would not be expressing you want to do it, for you are expressing in a manner that you do not already have, but you do already have, for you’ve answered that with the, “How is it a benefit to me now? It already is a benefit to me now, for I already am expressing it, and why am I concerned with not expressing it?”
The future is shaped by now. Therefore, what you are doing now is already determining what you will be generating futurely. Therefore, if you are concerned about an expression now, you will continue to be concerned about it futurely, and you may even likely create it futurely, for what is the principle: You will always create more. You are always creating more. Therefore, if you have not enough comfort now, you will create more not enough comfort. If you have not enough anything now, you will create more of not enough.
This is the significance of genuinely moving your attention to what you are doing, to what you are accomplishing, to what is satisfying to you, and it matters not how insignificant you deem it to be. It genuinely matters not, for it is the energy that is determining, and the energy is not greater or less, bigger or smaller, dependent upon whether you deem an expression to be bigger or smaller, greater or less, that the action or the experience of engaging an interview for employment is bigger than which type of tea you choose to drink. The energy does not generate that distinction. They are the same. They are choices and how you are directing those choices. If you are viewing that potential interview for employment and disempowering yourself and expressing that the other individual, the interviewer, incorporates the power—it is not your choice, it is their choice to choose you—and in that, you may be uncertain, and that energy is the same as the energy of, “I am uncertain of which type of tea to choose.” They are the same. You deem them to be different, for you place differences in importance in relation to different expressions and experiences that you generate, but the energy of it is all the same. Therefore, that cup of tea is equally as important as that interview, for it is the energy that is generated by that that determines what you are creating, and they are all interconnected. All of your actions are interconnected.
In this, when you are generating the idea of what is important to you and it incorporates a future aspect or a past aspect, and it is not present, you can evaluate any other subject that you are engaging, and it is very likely that most, if not all of them, will follow suit, that they will also be being perceived with a future or a past aspect, not present, not acknowledging what is now, what I have now, what I am doing now, what I am accomplishing now. That is what is important, for that is what all of your aspects of reality hinge upon. Your past and your future all hinges upon what you are doing now and how you are directing yourself and your energy presently.
Next example. Yes?
PAUL: Hi, Elias. This is Paul, Paneus. A lot of times, in reference to stress related to my daughter, I try to focus on avoiding those stresses. Sometimes I can maybe anticipate an issue, and I try to intervene to help prevent that stress from occurring, so I focus a lot of my attention on stress avoidance in reference to her.
ELIAS: And this is another excellent example, for I would express that many, if not most of you, in different situations, express in avoidance. You anticipate, you project futurely in anticipation of an action, and you attempt to move in directions to avoid that action from occurring, and what you do is, in doing so, you will either create some aspect of what you were trying to avoid, or you will create some other situation and experience that you are not comfortable with. It may not always be expressed directly in the subject matter that you are thinking of, for remember: all that you do is interconnected, and therefore, that energy is moving in many directions and drawing to you what matches it. Therefore, when you are avoiding, you are uncomfortable, and you create more of being uncomfortable. Imagery is abstract. It may not be uncomfortable in that specific situation, but you will create more of being uncomfortable, for that is what you are paying attention to. When you are avoiding, you are paying attention to being uncomfortable, and that creates more uncomfortable. Therefore, you avoid a confrontation with your daughter, and your tire on your vehicle explodes. It is the same. You are uncomfortable with the tire also.
In this, the energy does not distinguish. It merely recognizes what you are instructing it to do. You are instructing it to create more of whatever you are paying attention to, and that is what it does. Your energy is very similar to your own personal, individual, all-powerful robot, and it will do whatever you command it to do, and it will create more and more and more of it. It is an endless machine of more, and in that, it is significant to be aware of what you are paying attention to.
In this example also, the reason you are avoiding is for you have already invented a consequence. Consequences are always your own invention. The reason you think they are not your own invention is that you bear them out. You create them, and you do it very effectively and very precisely, and you do it repeatedly which reinforces your idea of consequences. Now you not only have invented the consequence, but you can anticipate it, and you can expect it, and you do.
PAUL: So should we focus now on ignoring it or just moving our attention to something else?
ELIAS: What you do is, first, you acknowledge that feeling. You notice the feeling that is signaling you that you are automatically reacting to in wanting to ignore. You notice the feeling. You acknowledge and define it. It is important to define specifically what you are feeling. It is, in your terms, quite astounding how often you are unaware of what you are actually feeling. You know you are feeling, but you are not actually defining what you are feeling. You generalize—I am uncomfortable. I am unhappy. That is not an actual feeling. That is a generalization. It is important to define what are you feeling. When you define what you are feeling, you acknowledge that, “This is what I am feeling,” and from that, you evaluate, “What does this mean to me? What is the threat? What am I avoiding? What am I presenting to myself? What have I invented as the possible consequence? What do I think will occur if I do this?” That is a projection. That is not being present. That is anticipating, and it is creating—inventing—a consequence.
What are consequences? Consequences are your invented punishment for generating a wrong action.
KEN: I’ve got a term for that: “Guided meditation for masochists.” (Group laughs)
ELIAS: You invent punishments for yourselves in relation to your own assessment of wrong choices or wrong actions. There are no right or wrong choices; they are merely choices. I understand that you incorporate duplicity, and that expresses right and wrong and good and bad, and I am not discounting that. What I am expressing to you is that, quite realistically, there are no right or wrong choices; they are only choices, and in those choices, if you dislike a choice that you generate, you change it. It is simple. You are not bound to any choice that you generate, regardless of how significant you think it is. Remember, the interview is no different from the cup of tea. The interview is no greater of a choice than the cup of tea. They are both choices; they both generate the same energy, and therefore, in that, it is a matter of evaluating what am I paying attention to in relation to these choices? How am I inventing my own consequence, knowing that I will create it, and I will create more of it, and you do. For when you are avoiding, “I will not do this. I will avoid this action, for if I engage this action, my daughter will respond or react in this manner, and you will prove yourself out, and you will do it again and again and again, and you will generate the same consequence, the same result, for that is the invention that you have created. It belongs to you. It is yours. It is, in your terms, your property, and you have carried it with you. Of course, you will generate it; you possess it. It belongs to you.
Next? Yes.
JOHN: Well, actually for the sake of the transcript, this is John/Rrussell. I’m going to be a little bit inarticulate. What if you have an ongoing situation that...and I’ll give it to you, and I’ll talk to you a little about it...so if you’ve got a role, you’ve got a job...that’s an ongoing thing, every single day. Right? You pay attention to it because you’re waking up in the bloody morning and going to it, right? And at the same time, there may be aspects of that job that’s changed up, but you’ve still got your expectations of your role, that you must follow through.
Now; you gave me one suggestion, which was a very good suggestion: network in other places in the organization...where to evaluate, right, what kind of tea to use your analogy...
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: ...that other kind of tea that you want...
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: ...but that’s a lot to do, and on any particular day, you may not want to place a lot of importance on any of it, right, but you are sort of supposed to...
ELIAS: No.
JOHN: ...and...
ELIAS: Being present...
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: Being present...
JOHN: Yeah.
ELIAS: ...in your terms, in one day, that may be important. In another day, it may not be important.
JOHN: Right.
ELIAS: It is a matter of recognizing being present. What are you doing now? This day? This moment? What is important to you now? In this day? In this moment? It changes. You are always in a state of change.
JOHN: The more of what you pay attention to, right, from what you’re saying is more of what you create. Therefore, If I’m paying less attention to something, right, I’m creating less of it. It’s proportional...
ELIAS: Yes, but in a particular day, or in a particular moment, it may not matter that you are creating less of a certain expression, for that may not be important to you in that day. Therefore, it matters not. What is significant is what is important to you this day, for what is important to you is always changing. This is another significant factor, which is an excellent point that you present, that most of you generate the idea of what is important to you or what you want or what direction you are moving in and that it must be constant. It is always the same, or it is always increasing in that same direction, but you are not constant.
You are always changing. Therefore, this is the reason it is so very significant that you are paying attention in the present, for that changes. In one time framework, one direction may be very important to you, and in a particular other time framework, it may not be important to you at all. Therefore, if you are not creating more of it, you are not concerned with it, for it is not important to you. What is significant is that in each day, you are paying attention to what is important to you.
Remember, the imagery is abstract. Therefore, it is the energy that is moving, and in that, regardless you in one day express this action or this direction is important to me, and in the next day, you are not paying attention to it at all, but you are paying attention to some other aspect that is important to you, the imagery does not matter. The energy will continue to move in the direction of your greatest benefit in every aspect regardless. It is not necessarily a matter of the imagery itself that you are paying attention to that is important, but what is genuinely important to you in that time framework, for the imagery can incorporate many forms.
JOHN: So there’s...sorry, just one last follow-up. I get the sense that a natural importance and what’s happening is that we impose our artificial order of importance on a natural importance, and then it goes out of...
ELIAS: Yes.
JOHN: ...but where does natural importance come from? I don’t...I’m not...
ELIAS: Define.
JOHN: Define which?
FEMALE: Natural importance.
JOHN: Natural importance. What you’re saying, right, if I’ve understood you correctly, there is an importance, and it’s a flow, and it might change every day, or it may change in different moments, and what’s happening is I have the importance, my own...a different importance that I’m imposing on the more natural flow of importance.
ELIAS: No.
JOHN: No, so if I...
ELIAS: You are imposing the imagery...
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: ...you are not necessarily changing the importance. You are changing the imagery or changing the idea, but not necessarily what is actually important to you. The previous statement was concerning being comfortable. That is a generalization. That is a general concept of a state of being—being comfortable. That can be expressed in a myriad of manners. You may express in your workplace that you deem it as important that you are heard or that you are acknowledged or that you are recognized. That can be expressed in many, many, many forms, and in one day, you may choose one form that you are identifying as “That is important,” but you are not changing the importance, you are changing the form. You are changing the imagery and thinking that each form is a different subject or a different importance, when it is not necessarily. Therefore, regardless that in one day you think what is important is one expression and in another day you think what is important is a different subject, it may not be. It may be the same. The imagery is different, or the form of how you are expressing it is different, but what you are actually instructing your energy to seek out to match it, in relation to importance, is the same. Are you understanding?
JOHN: Yeah, but then my question would be, I guess what’s important is you’re talking about importance in a very...the foundational way...the importance is the foundation of what is important and the imagery, right, may be different, but that importance, right, is reflected in the different kind of imagery there are. Then there’s the other kinds of importance; there’s levels, right? The importance is that when I drink something, I say, “What am I choosing to drink,” or the importance could be I want tea or what tea I am choosing to drink, or the importance may be I need to nourish myself—I want something to drink, right—so it seems to be there’s different layers. I don’t think I’m always clear; it’s not always clear what layer of importance any particular type of imagery is... [inaudible]
ELIAS: Which is the point that I was expressing previously...
JOHN: Okay.
ELIAS: ...that you are complicating.
JOHN: Ah.
ELIAS: There are not layers. They are all the same. It matters not that your idea of greater or lesser, bigger or smaller, more significant, less significant, are merely your constructs of what you are focusing upon, not that they actually incorporate a difference in energy; they do not. You deem them to incorporate a difference in your thinking. You organize them in your thinking in differences of significances. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, you prioritize, you categorize in your thinking what is more significant and what is less significant, but in actuality, they are all the same, for what creates them, what moves is the energy and the energy is all the same, regardless of the significance you place upon what you are focusing upon in that moment...
JOHN: The specificity.
ELIAS: Correct. That is the abstractness, and you are correct, what I am expressing is the basis, but that basis is what is influencing and actually creating your reality and influencing what you do by your attention. Now are you understanding?
JOHN: I think so.
ELIAS: Very well.
JOHN: I’ll have to think about it.
ELIAS: We shall break and return shortly.
KEN: Thank you.
RODNEY: Thank you.
(Elias departs after one hour, ten minutes, eight seconds.)
[Break]
(Elias’ arrival time is 10 seconds.)
ELIAS: Continuing. Next individual. Yes?
NAOMI: Elias, this is Naomi. I have a question about how our attention relates, or may not relate, to imbalance or balance. In other words, I am focusing a lot lately on time, a lot of time to myself to the point where I wonder if it is at an imbalanced state. It always has had value for me, and I know I will always need a lot of alone time, but I wonder if there are other things of value that I would like to do that I’m not turning my attention to. Could you talk about that for a minute?
ELIAS: First of all, returning to the present and the now, it is a matter of evaluating, first of all, what is important to you now, and in that, how is it a benefit to you now? This is also, again, an excellent example, for it is an example of how you become caught, in a manner of speaking, in your thinking that what you have been taught, what you have learned, influences your view of yourself, and it influences how you construct what is good, what is bad, what is appropriate, what is inappropriate, right and wrong, what is better, what is worse, what you should do, what you should not do, but many of these factors do not encompass what you actually want or what is actually important to you in the present.
You generate ideas of what you should be doing or what is healthy to be doing. Many, many times in relation to generating time frameworks alone, and I would express as many of you that incorporate the soft orientation are aware of, for soft individuals experience this considerably in relation to the shoulds and should nots in relation to behaviors and interaction, and that if you are incorporating too much time framework alone that you are isolating, and if you are isolating, this is not good, that you should be more social, or you should be more interactive.
But even if you are not a soft individual, individuals do generate time frameworks in which they may be self-exploring, and during that time framework, regardless of your orientation, you may choose, and it may be important to you to not incorporate distractions with other individuals, for you are so very accustomed to moving your attention outside of yourselves when you are distracted by other individuals. When you are engaging any other individual, this is very automatic. It is a learned behavior, but it is learned so very well that it is also very automatic, which any of you can experiment with as an example to yourselves in how easy and automatic this action is by merely attempting to pay attention to yourself if you are engaging a conversation with another individual. The moment you engage a conversation with another individual, you immediately begin to focus your attention upon the other individual, and what they are expressing, how they are moving, how they are projecting themself. You may not think about those aspects, but you are paying attention, and you are very much paying attention to what they are saying.
In this, it is such an automatic action that for many individuals, if they are engaging a time framework in which they are genuinely exploring themselves, they may choose to be much less interactive, and this is a prompt from your body consciousness. Your body consciousness knows how you are directing your attention, for it is involved with that attention, for your body consciousness is what generates that connection between the objective and the subjective, meaning your body consciousness is what prompts feelings. It creates those signals, whether they are physical or emotional. They are all being prompted by your body consciousness. Therefore, your body consciousness also is very aware of what you are paying attention to, and what distracts you.
If you are setting an intention that you want to be exploring self and expanding and you are moving your attention to you, your body consciousness automatically receives that message and responds to it by prompting you in a direction that lessens the importance for outside stimulation or outside distraction which includes interaction with other individuals. This is a natural action. It is expressing compliance with what you want and what is important to you, and therefore, you incorporate less of a desire, or less motivation to be interactive. And this time framework varies with each individual. Some individuals may incorporate a considerable time framework in which they are not interactive with other individuals. This is not bad or wrong, and it is not an indication that there is some wrong element with you or what you are doing.
In addition to that, there may be other actions that are important to you, but once again returning to the recognition of the present and being present, your body consciousness is also involved in that process so to speak. You are instructing it in relation to what is important to you. Therefore, figuratively speaking, in a manner, your body consciousness devises a type of priority list. What is the most important now, what is next in importance, what is slightly less important, what is the least important, and in that, it prioritizes and prompts you, or in your terms, helps you to express in the now what is the most important action that you want to be engaging.
In this, the tricky element of this process in relation to attention is that, at times, your body consciousness is prompting you to engage actions that are actually in compliance with the type of energy that you are expressing that is important to you, or the type of direction, and therefore, the body consciousness recognizes what type of energy to project to accomplish attracting what fits with what is important to you. That may not always be expressed in a comfortable manner, but it is moving the energy in relation to what is important to you. The reason this is the tricky aspect is that the imagery that you present to yourself may be confusing. You may express to yourself, “I want to develop new patterns in my life that are not associated with my most familiar triggers or my most familiar associations.”
Now; in that, the body consciousness receives that instruction and begins to project energy in relation to that intention, and it recognizes the importance of that intention and your assessment of the benefit of that intention.
Now; in that, automatically, your thinking moves to scenarios that you obviously view as beneficial and that you like, and that are comfortable, but remember, your energy does not generate those distinctions; it merely seeks out what is efficient, what is effective, and what matches it.
Therefore, you may present to yourself familiar patterns as an opportunity to generate different choices. That is the area in which it begins to become confusing, for you notice your automatic compulsion almost to engage those familiar patterns and those familiar actions, and that leads you automatically in the direction of discounting yourself and expressing, “I’m doing this wrong.” Not necessarily, for you are offering yourself the opportunity to engage those familiar patterns and to choose different outcomes. In relation to that aspect of prioritizing, yes, there may be many different directions that you want to explore or many different actions that you want to engage and experiences that you want to involve yourself in, and doing what you are doing presently may be moving you in those directions in manners that you merely objectively do not see yet.
What is important in these types of situations is, once again, to return to those questions: “What is important to me now? Is that important expression a benefit to me now?” If it is, your inner conversation is over. If it is not, then you can reevaluate, but if it is benefitting you now, it is not necessary for you to question yourself any further, that all of the other actions that you want to do or that you are interested in, or that may be important also, will fall into place, so to speak, in their own timing when you are ready for that to occur.
You will prompt yourself to move in those directions when they become more primarily important, but in the moment, they may not be the primary importance. What is important to remind yourself is also, “Is this what I want to create more of? Am I comfortable in this? Is it a benefit to me, and is this what I want to be creating more of?” And in that, if your response to yourself is, “Yes,” you can, for the most part, assure yourself that all of those thoughts that you are engaging are likely related to attachments that are expressing to you, “You are not doing what you should be doing. This is what you should be doing, and you are not,” but attachments can be beneficial in some capacities; they can also be limiting or hindering in other capacities.
Attachments are not expressions that you necessarily want to eliminate or rid yourself of, for they do incorporate benefits for the most part or they would not be attachments, but they also do incorporate influences, at times, that are limitations, and it is merely a matter of recognizing when they are eliminating your freedom to be choosing in the capacity that is the most important to you presently.
NAOMI: Thank you.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. Next?
Yes?
PATRICIA: This is Patricia/Liva, and my question is about paying attention to feelings because I experience my feelings intensely and my emotions intensely, and I guess I wonder what...if you could speak to me about some more beneficial ways for me to understand and then process the [guilt?] emotions regarding not paying attention to the blinking light, so to speak...[inaudible]...what’s natural?
ELIAS: Some feelings can be very intense, and some individuals experience feelings very intensely naturally. It varies from one individual to another. In this, I would express that the process would be the same whether it is that you consistently generate feelings intensely or whether you experience them occasionally intensely. Remembering that they are a signal and that the objective is not to dwell upon them or to continue to be paying attention to that signal, but to be discovering what is the statement that is attached to the signal. I am understanding; at times, if feelings are generated in an intense manner, it can be difficult to move your attention away from the feeling to even consider what the statement is or what the message is.
In this, knowing that they are designed to be a signal is the first aspect. The next step is moving your attention, practicing moving your attention, not holding it fixed upon the feeling.
Now; the most effective, efficient, easiest manner in which you can do this is to move your attention to your senses. Other than feelings, your senses are the next strongest expression that you generate. Your senses are also physical. In this, your senses are inputting information every moment. Even when you are sleeping, your senses are inputting information. Your senses rarely disconnect; they rarely turn off, but you are all experts at not paying attention to them at times, or to being selective in what you pay attention to in relation to your senses, but they are very powerful, and they are always functioning, and they are always inputting information. Therefore, they are very effective to move your attention. All that is required is a moment of interruption.
Let me express to you in what you would term to be a more workable fashion in relation to moving your attention. If you move your attention to one of your senses, not all of your senses in general—choose one—and I would suggest you choose one other than sight, for you are too familiar with sight, but if you move your attention to one of your other senses and are genuinely concentrating your attention upon what is being inputted by that sense, for 20 seconds, your concentration has been broken. Your concentration upon that feeling has been successfully interrupted. Twenty seconds is all that is required. You can actually do this more quickly than that, but 20 seconds will definitely break your concentration upon a feeling regardless of how intense it may be.
PATRICIA: Well, because previously what I would do is I would...I wasn’t comfortable with how intense the feeling was, so I would try to, like, squelch it, and hide it, and so now I’m confused as to what is the proper, or the natural amount of intention I should put on that feeling now that [inaudible] so that I don’t begin to stuff it in my body.
ELIAS: What I would express to you: this is an excellent question, and I would express to you the required amount of time to be paying attention to a feeling is the amount of time that it incorporates for you to define what it is.
PATRICIA: Because it does calm down.
ELIAS: Once you define what that feeling is, it is no longer necessary to be paying attention to it. That is all that is required: is that you define it. “What is this feeling? What am I feeling?” Once you have defined it, that is the point: to move your attention away from it, for it is no longer serving you once you have defined what it is.
PATRICIA: Okay. Thank you.
ELIAS: Yes?
ADAM: Thank you. Adam Sims. I have a very similar to her, so I was thinking, for me, I suffer from terrible migraines, and I was thinking about identifying that feeling of the migraine and what it is, but I mean CAT scans and MRIs and everything, you know, I haven’t really been able to put my finger on it, and I think outside of physical reasons, but I was wondering if maybe you could direct me in a way to, for me personally, but also that I have that question about acknowledging that or moving my attention away from the pain of the migraine. It’s really difficult for me when I’m feeling, like, I’m starting to be nauseous; it’s really taking over, you know, to...and when you have your head under the pillow in the dark, it’s hard to have attention on anything else, but you know, this spike in your skull. So I was just wondering if you could help me with that.
ELIAS: Very well. It is very difficult...
ADAM: And thank you.
ELIAS: ...to move your attention away from intense feelings whether they are emotional or physical. Physical feelings are especially difficult to move your attention away from, for they seem to be all-encompassing. The factor with physical feelings, which is somewhat different from emotional feelings, is that with physical feelings, once the physical feeling begins you automatically generalize it. This is an automatic action, and you all do it. You generalize it by expressing to yourself, “It is constant.” No pain is constant. There is no physical manifestation that is constant. It blinks on/off, on/off, on/off, on/off, but you generalize it and express that it is constant. There is no off. There is only on, and therefore, that is what you perceive, and that is what you feel. That is not precisely what is occurring, but that is what you feel.
Now; what I will express to you are two aspects, one in relation to prevention, one in relation to when that action or manifestation is already occurring. In relation to when the action is already occurring, yes, I agree. It is very difficult to move your attention. Once again, I will express that moving your attention to a sense can be very effective.
Now; with an action such as a headache or a migraine, I would suggest that you move your attention to your sense of touch, for your sense of hearing and your sense of sight and even your sense of smell are already acutely heightened, and they are already attempting to shut down, for it is an irritant that they are so heightened. But your sense of touch is the one sense that you are paying the least attention to. The reason I say that you are paying the least attention to the sense of touch is that your sense of taste is very connected to your sense of smell, and it is shutting down also. But with your sense of touch, touch is not only what you physically experience in contact with an object. Touch is also what your skin is feeling, therefore, what your skin is sensing.
In this, rather than concentrating your attention upon the inside of your head, move your attention to the outside of your head—what is it experiencing? What is the outside of your head experiencing? For the outside of your head is not in pain. What does it feel? What is the temperature? What is the sensation? What is it physically touching if it is in contact with any other object? If it is not, what is the air expressing in relation to touch?
In this manner, you are moving your attention to a sense, but you are also acknowledging the discomfort in a particular location—your head—and you are moving your attention to a different aspect of your head that is not experiencing pain to reinforce to your body consciousness not that generalization; it is not your entire head that is generating pain. There are aspects of your head that do not hurt. Therefore, it interrupts that concentration upon the pain, and it interrupts the generalization that your entire head is being affected, for it is not.
Now; in relation to prevention, migraines are an expression of, “Get away from.” It matters not who you are, this is the expression of a migraine. Migraines are very specific types of headaches and when the body consciousness generates that action, it is an intense expression; it is a reaction of the body consciousness, and your body consciousness is expressing, “Get away from.”
Now; what is important is to finish that statement with, what? What are you desperate to get away from, for this is a manifestation of desperation. When individuals create migraine headaches, they are generating a desperate energy within them which is instructing and leading the body consciousness into that particular manifestation, for that particular manifestation does what? It does not only interrupt your senses, what else does it do? It stops your thinking. It stops you from engaging the one aspect of yourself that you are so very focused upon and that you are so dependent upon, which is your thought mechanism. It interrupts the thought mechanism and all you can engage in thinking is pain, hurt, pain, hurt, and “Get away from.” You are not attempting to get away from the pain. You are in a desperate expression to get away from some source. It may be an inner source, such as memories or that you may be devaluing yourself, and you are becoming uncomfortable with that devaluing. It may be a discounting—I cannot; I do not; I have not, and hopeless.
That can be a lead-in to that desperate “Get away from,” or it can be associated with an outside source—some action that is occurring around you that triggers some very uncomfortable expression within you, which is so uncomfortable that you do not allow yourself to think about it, and you will not allow yourself to feel in relation to it either. Therefore, you create the extreme signal. The feeling would not be enough emotionally. The expression is too desperate, therefore, it is immediately: “Get away from, get away from now,” and it builds.
ADAM: And it works.
ELIAS: It is very effective. It is very efficient.
ADAM: I will say thank you for, you know, as far as [inaudible], I will think about that and work on that, but I’ll...and I can relate that already, but I used to be really active and ran like seven miles in a day, and stuff like that, and then it started being taken away...the physicality was taken away from me through a certain amount of cardiovascular things will shoot the migraine, so I’ll just say, in that small example, that is something I enjoy...
ELIAS: Look to associations. Remember, associations are very influencing, and they can be triggered in a myriad of manners: a smell, a color, a movement. It is not necessary; it does not require overt considerably obvious triggers. This is the reason that they are so very effective, for they can be triggered very easily in very inobvious manners. I would suggest that you look to your associations, for even in activities or actions or choices that you like or that are beneficial, if you incorporate associations that are discounting or devaluing of you, they can turn that influence to an expression that you enjoy into a miserable expression.
Therefore, evaluate the action that is being prevented and allow yourself to generate an evaluation in that. What other branches have been connected? When have I engaged this action, even if I enjoyed doing this action? Hypothetical example: an individual could be a runner and very much enjoy this activity and be very concentrated and value it and benefit from it, and may generate the action very consistently, and in one time framework, while they are engaging their general routine of running, they may be also engaging with another individual that is considerably important to them, and that individual may be struggling, or may die, and in that, you do not associate running with the other individual’s choice, but that familiar routine of that action triggers that body consciousness in the memory. And in that, the running, for a temporary time framework, becomes an activity that the individual engages to distract themselves, to get away from the feelings, concentrate their attention in an activity that they enjoy, and that they excel at, but the body consciousness registers that association, and therefore, it can become a trigger for the “Get away from.”
ADAM: I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. Next! Yes?
CAROLE: Hi, this is Carole from Connecticut, essence name, Aileen. I’m listening to Adam, and it’s interesting because it correlates a lot to something that I came here thinking about. Elias, you know I’ve been thinking about this—it’s been a big problem in my life for most of my adult life—that I have a son who has the diagnosis of schizophrenia, which we talked about several times.
ELIAS: Yes.
CAROLE: And I’m wondering, in listening to your suggestions with Adam, that that might be beneficial in a way of giving him some respite from his problems which have accelerated to now that he sees and hears things. Also, he says it’s constant, but I know it’s not constant because I see times when it’s not happening, like, I understand [inaudible] as we all do. However, it occurs to me that it started out as visual, and now it’s audio also, in addition to obsessions with these things constantly occupying his mind and his life, and he says he’s in constant pain.
And I’m listening to Adam, and I’m wondering if somehow the information that you just imparted might be beneficial...
ELIAS: Definitely.
CAROLE: ...for my son also. It seems like something that maybe he hasn’t tried. I have talked to him about trying to bring his consciousness down into his body, to just experience his body consciousness, but he doesn’t seem able to do that. It may be that if it were a little bit more explicit or specific, that that might be helpful.
ELIAS: Very well.
CAROLE: So anything you would have would be helpful. Thank you.
ELIAS: As you are aware, acknowledging the difficulty in moving the attention away from these expressions, but also acknowledging that the more you pay attention to them, the more they persist. The more he pays attention to the audio or the visual, the more he will create it. In this, with these types of situations, at times, it may be more beneficial to the individual to, in a manner of speaking, generate the reverse and externalize in similar manner to moving the attention to your head rather than your brain. The outside of your head, rather than the inside of your head, at times, it can be more beneficial...
CAROLE: We have tried that. As a matter of fact, I have yelled at the hallucinations, and he likes that, but it only works for a little while.
ELIAS: No, that was not the point.
CAROLE: Oh, okay. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Not to externalize them in the manner of creating a thing. That merely offers more power. When you pay attention to these manifestations to the point of creating them into a manifestation—a thing—that very much gives the expression power, and it very much disempowers the individual, for now these manifestations incorporate almost form, and therefore, are independent of them.
When I express “externalize,” what I am expressing is that he not view these as separate from himself, but an actual aspect of himself that he can, in a manner of speaking, externalize recognizing that the voices, the visions, are being expressed as a manifestation of fear. He already does not feel safe. He already does not believe that he can trust. Therefore, expressing to him that he is safe or that he can trust is pointless, for he already believes that that is untrue.
In this, it is more a factor of placing an identification upon the manifestation. It is an aspect of him, and that aspect of him is fear. He feels unsafe. Remember, safety is not a state of being; it is a feeling. Therefore, it is a matter of the externalization of finding some aspect in his environment that is safe. What represents to him what is safe?
CAROLE: Is that a real question or rhetorical?
ELIAS: Rhetorical. In this, it is a matter of encouraging him in that discovery of defining what is safe, regardless of what it is; it matters not what it is. This is the scenario of facing the lion. You face the lion, and in facing the lion, you can either freeze in fear and concentrate upon the fear and what will occur—the lion will eat you—or you can run to what is safe, and the lion will not eat you. You can concentrate upon the lion’s teeth in fear and be eaten, or you can stop concentrating upon the teeth, and you can run to what is safe.
It is a matter of discovering what feels safe for him, regardless of what it is, and in that, to continuously reinforce that safe feeling to allow him to begin to trust that safe feeling. That “safe” is very small, for he has built the unsafe into a huge monster. In this, the more he pays attention to the safe, the more it grows, and it becomes bigger and bigger. That is not to say that the unsafe monster becomes smaller and smaller; that is a misconception. The unsafe does not necessarily become smaller and smaller. It may remain a very large monster, but the safe grows, and it becomes bigger and bigger, and eventually the safe becomes the same size as the unsafe, and when the safe becomes the same size as the unsafe, it can hide behind it, and the unsafe begins to move away, for it cannot gain his attention any longer, for he is hiding behind the safe; he cannot see it. It cannot see him. In a manner of speaking, it is a metaphorical game of hide and seek, but a more effective game of hide and seek, and it is a process, for feeding the safe to grow it to the size of the unsafe monster incorporates a requirement of time and patience—allowance, not pushing, and there may be times in which the safe is stepped on temporarily, for the monster is larger, but the safe is not gone, and it can continue to grow. Therefore, it is that encouragement, that supportiveness; that is what I am expressing in externalizing, that you are not creating a separate entity, another thing that can be more empowered, even if you are screaming at it, you are giving it attention. It is still ruling, for you are yelling at it, therefore, it is still generating the power, but if he is paying attention to what represents safe, that may be a corner, it may be a pillow, it may be a small object, it may be an action; it may be tapping is safe. It may be blinking is safe, “I cannot see the monster if I’m blinking.”
It matters not what the safe is or how insignificant it appears to be. It is a matter of building that, acknowledging, “That is safe.” You can believe that, and that cannot be taken away from you. It belongs to you. You own it. In that, he can begin to build that empowerment, but I would also express to you: he chose this manifestation. Therefore, I would suggest in compassion not to move yourself into a direction of deluding yourself in the expression that eventually, one day, he will alter this completely, for it is highly likely that he will not; he chose this manifestation. He can choose to alter aspects of it. He could choose to alter it entirely, but that is not the direction that he has chosen in this focus, and this is only one focus. I acknowledge the difficulty in relationship, but it is important to remember what is important to you, and what is a benefit to you, not what is important to me for him, or what is a benefit to me about him? What is a benefit to you, and what is important to you, for he is already generating what is important to him.
CAROLE: Thank you, thank you, Elias.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. Next? I shall incorporate one more. Yes?
MARK: Elias, this is Mark again. I want to go back to the migraine headaches and the message of, [inaudible] The question is: I understand trying to alleviate the migraine headaches by focusing my attention on another sense as touch, my question is: when I pay attention to the muscles [inaudible] an example would be, I’m in an environment—this is just an example—and I get migraine headaches, the message is: “Get away from the environment,” and I pay attention to the message by potentially reconfiguring the energy, not necessarily leaving the environment...I don’t know how to phrase the question...heed the message, and physically get away, but that leads me into avoidance.
ELIAS: Not necessarily, and yes, I am understanding your confusion. If you can discern what the message is in “Get away from,” and you answer the “What?” it may not necessarily be a situation in which you heed the message so to speak. It is more a matter of evaluating what is motivating that? What is the association that is so uncomfortable for myself in relation to that that I am expressing in this extreme of “Get away from”?
I would express that it is a matter of evaluating what is the threat? That is more accurately heeding the message, evaluating what is the threat? For there is obviously a threat that you must get away from, and in that, when you can evaluate, and discern, and define what that threat is, you can also evaluate if it is actually validly a threat, or is it a consequence that you have invented? Is it an expectation that you have created? Is it an anticipation of some assumed or imagined expression? Is it a past experience that is so uncomfortable for you that it continues to be affecting? If it is in that direction, it is a matter of reminding yourself, and this is the manner that you address to it, that that is not occurring now. You survived. You more than survived. You grew. You are continuing to grow. You expanded. You are continuing to expand. You are present, and that is not now. That is not discounting the intensity or the severity of what the subject is that created this association for you to get away from. It is acknowledging to yourself, yes, this occurred. This is my response to it. This is my evaluation of it, and it may be not good, and your opinion of it may be not good, but it is not now. It is not happening now, and I am different. That is significant. I am not helpless, and I am not in that position now. That is a part of the threat is that automatic association that triggers that feeling that you are in the same position, but you are not; you are different. You are different in every moment. You are not the same now as you were five minutes ago.
In this, whatever that association is that has generated such an intensity of the response to create such an intensity of a physical signal, you can assure yourself, you are not in that position now.
MARK: So by acknowledging there is no threat—you’re not in that position any longer—you really need to get away from...
ELIAS: Correct.
MARK: ...because you are really getting away from yourself.
ELIAS: Correct. What you are attempting to get away from is the repeat of that uncomfortable feeling. You do not want to re-experience that uncomfortable feeling, but you are not even experiencing it again. You have replaced it with the migraine to shut down before you can experience that. Therefore, you are not experiencing it again, and when you allow yourself to evaluate now, “I am not in that position. I am not even experiencing that again. I am merely anticipating; the threat is my own consequence.”
MARK: [inaudible]
ELIAS: Correct. Very well.
KEN: Thank you.
LYNDA: You’re awesome.
ELIAS: I express tremendous encouragement to each and to all of you...
LYNDA: Love you.
ELIAS: ...and a reminder to each and every one of you: pay attention, for you already are in significant capacity creating and doing what is important to you and what you do want, you already have it.
LYNDA: Amen.
ELIAS: It is merely a matter of seeing it, and you see it by paying attention.
LYNDA: Woo-hoo.
ELIAS: To you all, my dear friends, in tremendous affection, as always, great encouragement. Until our next meeting, au revoir.
GROUP: Au revoir.
(Elias departs after 1 hour, 10 minutes, 9 seconds.)
Copyright 2013 Mary Ennis, All Rights Reserved.