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Monday, November 03, 2003

<  Session 1464 (Private/Phone)  >

“Attempting to Alter an Allergic Reaction Merely Through Thinking”

“Panic Attack”

“Commitment and Follow-Through – or Choosing in the Moment”


Participants: Mary (Michael) and Frank (Ulra).

Elias arrives at 7:17 AM. (Arrival time is 16 seconds.)

ELIAS: Good morning!

FRANK: Good morning! How are you?

ELIAS: As always, and yourself?

FRANK: Pretty good today! (Elias laughs) I’ve been looking forward to this conversation, especially since we got postponed about two or three times.

ELIAS: And what shall we discuss?

FRANK: Let’s see. I’ve got my usual list, plus some physical imagery for your entertainment! (Elias laughs loudly) No dreams this time, though.

One thing that sort of surprised me is that since we last talked, I’ve moved into this office – you and I have discussed that and my feelings about that – and to my amazement I actually enjoy it very much. It’s a change from what I was doing before, and I’m just kind of surprised that I would so miss the mark on how I would feel about that move.

ELIAS: (Laughs) And have presented to yourself a pleasant surprise!

FRANK: Yes, exactly. So that was kind of a good thing.

Something else that’s happened in the meantime, which we discussed last time, was that, as you recall, I was trying to hire someone to help me expand the business, and we had offered the position to someone who rejected it. You had indicated that basically I wasn’t ready for that to happen, I guess. Since we last talked, we have offered the job to someone who accepted it, so I assume that that means I’ve gotten over that and I am now ready to move forward with this whole thing.

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: I’m also assuming that this is someone whom I’ve had other focuses with.

ELIAS: Yes, you are correct.

FRANK: Can you tell me how many?

ELIAS: Fourteen.

FRANK: That’s interesting. I was thinking around fifteen. (Elias laughs) Was one of them in the western U.S. during the 1800s? (Pause)

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Was he my wife, or was I his?

ELIAS: The latter.

FRANK: I wanted to ask you about this, because this sort of brought it to my mind. When I focus on people like that and try to determine what were our past involvements, all I get are like brief focus snapshots. Like in this case, I saw a snapshot of a woman in the way women were dressed back then. But that’s all I get, like a brief picture, but nothing much more than that. How can I go beyond that?

ELIAS: And what would be your motivation?

FRANK: Good question!

ELIAS: (Laughs) For what you present to yourself in the manner that you do presently is efficient, for it offers you information concerning connections but does not distract you in a manner in which you are concentrating a tremendous attention upon other connections that you may hold with other individuals.

You offer yourself enough information to validate yourself and to validate your interactions with other individuals and to validate your choices in relation to what you are doing, but not to the point that you distract yourself. Therefore, the method that you have incorporated yourself is efficient, and this be the reason that I inquire to you what would be your motivation to be altering that.

FRANK: I don’t know. I guess I like to distract myself! (Both laugh) I guess my thought was that the more I know the better off I am. But I see what you’re saying here is that maybe that’s not the case, especially since I’m so easily distracted! (Elias laughs) Again, I just thought the more I knew the better I would understand things, but I’m sure that’s probably not the case at all; you are correct. This was a very important choice for us and one that I had some concern over, so I guess I felt that if I knew more I would feel better about it. I think that’s probably it.

ELIAS: (Laughs) Not necessarily the case!

FRANK: Next, I want to talk about this physical imagery that I think is kind of interesting. About three or four weeks ago I was playing baseball, having baseball practice with some people, and I hit a long foul ball. After I hit it, it went out of the park but I didn’t see where it went or what it did. After I got done hitting, someone came up to me and said, “Hey, you broke a window with that.” (Elias chuckles) I had hit this ball and it hit the back window of a car and totally shattered it. I thought that was interesting. Then a little while later, this woman came up to me and basically said, “You broke my window,” so we talked and I ended up paying her some money to compensate her for the window.

Very shortly after that, my son went out with some friends of his and they were doing some things and a bunch of his friends ran into a car physically and put a big dent in the car! (Elias chuckles)

At first I didn’t grasp the connection between these two things, but as I was getting ready to talk to you, it occurred to me how similar these two events were. They were both accidents that caused damage to automobiles, they were both unintentional, they were both damaged not by another car but by something different in the course of playing a game. So I’m trying to figure out what this imagery is all about. The only thing I can come up with is it’s something to do with unintended consequences of actions. Anyway, there it is.

ELIAS: Not necessarily consequences, but it is a matter of attention and how you may be creating an unintended action in not paying attention to what you are doing.

FRANK: So it’s just a general reminder?

ELIAS: It is an example. For we discuss attention frequently, but as I have stated many times previously, you do not actually assimilate information unless you also are offering yourself experiences that generate a reality that allows you to express a genuine understanding of the concepts and move them into reality, rather than merely being intellectual concepts.

Now; as we have discussed attention many times, you have offered yourself examples in the present moment of what occurs if you are not paying attention to what you are doing. In this, you offer yourself an example of thinking that you are paying attention but recognizing that you are not clearly or genuinely paying attention. You are GENERALLY paying attention. In that generality of paying attention in the moment, you are not focused. Therefore, you may create some actions that you term to be an accident – which is not an accident – but it may move aside from the direction that you are intending. Are you understanding?

FRANK: Well, I am, but I’m not sure that I see how the physical imagery connects on some level with what you’re saying. What you’re saying is it’s kind of like when I was engaging this activity, I wasn’t really that focused on what I was doing. Is that what you’re telling me?

ELIAS: You were, generally. You were playing the game and you were focused in the game. But in the actual action that you generated, you were not focused.

Now; this is an interesting example, for it is quite clear. For, you generate an actual physical object to demonstrate to yourself how actions may occur, in a manner of speaking off to the side, so to speak, of what you are actually intending.

FRANK: Boy, that’s for sure on this one!

ELIAS: (Laughs) I may express to you, it is quite efficient imagery that you have presented to yourself! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: It is, because it was physically impossible for me to see what happened.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) But in this imagery, it is quite a metaphor for other actions that you have engaged, and to recognize what you were doing or where you were focusing your attention subsequently, as different actions occur. In this particular example, you offered yourself an immediate physical demonstration! (Laughs)

FRANK: Okay, then let me ask you this. Am I correct to say that this imagery was connected with the imagery of the other event?

ELIAS: Yes, it is, for it is the same subject. It is the same action. It is merely expressed...

FRANK: But I wasn’t connected with that one.

ELIAS: It matters not. You have presented it to yourself as another example in physical imagery of what may occur, in your terms unexpectedly, if you are not clear in your focus of attention.

FRANK: So that was the whole purpose of both of those imageries?

ELIAS: Yes, which is purposeful, for many times individuals present to themselves unexpected actions or manifestations that, in their perception, are undesirable. But if you may view what you are doing and understand how you are creating those types of actions, you may allow yourself to interrupt that type of manifestation and redirect.

FRANK: I think this kind of comes back to what you’ve talked about so many times, about focusing on what you’re choosing versus what you’re thinking.

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: Good. That’s one of the other topics I might get to today, so why don’t we move into that one? (Elias laughs) I’ve tried to keep that in mind since we last talked, to do that.

I’ve always had a lot of problems with allergies, which has been ongoing for me for a long time. When these things occur, I try to again focus on this is what I’m choosing and I want to choose something different, but I’m not having a whole lot of success with that. Could you speak to that and where I’m at and what I need to do now?

ELIAS: Once again, that is thinking and attempting to alter or change a direction merely through thinking. In this, you may be generating allergies, and as you are creating that you are THINKING “I am choosing this; now I want to choose a different action.” But that does not create any alteration.

That is merely an identification, and in this, it is not even a genuine identification. For you may express to yourself, “I am choosing to be engaging allergic reactions,” but in expressing that to yourself, as it is very unfamiliar to accept that you are actually choosing some action that is uncomfortable, there is an automatic resistance to a genuine acknowledgment of that.

Now; express to yourself not choice but doing: “I am doing this. I am experiencing irritation or itching or coughing or sneezing,” or whatever manifestation you create in association with what you deem to be an allergic reaction.

Now; recognize that you do incorporate the belief that it is an allergic reaction, which in itself is significant for this is a belief that you are being responsive to some element outside of yourself and that it is exhibiting some element of control over you; therefore, it is expressing some type of attack, so to speak.

Now; once you begin to identify what you actually believe, you may also begin to evaluate what motivates the influence of that belief.

Many individuals within certain time frameworks of your yearly cycle express similar responses to themselves in association with allergies. This is associated with their environment and changes within their environment. Generally speaking, most individuals that create this type of manifestation create it in what you term to be the in-between seasons, the spring or the fall, generally not within the more powerful seasons, the summer or the winter. The summer and the winter are what you associate as your opposite seasons. The fall and the spring are the seasons that move you into the summer or the winter.

Therefore, there is an underlying automatic association with these two in-between seasons. Dependent upon the individual, generally speaking individuals that hold a less desirable association with the winter express more of a leaning in the direction of manifesting allergic responses within the fall. Individuals that, generally speaking, hold less favorable association with the summer generally express allergic manifestations within the spring. This in actuality is quite amusing, for you all attribute these allergic manifestations to outside sources. (Chuckles)

FRANK: Let’s talk about my case, then. I seem to experience them most all the time.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) You generate this manifestation partially in association with different seasons, but you also generate this manifestation in association with your environment and your perception of being vulnerable to the environment and not allowing yourself to recognize that you actually create all of this and therefore you are not a victim of it.

In actuality, my friend, I may express to you, Ulra, you may move about your environment and not generate any manifestation of allergies in any manner quite easily, if you recognize that all of these elements that you are a victim of are actually part of you. You are not allergic to yourself!

FRANK: I understand you. That seems like it gets into a much bigger issue, right?

ELIAS: (Laughs) In a manner of speaking, for...

FRANK: It’s a general realization that we are all part of everything.

ELIAS: Correct, and that you are not a victim to outside sources.

FRANK: Again, that’s one of those things that intellectually I could sit here and say, “Yeah, I understand that, I believe that,” but to really get it so far hasn’t come to me.

ELIAS: I am understanding. That is a matter of genuine assimilation. Also, as I have expressed in the previous example, it is also a matter of allowing yourself to experiment and thusly offer yourself an actual experience. THAT generates the reality. You may intellectually contemplate ideas and concepts, but without the experience it remains an intellectual concept.

FRANK: This whole thing has been going on for a very long time for me. So how do I generate this experience?

ELIAS: Experiment. Experiment in a playful manner, not with an expectation, but merely allow yourself to experiment and test whether you may be in a particular environment that you know shall generate an allergic manifestation. Allow yourself to test whether you may actually be within that particular environment and trust yourself to not generate the manifestation.

Also, you may be quite affecting of what you manifest by not concentrating upon it, which I am quite understanding is much more challenging than it is to merely be expressing in words. For as you engage any manifestation, the automatic action is to be concentrating upon it and therefore perpetuating it; but you may also surprise yourself and amaze yourself at how efficient it is to be not creating certain manifestations merely by not concentrating upon them.

FRANK: That’s like the old thing about “don’t think about a pink elephant.” (Elias laughs) But I’ll try that.

Next, let’s move on to a couple of other things here. In my business, I have an actual partner and then a third individual who is going to become a partner at some later date when he’s ready to move away from what he’s doing right now. He’s sort of working with us, in a sense, but not too actively. That whole process is moving very slowly and I wanted to ask you about the reasons for that. I think what it comes down to is that we are just not ready. Even though we wanted to have him with us, we’re just not ready and I’m not ready for it. Is that correct, or is there more to it?

ELIAS: Yes, you are correct.

FRANK: What about from his perspective? This guy has his own motivations for having this go the way it’s going?

ELIAS: It is quite similar. There is somewhat of a hesitation that you are all expressing in association with your interactions together, creating more of a closeness, and there is somewhat of a hesitation that each of you are expressing. It is not that you do not wish to be moving in that direction, but allowing yourselves each to become more comfortable with yourselves and with each other. In a manner of speaking, each of you are easing yourselves into your positions with each other.

FRANK: Interesting. It seems like our interactions are pretty harmonious, actually.

ELIAS: I am understanding. But in generating what you would term to be a faster motion, there is potential for a disharmony. Therefore, in this manner, you are allowing yourselves to not be overwhelmed and to move into more of a comfortable interaction as you generate more of a closeness between all of you.

FRANK: The other thing is I don’t think it’s too much of a problem for me, because I’m sort of like the person in the middle, but it seems like it’s more of problem for my actual partner. I think he’s sort of befuddled. Is that correct?

ELIAS: In a manner of speaking, yes. But as you may be aware, the interactions between the other individuals, if not harmonious, would also be affecting of you, for you would allow this and you would participate in that. Therefore, in this manner, you may be allowing yourselves to move into a position of comfortableness rather than generating this disharmony and generating an overwhelmingness.

FRANK: One last thing on this and then I’ll let it go. To me, they seem pretty comfortable with each other. It seems like there’s a pretty decent amount of communication and trust and even friendship there.

ELIAS: Yes, I am understanding. But there are elements within each of them that incorporate a potential for friction.

FRANK: I think I can understand that, too, now that you mention it. (Elias chuckles) So they just need time to get comfortable?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Or maybe they never will.

ELIAS: This would be their choice, but this is the direction that is being incorporated presently.

FRANK: And it’s my choice, too.

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: Ultimately, as far as I’m concerned, it’s all my choice.

ELIAS: Correct. (Chuckles)

FRANK: Since we’re on the subject of the business, let’s stay there. I’m currently in the middle of working on what would be a very large and profitable account for our company. Yet I have this – well, I guess it’s based on my beliefs – that our chances of actually getting the business are small, because we’re kind of small and growing and all that sort of thing.

I’m sitting here engaging this process and saying to myself, “It’s my choice; I can choose whatever I want,” but deep down I’ve got this set of beliefs or a perception that I’m looking at that’s pulling in the other direction. Could you talk about this? What’s going on? I’m sure there’s some sort of lesson for me to help change my perception.

ELIAS: This is an opportunity for you to be genuinely engaging a trust of yourself and to be expressing a confidence, and to recognize the moments in which you are incorporating doubts and to intentionally reconfigure that energy and express your trust and your confidence in your direction. This is a significant opportunity to actually validate to yourself your abilities and your genuine trust in what you may create.

Regardless of what the situation appears to be, regardless of whether you perceive your business to be small, regardless of whether it seems that another business may incorporate a greater ability to create this type of action, it matters not. For regardless of how you perceive your size, it incorporates no bearing upon your power.

Therefore, this may be viewed as an exercise in trusting and in recognizing genuinely the moments in which you are expressing doubtfulness, and genuinely incorporating the action of reconfiguring that energy by reinforcing yourself and expressing your trust of yourself and not feeding that doubt, not justifying that doubt.

FRANK: I can see all that. As a side issue here – and I think you’ve talked about this before – but is what I say about these things very crucial? What I mean by that is, for example if I say to them, “Well, it’s going to be very difficult for us because we are small,” or whatever.

ELIAS: This does incorporate an influence, yes, for in that type of discussion you are reinforcing the doubt rather than reinforcing the confidence.

FRANK: I understand. Any other advice for me on this? This is an interesting exercise. I’ll be working on it quite a bit. (Elias laughs) I’ll report back at our next meeting!

ELIAS: (Laughs) And I shall offer you my energy also in encouragement. For you do incorporate the power and the ability to generate this manifestation and to be incorporating a successfulness in creating what you want – which, if you are allowing yourself to create that, it may be quite powerful in exhibiting to yourself actually what you CAN manifest.

FRANK: This is exciting!

ELIAS: (Laughs) Remember your ball! Pay attention to how you are focusing your attention and what you are actually doing, and therefore perhaps you shall not hit your ball in the other direction. Ha ha!

FRANK: (Laughs) This time hopefully I’ll hit it over the fence. (Elias laughs)

About two weeks ago my wife and I were riding in the car, and all of a sudden she had what I would describe as a panic attack. Can you give me any explanation of that, what that was all about? It was very brief. (Pause)

ELIAS: I may express to you that there is a potential that your partner may generate that type of manifestation again. This is associated with an intense moment of fear. It occurs in a moment of a sense of a lack of control, which may be quite powerful at times.

This individual expresses, to some extent, an issue with control. In moments in which she experiences an intensity of a feeling or a sense of a lack of control, it generates this type of manifestation, which in actuality is a type of release of energy. It is an automatic physical release of energy. For in the expression of control, in association with the belief of control, there is an automatic holding of energy and tension in the individual’s energy field, which creates a restriction. The body consciousness responds in an automatic action to release energy and that generates this type of manifestation.

FRANK: Did this incident occur because of her and my daughter?

ELIAS: Partially, but partially it is associated with herself and not feeling that she may be continuing to express a control of circumstances, of herself, of interactions. It is many different expressions simultaneously.

FRANK: In terms of my role or what I should do, I just observe or...? Is there something I could do to help? I guess you would say that it’s not my role to do that.

ELIAS: You may be helpful in being supportive. The manner in which you may be supportive is to be accepting, not expressing a judgment but expressing an energy of genuine supportiveness and acceptance, which may be helpful, so to speak, in her allowance of herself to be relaxing, which shall be affecting of the energy that she holds tightly.

FRANK: The last time we talked, you mentioned how... I’m not sure of the words you used, but I guess what it really came down to was that I reached the point where I was getting less frustrated about (inaudible) than I had in the past. What I come away with is that I seem to be getting more frustrated again. What’s going on there?

ELIAS: And your impression?

FRANK: I don’t know – not paying attention? (Elias chuckles)

ELIAS: Not necessarily that you are not paying attention, but it is concerning what you are paying attention to and how your attention at times moves outside of yourself in association with other individuals and your want of other individuals to be altering some of their choices or their behaviors, rather than paying attention to what YOU are actually expressing and how YOU may configure energy to be affecting of behaviors and expressions of other individuals. Therefore, as I have stated, it is not that you are not paying attention, it is a matter of WHAT you are paying attention to. Ha ha ha!

FRANK: I understand. I don’t know why that happened, but I did notice it. (Elias chuckles) I’m taking a little credit for that!

ELIAS: Yes! And you may also notice that in the time frameworks in which you are paying attention to what you are expressing, you do not express this frustration.

FRANK: And that can calm me down.

ELIAS: For you allow yourself to manipulate energy in the manner in which you want.

FRANK: Lately it seems like I’ve given myself some signals to start meditating. Am I interpreting that correctly?

ELIAS: Yes.

FRANK: And the reason for this?

ELIAS: An incorporation of a method to be allowing yourself to focus more clearly and to generate a calm within your energy.

FRANK: Would it accomplish those things?

ELIAS: Yes – for you. (Laughs)

FRANK: Let’s see; the time is starting to get short here. One issue that’s sort of floating around here for me is in the past I have done a lot of work managing baseball leagues for youths in our area, and at the end of last summer I decided no more, I’m not doing it again. Now some events have occurred that have made me sort of say maybe I better go back and do it next year. I volunteered to do it, but now the whole thing is sort of in doubt whether I will or whether I won’t. I was wondering if you could help me clarify what my issues are with regard to this – do I really want to do it or not do it, and what’s going on there.

ELIAS: I may express to you, it is not necessarily a matter of incorporating an issue in association with this subject, but rather a presentment to yourself of allowing yourself to choose in the moment and to genuinely listen to yourself in what you want in the moment, and that you may choose to be engaging a direction and you may also change that direction. You are not locked into any position. You may allow yourself to relax in your own choices, and it is not an absolute and it is not stone. You may in one moment want to be involving yourself in this activity, and in another moment you may not want to be involving yourself in the activity. It is merely a presentment to yourself of change and that you are not locked into any direction absolutely. It is choice.

FRANK: Is the reason it’s all sort of ambiguous right now that I just don’t know what I want to do?

ELIAS: Yes, and you are projecting to the future. Rather than allowing yourself to choose in the moment, you are projecting to your next year. As the season approaches and as you are actually involving yourself in that action, you may choose whether you wish to be incorporating that action or not – but you are not engaging it now.

FRANK: But I have to decide if I’m going to do it for next year. In other words, if I say right now yes, I’m going to do this, then for the next year I do it.

ELIAS: Or that is your pattern – but it is not an absolute. That is what I am expressing to you.

FRANK: I understand, sort of.

ELIAS: (Chuckles) This is a strongly expressed belief in commitment and follow-through. But that is not an absolute, and you may choose in the moment rather than choosing in a moment in which that is not occurring.

FRANK: Yes, that is a strongly held belief. But the alternatives are liberating.

ELIAS: You are quite correct!

FRANK: You don’t have to worry about anything else – whatever I want to do now, I do it now.

ELIAS: Correct, and I may express to you, that action is quite efficient. It is merely unfamiliar.

FRANK: We talked about this last time, about how I wanted to go and play baseball in this tournament...

ELIAS: Correct.

FRANK: ...and then I decided not to. Actually, since we last talked, another opportunity came up and I just decided to do it! Right now I’m pretty comfortable with that; I’m pretty happy I did it.

ELIAS: It is a matter of allowing yourself to choose in the moment and to listen to yourself and to know that regardless of what choice you generate in any moment, you also incorporate the freedom to change.

FRANK: One last thing I want to ask you about. I have pain in my left elbow, which I can’t really figure out why it’s there. My impression is that it’s a revulsion to exercising.

ELIAS: Yes, and also associated with beliefs concerning age.

FRANK: That old thing again.

ELIAS: (Laughs) Rather than fighting with these beliefs, perhaps you may merely acknowledge that you incorporate them. If you wish not to be exercising, listen to what you are expressing to yourself and do not force yourself! Ha ha ha!

FRANK: (Laughs) But then we bump into other beliefs that if I don’t do that then the body deteriorates.

ELIAS: (Laughs) My, my, my! You are within the web of all of these beliefs that thwart you at every avenue! Ha ha ha! And what shall you do? Offer yourself an excuse not to be exercising for you are creating a pain in your elbow! Ha ha!

FRANK: Okay, I got it! (Both laugh) Well, it has been fun, as usual, and enlightening, so I do thank you.

ELIAS: (Laughs) Pay attention to what you are paying attention to, my friend!

FRANK: I will continue that attempt!

ELIAS: (Laughs) Very well! And I shall be anticipating our next meeting, and I shall be offering my energy to you in the interim time framework and perhaps prodding ever so slightly to be reminding you to be incorporating playfulness.

FRANK: I appreciate that.

ELIAS: (Laughs) To you as always, my dear friend, in great, great affection, au revoir.

FRANK: Good-bye.

Elias departs at 8:20 AM.


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