Elias Exercises – appreciation: lessen self-doubt and tension

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appreciation: lessen self-doubt and tension

CARL: “...Why would someone want to create pain for themselves?

ELIAS: I am understanding, but let me also express to you, there are two factors. This question, ‘why would an individual create pain or why would an individual create discomfort or why would an individual create sadness,’ this question, in actually, is somewhat amusing, for value is not always expressed in merely what you view as positive or pleasant.

You create in association with value. You are continuously creating in association with value. All that you choose is associated with what you value, and some of what you value may be expressed in manners that may seem, surfacely, unusual to you – as an example, pain. Why would you create pain? You dislike pain. Like or dislike matters not. That is not necessarily always a factor in what you choose. The value may be associated with information that you may be attempting to present to yourself but not paying attention and not listening to yourself.

I have expressed to individuals previously many times, you communicate with yourself continuously. None of your reality is hidden from you. It is merely ignored, or you are not paying attention. In a manner of speaking, figuratively your communications to yourself are similar to your telephone ringing. If you engage your telephone and you engage the receiver, you receive the message and the telephone stops ringing. If you do not engage receiving, it continues to ring.

You do this with yourself continuously. You offer yourself messages and communications, but if you are not receiving them, you continue to express them and they become louder and stronger. It is quite common for individuals to generate physical manifestations in association with not receiving their own messages, which is valuable for it does gain your attention.

But many times, it also gains individuals’ attentions in a manner that they continue to not receive the message. For thusly you concentrate your attention upon the physical manifestation and not the communications, and you perpetuate the physical manifestation. For the more you concentrate upon it, the more you create it. You create what you concentrate upon, and concentration is not necessarily associated with thought. It is associated with attention.

CARL: So if you’re not listening, thus creating part of yourself to force you to pay attention to something, then again, like you said, you still may not be listening. This all kind of ties into bigger questions. How do you learn to listen? I can understand something intellectually and see my life and see my conflicts and struggles that I go through and see how ridiculous they are and see how I don’t need to feel that way, but bridging the gap between intellectually and actually feeling...

ELIAS: Being aware of your avenues of communication is one factor. You offer communications to yourself through many, many avenues, inwardly and outwardly. All of your outer senses are communication devices. They are mechanisms to provide you with information. All of your inner senses are also mechanisms to provide you with information, communications. Your emotions are communications. They are more obvious, for they also employ signals, feelings. The feeling that you experience in association with what you define as an emotion is a signal. That is signaling you that your telephone is ringing.

Now; identifying what the signal is in one word indicates to you what to be evaluating in association with what the communication is. Intuition, impressions, impulses, these are also avenues of communication. Your physical body consciousness also offers you communications. Your imagination is another avenue of communication. Imagination is not fantasy; it is real. Whatever you can imagine actually exists. It may not in your physical reality, but it exists. These are all avenues of communication. That is one factor which is important to pay attention to.

Remember, thought is NOT a communication. Thought is a translating mechanism. What you think is associated with where your attention is focused. It is translating some communications and where your attention is focused. That is the function of thought.

Also, paying attention to what you are actually doing is another significant factor. Therefore, you are paying attention to what you are communicating to yourself and you are also paying attention to what you are actually doing or what you are not doing, paying attention to whether your attention is being flexible or not, whether it continues to focus in specific directions that are actually generating obstacles or hindrances in association with what you are doing, figuratively speaking. If you continue to concentrate your attention upon a wall that exists before you, you merely continue to collide with it over and over again.

There are many factors to be aware of yourself and what you are actually doing. Many times individuals are not aware objectively of what they are doing until the point that they do actually generate some type of uncomfortable scenario or manifestation. But this is the point. That actually can be avoided if you are paying attention. This is not to say that you shall never again create an uncomfortable situation if you are genuinely paying attention. You may, but you may also choose to create an uncomfortable situation intentionally. That would be the difference, rather than creating an uncomfortable situation in association with ignoring or not paying attention.

In all of this, you have expressed many different situations which are occurring or potentially occurring but not actually occurring within your experience, in your world, in your environment. The significant element is to evaluate what actually IS occurring and what is not, what actually is being expressed in the now and what is being anticipated and is not actually occurring, or what you are speculating in relation to but is also not actually occurring, and being aware of what you are actually doing or not doing. For many times, what you are NOT doing is also a doing.

Now; you are generating considerable churning in your energy in many different directions, which also creates somewhat of a scatteredness. For, it generates less clarity and more confusion if you are creating many different directions simultaneously but not actually focusing clearly upon any of them. That creates a considerable volume of communications that begin that are expressing information to you that you are not generating clarity, that you are generating considerable scatteredness, that you are not focusing your attention. But you are not listening, and therefore, you create a physical manifestation. The ringing becomes a siren.

In all of this action, as you continue to generate that scatteredness and you continue to move your energy in many different directions simultaneously – but not actually accomplishing what you want in any of them, for you are not directed enough in any of them – that generates another automatic response of tension, which you may not actually even at times physically feel because it becomes so familiar that it is unnoticed. It becomes noticed if you generate actions that intentionally create a relaxation. Thusly, you begin to notice how much energy you have been holding in tension.

I may express to you, first of all, it may be quite beneficial for you to evaluate these different directions, and in that evaluation, view the importance, measure the importance of each scenario, of each situation. Subsequent to that action, allow yourself to evaluate the measure of value that you associate with each of these scenarios. That will allow you to move in more of a balance and to choose which scenario you wish to focus upon, and move from one to another but not to be distracting yourself.

Once you have chosen one subject to address to, be present with yourself in the now and allow yourself to hold your attention directedly with that one subject, not distracting yourself with projections of all of the other subjects, but allow yourself to follow one and accomplish some action with it. Even if you are not actually completing a direction, allow yourself to generate some actual accomplishment, some product of each one before moving to the next. You are incorporating very much distraction, but not productive distraction.

CARL: Absolutely. I also intellectualized myself into passivity. A lot of what I do, how I see things or what should I do or what I want to do, underlying is like an existential sort of what’s the point. If I do this, I am going to lose interest and go to something else. I long for something to really take hold of me, really create a passion and a purpose, and really to be a part of whatever that is.

ELIAS: And that you shall generate within you if you are paying attention to you and allowing yourself more clarity. It is considerably challenging to generate an allowance and a release of your own passion if you are generating such scatteredness. If you are incorporating no genuine direction, you do not allow yourself to listen to yourself and discover the power of your own passion.

CARL: Are you saying I need to slow down, just pick a direction and force myself to stay on that path?

ELIAS: No forcing! That defeats the action. No forcing.

CARL: Then all these distractions, I am still going to be bombarded by them. They’re still going to be grabbing for my attention. It almost feels like I have to force myself, is the word that comes up.

ELIAS: Let me offer you a playful visualization. All of these distractions, all of these scenarios that you incorporate, each one may be visualized as a bird. You occupy a center point within a room. Within your room, you are the central factor, and all about you are many, many, many birds. They are all incorporating being quite noisy and fluttering and flying. They are all vying for your attention, and all of them are exposing to you their beautiful colors. But you are the center; all of these birds respond to you.

Now; in being the center, if you are doing nothing and not focusing, all of the birds are clattering for your attention, and they are becoming noisier and noisier and more and more confusing and fluttery. But being the center, if you are aware of you, you can choose one bird and choose to be examining and admiring and appreciating one bird. All the other birds shall be quiet. They continue to exist and occupy your room, but they are aware that your attention is now examining this one bird. In the quietness of all the other birds, you can choose in any moment to turn your attention and pay attention to a different bird, offering it equal attention, equal appreciation, but in balance and in calm.

What you are doing now is standing in the center of the room, not focusing your attention in any direction and being distracted by all the fluttering.

CARL: It’s a very familiar place for me. I guess it all ties in to all the same stuff. Again, I am trying to find that passion, that clarity, and I am also struggling with immense feelings of self-doubt and confidence. Sometimes I marvel at how people can be so confident in their particular vision in seeing things in black and white, where I see things as very gray and almost so many possibilities it becomes overwhelming. I am trying so hard to focus and find that self-confidence or that clarity, I guess.

ELIAS: Let me express to you an exercise that I suggest that you incorporate for two of your weeks. Each day generate some appreciation of yourself, twice within each day. It matters not what the appreciation is. It matters not whether you deem it to be small or large, or significant or insignificant. What matters is that you generate two expressions within each day in which you genuinely acknowledge some aspect of yourself that you appreciate and note it.

I offer exercises to many individuals. Initially, each individual, I am aware, views the exercise as quite elementary and simplistic, but in the small action that I suggest that the individual incorporate, there are many other actions occurring in each execution of that action. Appreciation is the most powerful expression of energy, and it immediately changes your energy. Whatever you are expressing in energy, immediately that changes with the expression of appreciation. It also reinforces your trust of yourself. It also reinforces your acceptance of yourself, which reinforces your confidence.

Now; as you generate these twice daily appreciations of yourself, I also suggest to you that you intentionally incorporate breathing slowly, deeply, and notice your body. It is quite difficult to incorporate considerable tension if you are releasing energy through breath. You automatically shorten breath as you incorporate tension. Your breath moves faster and more shallow in tense energy. It is quite challenging to continue to express that tension if you are intentionally releasing it through breath. That may also begin to generate some helpfulness and effect with your physical manifestation. The more you allow yourself to relax, the more you release that energy that creates the physical manifestation.

The point in this is that you are familiar with this tension and you are unfamiliar with allowing yourself to relax. Therefore, it would be quite pointless for me to express to you to practice relaxing without offering you a method to become familiar, one that you may practice briefly and allow yourself to recognize becoming familiar with relaxing. I may also suggest, which is your choice if you employ, that you engage some interaction with water, some body of water that you can immerse yourself in. The buoyancy of the water also shall naturally encourage you to relax. It also generates what you would term to be a soothing sensation in relation to your body consciousness. It also provides a natural supportiveness. Water incorporates an energy that naturally supports. That will also be helpful to you in becoming familiar with supporting yourself, which you have become quite unfamiliar with.” [session 1810, July 29, 2005]

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