Dealing with change
From Elfi
By Angel, to a varied group at a Seminar (September 20, 2009)
transcribed by Kattzyze
During a seminar, Angel talked to a group of people, some students, some just curious people, about change and why we often have such a difficult time with it. Since there were many different levels of students present, Angel spoke in really general terms and tried not to use any abbreviations or approximations.
The world is changing
This is a really amazing time in the history of our world. There are things happening now that haven't happened in perhaps half a million years. Maybe some of them have never happened before. Makes it a difficult and confusing but exciting time to be alive. Since Rohaa's teaching about that and youl can ask her, I figured I'd step away from the big picture today and step into something a little smaller.
In a time of world chaos and personal chaos, one of the biggest things we have to deal with is change. Change terrifies most people. In the next twenty years there has been enough change, without spiritual sight involved, to really shake us up, just based on the changes that have happened in computers, technology, and chemicals. Totally ignoring the more important side of life, there is a huge amount of change going on. Relationships are changing, relationship dynamics.
In effect, the world is changing around us, and because we are so caught up in it, so busy with our jobs, and watching our latest television show, our relationships, we often don't have time to notice the change. Its like watching your child grow and not realizing they're bigger because you see them every day. But if you see the child of a friend or family member, you realize they've grown several centimeters over the last few months. Our lives are like that. We get so wrapped up, and the change is so rapid that we don't notice it happening.
We want change
Whether or not you are good at change, you are going to be tried in the next ten, fifteen, twenty years. And if you're like most people, you' re not good at change. It's important to understand why this scares us so much. I think if we're honest we can all admit that change can be scary, sometimes terrifying—someone dying, someone leaving us, partner or spouse. Being fired from a job, having our income drop, any change. It's important to understand that the change is terrifying because in many ways, we want it so much.
If you went to a movie, a really good movie, and enjoyed it, you'd come home and tell your friends about it. If you went to a movie where the lead character showed up, then never did anything, never said anything and never changed, you'd probably walk out in about fifteen minutes. It'd be dreadfully dull. If you were in a relationship where nobody ever changed, you wouldn't stay. If you are in a job where you had no potential to ever change, you'd have a hard time staying excited about the job.
We want, humans want, drama in our lives. We want chaos, we want things to go wrong so we can fix them. We want things to be shaken up so we can right them. We want all of this change and excitement. It means it gives us a chance to experience. Sometimes we want it so strongly, without even realizing we do, that the desire for it is bigger than the fear. The desire for change is so strong it drives us so powerfully, that we don't really know how to handle it and so interpret it as fear.
Hanging on to Control
The biggest issue of change is what we would call control. We feel out of control when things change . If you get fired, if you get terribly ill, if your lover or spouse leaves you. We feel out of control but we need to understand that control is something we never have. To be out of control means that what you expect to happen didn't happen. To be in control means that you got what you expected and nothing more. This is an illusion.
We do not have that control of our lives. We need to quit lying to ourselves; we have to admit we have no control. An asteroid could drop on your head right now, you could fall dead of an aneurysm, or fall desperately in love or fall out of love at any moment. You have no control.
How do we handle this change?
It sounds like a frightening or unkind thing to say, to say that you do not control your life and you cannot—but its not. Its simply the way that the universe, the chaos, the change. And at this point in time it is necessary. You come back in 300 or 400 years, things will be much more stable and you'll have a much better chance to control. But right now you can't. Right now your wisest choice is to surrender to the storm.
If you're going to survive the next 10, 15, 20 years, one of the most important things you can do is to begin to look for change, begin to try to change things. When you start changing things on purpose, take up new hobbies, get involved with new people, go out and meet new friends, you will do it in play. When you start seeking the change on purpose, it doesn't have to sneak up on you.
We must change
What I mean by that is that the world is changing. And everyday you wake up and you feel exactly the same as you did yesterday. But you're a little more out of sync with the world. Every day that you're not a little bit shaken up, every day you don't feel a little bit chaotic, you feel a little more stable, it means you're losing track. Because the world is changing so fast. If you're staying the same it's leaving you at the house. Things are going to happen, and eventually a big correction is going to have to come, its going to have to really shake you up to put you back in harmony with it.
So I know that it sounds strange. My recommendation to all of you is to begin to look for the chaos in your life. If there is something you've done for twenty years, ten years, five years even. Stop before you do it next time, whatever it is. Look in your heart, and look in your guts, and say "Do I really, deeply want to do this thing?" And if you find it, that passion, that life, then do it. But if you don't, consider very carefully doing something else, or just taking a night to stay home.
Start looking for new hobbies, read the yellow pages or Craig's List or whatever the local version of these is. And look for something you've never tried before. Maybe you've never painted, maybe you've never acted, maybe you've never learned to dance, maybe you've never studied a martial art, or Tai Chi, or Chi Kung, or Feng Shui.
Who am I?
If you want to go gracefully into what the next twenty years will bring us, you need to start seeking the chaos. You need to wake up every morning, ask yourself the most simple questions. For those of you who haven't explored this it will seem strange to you. But if you get up every morning and ask yourself a few simple questions: Who am I? What is my name? Where am I from? What do I want? Who are my family? Where are we going?
I think the first two or three or four times you do this you will come up with the same answers. But if you do this each morning when you're first waking up before your mind's fully awake and your heart is still open, as you do this you're going to find the answers start to change. And some of them will scare you, and some of them will seriously creep you out. When you start to realize you're not sure what your name is, that's going to be very strange.
And when you do this, when you begin to dive into the chaos in this way, then you can let the change in the earth change you. You can let the chaos in our world carry you to a new place of order. When you wake up every day knowing the answers, knowing your beliefs, knowing your religion, knowing your family and who you love, and what you like and what you hate, life has to knock you around very hard to get you to be flexible enough to move forward with what you need.
What's my purpose?
Some of you already believe that you have a purpose in this world. Most of you don't. Some of you don't know, and some of you are angry. And some of you are convinced its all a dream, and some are convinced its just a random mistake, that you're dancing in the fluctuations of the chaos.
The way I understand it, every single one of us has a purpose. Everyone I know, who can look into this, says that this is the biggest time of change in the history of this planet. And people are lining up from all over the universe to get a chance to be here right now, or even just to sit in the stands and watch. If you're here--I know some of you don't believe this, but you don't have to, just listen, just keep your heart open-- if you're here at this point, then you've struggled for a long time and put in petitions and made a lot of effort to be here, and you have a very, very special purpose.
Its likely no one on this planet at this point isn't here to bring something very amazing. If you're listening, if you've called out to hear from your loved ones today, the odds are good that it will be an absolute joy to wake up and consider what your purpose might be.
And for those of you who really don't think you have a purpose or this is just too weird—you're being called to consider the possibility. You're the ones who need to start waking up and asking yourself "Whats my name, who are my family?" You're the ones who need to ask these simple questions every day. And you are going to find that the answers will change, and if you're honest it's going to scare you.
Once you start to see that and see the change, then maybe you'll start to be open, too. All right. Maybe I do have purpose for being here. Maybe there is a piece of something wonderful, something almost magical, that I can jump into, that I can be part of, that I can help with. I may not save the world, but maybe I can save one person, maybe I can change one small thing. With this much going on, maybe I can help in some small way. And it is time to start wondering about those questions.
For those of you who are a little more awake, and already sense you have a purpose, now is the time to start discovering it. And if you're going to ask "How do I discover it, how do I figure it out?" I'm going to give you the same answer. You knew the truth you needed when you were very young and you forgot it in your training and your education and your living and loving and life. It's somewhere deep inside you still know it and it's trying very hard to surface. And so the answer to finding this is the same. You need to start waking up in the morning and relaxing. For those who know it, the SWEET exercise is an awesome way to start.
Question everything in your life
And when you do this and you're feeling a little more open, ask yourself the basics: "Who am I? Whats my name? Why am I here? What do I like?" And then as you go through the day, make a little mark on one hand or something so you see it, hang some notes on the wall, so every time you reach out to do something, you stop yourself and say: “Do I really want to?” Maybe you've always liked pepperoni pizza—stop before that next bite of pepperoni pizza and say: “Do I like this?” Then taste it and see if you do. Maybe you've always liked sushi or you've never liked brussels sprouts. Maybe you've always liked to dance or always been afraid to dance. Maybe you drink a lot or you never drink .
It's time to start questioning all of the simplest things in your life. And this will to sound strange to you but I guarantee you, that if you're willing to do this, even for three or four days, where you wake up and ask these simple questions, walk through the day and question the basics - I guarantee you, within just a few days, you will begin to be scared, deeply disturbed, to find these answers changing. And when you do find these simple answers changing and you come back and listen to the rest of what I've told. Maybe there is a purpose here, maybe there is something more. Maybe its okay to embrace the change.
Questions
Now at this point there are a couple of people who have questions. Who has a question? I sense two. C'mon, kids, just spit it out there...Rohaa has one and—lets see, who else is here? That's one, and that's the other. Whispers. Its okay to ask questions, its okay to not have the answers. In a time of great change everything answer that you have slows you down and makes you more stuck in concrete. So to have questions is better.
A very wise man once said that the majority of people are not awake. They've fallen asleep, life's waiting, and they're just dreaming that they're awake. Another one, a teacher, said; “You think you're free, but you are not. From before you were born, you were given ideas, impressions, attitude, beliefs - from your parents, your culture, your religion, your life. And you hold these things so deeply to you, you don't even realize they're there. But you do not have any sense of freedom, because all of the things you know constrain you. So, yes, Whispers, what we are doing is beginning to question all the things that we think we know. We're beginning to wake up, we're beginning to rediscover freedom.
Where we go, Rohaa, once we begin to doubt that we have all the answers and begin to ask the basic questions, and most importantly, when we begin to be open... we are going to go through a really exciting ride that's going to have some very difficult moments. The first part will be confusion, and as we start to move through the confusion, we'll find a little more stability and its going to be really nice.
Loneliness
But the next part, and the hardest one to handle, is the loneliness. Its not sadness, because sadness is real emotion. Loneliness is a lie. Its one we make up to tell ourselves. If you do this process and you stick with it, for a month, two months, what you're going to find is that you start to question your relationships. You start to question who you want to spend time with and who you don't. You are going to start to question what you are doing in your life, where you've put the last months or years.
And whats going to happen is that you are going to start to feel isolated. Suddenly you're changing and everybody else in your life wants to stay the same. Suddenly you're going to feel like you're not a part of what you've known all along anymore. And whats going to come is a powerful sense of loneliness. Its at this point that most people will give up, drop out, stop trying.
Three-stage learning
There is a process called three-stage learning that they will teach you if you ever study education or psychology, and it works like this: If you pick something up and just do it, you'll probably do okay at it, whatever it is. But when you start studying with a real expert on it, they are going to teach you to pay attention to the basics. If it's dancing or martial arts they'll teach you to pay attention to your footwork. If it's singing they're going to teach you to pay attention to the modulation of your voice or exact pitch of the notes. Whatever it is they're going to teach you to focus on the details and as you focus on the details, your overall quality is going to fall. You started out doing something just naturally that getting so obsessed with the details you start being a lot less effective overall. Its at this point in that second stage, this weaker and this lesser stage, that most people drop out.
Any expert, any good teacher will tell you that if you continue to focus on the details they will carry you through that second stage into a third stage where you take your natural ability, combine it with that mastering the basics and reach a whole new level of mastering awareness.
If you undertake this process that I'm suggesting, in answer to Rohaa's question of where we go, your first stage is going to be a little confusion and some success— "Hey, this actually works! I'm discovering new things!" Your second stage is going to be this loneliness and it's going to make you less effective at life, it's going to make you less effective in your friendships, and it's going to make you less happy and more confused and more uncertain. It is definitely the second stage of three-stage learning. And the biggest difficulty in that process is this feeling that you are totally alone, this desperate sense of loneliness.
Coming through it
If you can come through that—and at that place its a really good time to find a teacher, or find a friend or find someone who can help - if you can come though that second stage out to the third, you are going to find, like Rohaa has found and some of her students have found over the last couple of months: you start waking up and noticing your life for the first time in your life.
You start finding that you can do things you never thought you did. Your start finding yourself naturally attracting all this wonderful stuff—wow--that happened, wow, this came to be, this is so amazing. You find that if you've had trouble with relationships for years, your relationships will suddenly start to work, or the one who is the perfect relationship will come to you. You find if you had trouble for money, that the money will start to come to you, that the opportunities for them all will start to come to you. All this stuff will happen so naturally.
It will, because this is the new order of the world, this is the way things are changing, this is how it is happening. There will be a much greater sense of harmony and things will work much easier for all of us once we get into the flow of the change that is happening in the world.
The process
I can tell you, and some of the others in this conversation can tell you this is true, as you start to come out to this third stage, you begin to discover some truly wonderful and amazing things, things you had no idea about. You become somebody totally new and you find that you really love that person. To get there, though, you've got to go through the steps.
Step one is you have to seek the chaos, you've got to seek the change. That's every morning, waking up and asking the basics, that's throughout the day saying, “Is this what I want, who am I, what do I want, where am I going, what do I want to do?” You've got to start trying new things, no matter how crazy or weird. You've got to start trying the new things, you've got to look for the chaos. And as you do this, as you give your mind and your heart and the subconscious part that's like a child, the chance to express the change - you'll discover some wonderful things.
Then you'll go into this second stage of serious loneliness. And if you can find a good teacher and if you have the will to make it through you're going to come out to a new place of awareness, a new you that's truly wonderful.
More questions
This loneliness and this sense of isolation, it's so strong in some of these people, I don't know if they realize it, it's so strong I'm close to tears. I sense—is there someone here who is new to this group, probably male, maybe a bit scientific who likes logical answers, and who's a little a bit annoyed or angry about all this? Anybody want to own up to that? All right, James, what is it you want to say? Go ahead and bare your soul. Don't think, lad, you think too much. James would make a good teacher. But the ones who make a good teacher tend to make really lousy students. They struggle a lot against being led but in time they could make an amazing teacher.
Another student: You sound very familiar, is that odd?
Angel: Hmmm. Is it odd if I sound familiar. You will find that a lot of us come to this world with a purpose, a desire to heal, to touch, to shape. And because our purpose is so similar, in a sort of new-agey sense our energy, our aura, is very similar. Who we are, and what we give off, our emotions, our attitudes, are very similar. And so what you'll find is that those whose purpose is closest to yours feel the most familiar to you. If you have called to be a healer those who are most hurting will also feel called to you, but that's something different.
James: I know myself pretty well, and I don't feel this anger or frustration you talk about.
Angel: See I told you, the best potential teachers. James, there are phenomenally few males in our modern world who have any idea about their own emotions. Generally females are a little more aware. You have so much rage, you're hurting the people around you. You have lots, and lots, and lots of anger and it needs to be addressed eventually. But anger always has fear under it, so it's fear that's needs addressed. And I'm going to leave that to Rohaa. I have counseled thousands of people who have come through all kinds of horrible traumas. And my senses for this are very good. If you are wise you will trust it over your own.
James: I still don't feel any of this meta-intuitive stuff that Rohaa insists is real.
Angel: I wanted you to say that, I wanted you to ask that question because a lot of folks have those same questions. I'll start this answer by saying that I have a degree in engineering from a very prestigious engineering school in the US, a Master's in psychology, science, mathematical psych, I've taught statistics, I've got a doctorate, and I've done years of research in counseling. So, I'm not some guy wearing a purple robe and a turban here.
The purpose of science is to explore. Without question and without prejudice, to gather data and explore and find the simplest answer that explains it. Now in this particular case science and religion are close buddies. They both look at all the evidence and completely refuse to accept that anything meta-intuitive is real. And it's insane. There are whole texts documenting children speaking foreign languages, telling of homes they used to live in, all stuff from back in previous lifetimes. And folks trace them out and find the homes and look at the pictures they've drawn, they see this stuff is real.
There is huge amounts of evidence on empathy and telepathy, there's a surprising amount of evidence that says full airplanes almost never crash. That when an airplane goes down its often half empty or more, because there is a surprising number of people with just a last minute feeling and decide not to take that flight. The US Government, especially out at the Stanford Research Institute where I used to work, the Russian government and several others have studied this stuff for years. There's vast amounts of documented evidence on the meta-intuitive stuff.
We cannot afford to refuse changing our views
We cannot afford as intelligent, perceptive people, to fight against the possibility of the meta-intuitive. All you've got to do is look. This documentation is all over the place, there is so much out there, no I'm not going to feed it to you. There's so much, all you've got to do is take an open-minded look and you'll see it. The people who still insist that the meta-intuitive side, the spiritual side is a hoax are folks who are desperately, desperately trying not to see.
If you're curious if this stuff is real, start doing some research, start reading some stories, people who've been healed. People like me who use these things. I made a fortune in business just because I could tell what people were feeling, and I would feel the empathy with them all the time. My co-workers in the counseling field used to call me their secret weapon, because I'd always know exactly what the client wanted. There are folks who use this for the stock market, there are folks who use this for all kinds of things in business. And I have personally read hundreds of books and seen far more websites on it. There is so much evidence, all you got to do is make a quick search and you'll find it.
This is my first suggestion for everybody. If you really want to know this answer, throw out the prejudices and just start researching. Number two, recognize that there's a lot of garbage out there, there's a lot of people who'll put a turban on and claim that they're psychic and feed you a load of garbage, so don't throw away your discretion. Treat this like it's science, do the research, look for the results. And number three, begin to search for it in your personal life. Every single person talking here today, every single person in this group has gifts. Some of them are quite remarkable, I can sense them. Begin to look for them, if you don't know how find a teacher.
Some of you, like James, won't find your gifts until you get past your anger, your fear. But its there, these gifts. Those are my recommendations, start doing the research. Keep an open mind, but be skeptical, practically skeptical, and start looking at your own life.
Seek change
I'm going to wrap up, but I'll briefly say again, this the greatest time of change in the history of humanity. If at this point you are not changing, life is liable to come down on you hard and make you change in a way you may not want simply because we have to keep changing just to stay in sync. So I encourage every single person to begin to seek change in small ways. Look at the ways I suggested. Set up a daily program of practice it wont take a lot of time. Just start playing with it, it doesn't have to be serious or scary, just play with it like a new toy. And I guarantee that anyone who gives it a serious effort will find their world seriously rocked.
There's some crazy stuff going on when you start asking the right questions. I feel grateful for the chance to share with you all today, and I wish you well in your search. Peace.
