✨AI Generated

By Ivonne Elsner

I would like to start this article with the conclusion and share a realization I recently had:
There is nothing more important than to feel CONNECTED WITH SELF!

Well, is this really this big? Oh absolutely! I may have felt it before on some level, but now I feel it with all my heart and soul. It is more meaningful than ever before. More so, I see WHY it is so significant.

It is so simple and yet so true: What I thought comes first – jobs, opportunities, you name it – is actually last. And what I thought comes last – my Self – is actually all that I will ever need. 

Let me explain a bit more. Before, I was chasing these external things because I thought they would somehow help me feel connected. But now I realize that nothing will ever make me feel connected. Instead, I just feel the connection, and things may or may not happen. This realization literally turns my whole life around – in a good way! It is a monumental shift, especially when I put it into actual practice. It makes it a lot easier for me to let go of old stuff that does not serve me anymore and to finally allow in all the good stuff which I may have been blind to before.

I would like to share the story of how I came to these profound realizations. 

It all started with this: I lost money. Due to a bad investment decision, I lost 430 € (about $450), yet I gained the most important treasure of realizations. In short, I bought a brilliant musical device to make my contribution for the Music for Aerotheon project. I’ll spare you the technical details, but the device is called a “hologram microcosm” – a beautiful name for a box of electric components that can turn musical input from a guitar or other instrument into an awe inspiring, spacey sound. In fact, the sound is much like I imagine musical spheres in the omniverse. It literally makes you go into other worlds.

However, this magical device called the microcosm is not available in my country. Therefore, I ordered one on a second-hand online platform. At least this is what I thought I was doing, only to find out that the seller took my money with no intention of ever sending a product. As it was a private seller, there is no insurance, no type of safety net whatsoever. Just “trust” and bad luck on my side. Was it really bad luck though? Maybe not. 

A million signs were there to tell me this wasn’t a safe place to make the investment. In hindsight it smelt so much like mischief you could probably get a whiff of it up in the AMC. Here are just two examples of the smelly facts: 

1. The PayPal address wasn’t valid, so the seller had to give me a second one (the first one had probably been blocked already, I realized only later). 

2. The language used was suspicious and when I checked later, their account had only been created the previous week. 

Looking at these dubious items now makes me laugh at myself. Why on earth did I do this? I saw the signs indeed, but I very much blocked them out and did not listen because I so wanted to make this work! I have to say that in most cases I have a good feeling of whether or not I can trust a person or situation. However, I don’t always trust that feeling because sometimes it is tainted with the internal clamor of aspects, such as “It has to be like this!” In hindsight, of course, it is so much easier to see. Nevertheless, I did learn to trust my gut a lot more after this incident. It is remarkable what we are able to sense and to just know. But we don’t know how we know, which at times opens the doors for doubt.

By the time it became obvious the seller wouldn’t send me anything, I was somewhat delighted, believe it or not. I had landed right in the I AM where I had always wanted to be. I also felt slightly sad, blaming myself for a short moment (especially about having been so naïve), but I soon recovered, for my gut also tells me not to blame anyone – including myself – which is damn right!

What followed was the most amazing realization that made me feel losing the money was worth it, even if in a slightly wicked way. I felt LOVE for what happened, along with the human emotions. Wait, someone rips me off and I feel love all over? Yes, it may sound strange, but this is indeed what happened. The light and love flowed all through me, not only on the day of the incident but ever since then; it is now my trustworthy companion. In fact, the night after the incident I woke up at 2 am and stayed awake until dawn, floating in an endless experience of Light – Shift – Light. Plus, there was also a tremendous release of old junk, as always happens with these big moments. I am not able to describe this experience any clearer, so I’ll stop trying. It was simply beyond words.

✨AI Generated

But what I am able to put into words are the realizations that followed, and these I would very much like to share, along with the conclusion with which I started out:

Before this experience, I had been seeing things from the wrong end. I wanted certain things to happen (e.g. the music project but also in other areas of my life), hoping that I would THEN feel connected with Self. Now I finally know, not only mentally but truly feel and realize, that it has to be the other way round! Nothing is going to MAKE me feel connected because I already am. Therefore, all I need to do is to allow myself to feel the connection, to stay with it. And then something works out or not. It won’t even matter anymore because feeling that connectivity is all that counts. All other things simply lose their importance.

I had still been chasing after signs on the outside like chasing fireflies at night. I believed they were coming from the inside, signs assuring me I was on the right path. Yet, instead of looking inside, I was most often chasing artificial signs on the outside, like the number 44 or other types of mental constructs such as “If A happens now after B, then it MUST mean something.” Well, no. Feel inside. It is a lot easier than that.

I was still believing in a higher power of some sort. On one hand, I was putting energy on the outside and on the other hand I was being very mental about it! I felt very spiritual for going on less traveled paths in my life. I still do tend to take the alternate roads, yet I realize now that in many cases I was still chasing fireflies, still feeling like I had to achieve something. I don’t do that anymore – not in the way I did before – and I am a lot more grounded now. Also, I realize that I was trying to achieve things because I was so afraid of judgement from the outside, either from other people or from a higher power of some kind. This realization came as a bit of a surprise, considering my atheist upbringing and life choices. I would never have called such a higher power “God,” but the energy dynamics were just the same as when someone believes in an old external God. I felt like I just had to get things right to please that power – or else. Even worse, I felt like I had to get things right the first time! What a pressure I put on myself! Yet, I hardly ever had any true feeling of satisfaction when I did achieve something or when things worked out as desired.

I was running away from my true feelings by putting them outside rather than allowing myself to feel them as part of me. I was still not 100 % open and honest with myself. I am now a lot more allowing when it comes to looking at my emotions instead of running or hiding from them. It is not like I was running and hiding all the time, yet I cannot say that it never happened. There were some beliefs that felt somehow out of reach and which I placed outside as I did not dare to allow them in. They seemed too frightening. Funny thing is though, they seem so much mightier when you place them outside. Once you place them on the inside, they lose their power over you. 

Let me give you an example: I believed that I had to achieve something in order to make a living, and that I would be judged by some outside force if I didn’t. After the realizations, I internalized it as a fear within myself. If there are no outside judgements, it is simply a fear on the inside. And this is a lot less scary! I can handle it and allow the integration a lot easier. Even though “fear” may sound scary, it is so much easier when it is MINE and I take ownership of it. 

And this changes things! Once I figured it out for one issue, it is a lot easier to see it in other parts in my life as well. I would even go so far as to say that I do not need to know what exactly the issue is, just knowing that it is all on the inside already does the trick. It may actually be everything I need to do.

I’ve been secretly taking care of other people more than I would ever have thought. I mean this not in a compassionate way but rather in an outside-looking way. In a very subtle way, I felt like I had to save other people, that I was responsible for them, which influenced my actions in various ways. For example, I would smile to another person because I felt it was up to me to make them have a good day. More importantly, I felt that was my duty, although I wouldn’t have used those words because I was simply not aware of the subtle mechanisms at play within me. I simply considered myself an open and friendly person. After this experience, I am still mostly open and friendly to others, but the reason has changed. Now it is not because I have to but rather because I just am. And if I am not, it is just as good because the most important thing is that I have a good day. I do not take anything away from anyone else by having a good day myself.

So now, because of all these realizations, perhaps you understand why I felt love for the experience of being scammed. Yes, I have heard all these things before, and had internalized bits and pieces of it before. I heard Adamus and Tobias talk about these things many times, yet hearing something is a very different thing than actually feeling and experiencing it yourself and – more importantly – integrating it into your life. It feels like these are MY realizations, I feel ownership for them, and therefore, it feels a lot bigger than any messages from the Masters. So yes, I am thankful for the experience of losing $450.

In fact, I would like to introduce my new business model to you: I sell you literally nothing for $450 and, well, all the subsequent amazing realizations are completely yours. How does that sound? Microcosmic? Anyone interested? Oh, you don’t want to lose $450 to get your realizations? You can have them for free? Well, good on you! Perhaps now I will do the same. ☺

What I am saying is this: Allow yourself to have fun! No matter what the experience is, you can turn shit into gold. Or, more accurately, in every bad experience there is already gold within. It is only up to you to see it – which is very easy when you realize you’re already connected with your Self.