Wake Up

Exploring Personal Growth and Transformation: The Inspiring Journey of Esra Ogut

• Douglas James Cottrell PhD • Season 1 • Episode 93

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Our journey in life is shaped by the experiences we go through and the choices we make. Today's episode offers profound insights from an extraordinary woman, Esra Ogut, whose life journey has been nothing short of inspiring. Raised as a diplomat's child, she has lived in various corners of the world. Her experiences of diverse cultures and her transformative journey of personal growth, from Turkey to America, offers a fascinating perspective on life and the universe.

Esra's journey didn't just stop at experiencing different cultures. She shares her spiritual awakening through yoga and the impact it had on her life. Her bold decision to move to America and the transformative journey that followed is a testament to the power of determination and self-worth. Through Unlimited Me, she emphasizes the power of choice and the hindrance of a victim mentality. We delve into her experiences that shaped her understanding of prosperity consciousness and how we can retrain our ego to align with our desired reality.

The episode concludes with Esra's recounting of her near-death experience and how it pushed her further into her self-discovery journey. She shares about her initiative, Ike and Esra, and her ambitions for its expansion. Host Douglas James Cottrell leaves us with the reminder that the journey to self-realization is not easy, but it comes with invaluable growth and understanding. Tune in to this episode to hear Esra's compelling story and enrich your perspective on personal growth and transformation.

https://www.ikeandesranow.com

Hosted by Douglas James Cottrell. This episode was produced by Paul Hughes, with co-production by Jack Bialik and audio engineering by Doug M Cottrell.

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Announcer:

Welcome to Wake Up with Dr Douglas James Cottrell, your source for helpful information, advice and tips to live your life in a mindful way in this increasingly chaotic world. For over four decades, Dr Douglas has been teaching people how to develop their intuition and live their lives in a conscious way. His news and views of the world tomorrow, today, are always informative and revealing. To learn more about Dr Douglas, be sure to visit his website, douglasjamescotrellcom, where you can download self-help exercises you can do right in the comfort of your own home. And now here's your host, Dr Douglas James Cottrell.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Welcome to the show, my friends, with another wonderful addition. My guest today is Esra Ogut, who is an amazing lady, who has a wonderful story and an amazing life, and she's written a book that you must absolutely go and get. It's Money Does Grow on Trees and she explains the myths we create and live by Now. I've spoken to Esra before and, as you may have read or seen in our podcast, the Wake Up, and or on our Global Village radio show, but today we're going to continue the conversation and we're going to find out more about this fascinating woman and her journey. Welcome to the show. It's great to have you here today.

Esra Ogut:

Thank you so much for inviting me. I love talking to you the last time, so I'm so happy we're getting to do it again.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, I guess we're becoming good friends. So I've been North America. Are you in Europe?

Esra Ogut:

I'm in Turkey. I just got back from Egypt and Greece because you know, all those places are close enough to jump around from Turkey. But currently, for the last year I've been living in Turkey after many, many years in the US.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, I asked because I know from before the show Communication you were in Egypt and I don't know you travel a lot.

Esra Ogut:

I do, I do. I really have a gypsy DNA and I can't stand still.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, if I remember, your whole life started off you were the child of an ambassador who was moved from country to country, and we talked a little bit about that. Maybe you would like to tell our listeners about that and how you got started in your wonderful sojourn from being a child sort of on the road with an ambassador father and some of the disciplines you had to endure, and then how you got to America and how you became the amazing person that you are a life coach, a yoga instructor, an author. You have a wonderful website that people can check out more about the amazing things you do. So tell us a little bit about how you went from that little girl when you were younger and you were sort of, I guess, conditioned to a certain way, which ultimately became your life's work.

Esra Ogut:

Well, let's see how I can like fit that all in a very brief paragraph Pick your time.

Douglas James Cottrell:

We have plenty of time.

Esra Ogut:

Well, yeah, I mean my father. You know who was an ambassador later on, because in Turkey, like you go, have to, you know, work for 15, 20 years before he can become that. So he had the good life when I had already left home.

Esra Ogut:

But yeah, I was born in Ankara, in Turkey, in the capital, and then, just when I was three months old already, I was living in Belgium, then Bulgaria, then Greece and Spain, austria. So every three, four years it was a different country and in between we would always have to come back for two years or a year back to Turkey and then go back out. So there was an incredible journey, not just from country to country, but from a very Eastern mindset to bouncing to a very Western mindset and then back, which, as a child, was very difficult because some of the values are completely reversed. For example, the educational system in the East is very much based on authority. You just like listen to the teacher, you spit out whatever the teacher says. If you like kind of say anything else or give your own opinion, you get kind of punished. You see, then you go to the Western side and if you don't have your own point of view to speak about, then you get a bad grade.

Esra Ogut:

You know, so I was usually in American schools, and especially when I was a teenager. In the West, when you're already 14, 15, 16, you know to be engaged with having a boyfriend and everything is very, you know, natural at a very young age compared to the Eastern point of view. So there, if you're not too interactive, there was a period of time where everybody thought I was a lesbian. Then you go back to you know, the Eastern part of the world and it's like, oh God forbid. If a guy touches you, you know, on your arm, oh my God, what are you doing, you know? So it was, in a way, very confusing in that sense.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I can well imagine oh my God, what a nice.

Esra Ogut:

It was, it was. You know that was tough. Maybe just moving from a European country to European country of course also has its challenges. So one of the things that my lifestyle taught me very early on is kind of learning to be detached, because every time you get on a plane, your life as you knew it for four years is over, because you know your parents aren't going to bring you back to that country, you're never going to see some of your friends again.

Esra Ogut:

My God that was a harsh training, but I got that one early. And I think the other, most important one that contributed to my work is to see how you know how there is no fixed truth or reality. It's all very relative. Reality is a very relative thing depending from what perspective you're looking at. The third thing I want to say very quickly is that I got trained on this whole concept of prejudice also very early on in my life. I remember distinctly when I went to Greece as an eight year old kid. Of course, greece and Turkey historically are not very, you know, friendly. I didn't speak a word of English yet at that time. I was in an American school and all I know is I'm going to school and everybody in the school hates me, but everybody.

Esra Ogut:

So I was traumatized, you know from A to Z. I'll never forget, like when we're getting our coats. If anybody like touched me, they'd be like, eh, like that, and I'm like oh my God, what is going on? And I was very upset, of course.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Were you bullied, you think.

Esra Ogut:

Well, I didn't know what was going on. It was worse because I couldn't speak the language. So when I learned English in about a year, I realized that Sophia I'll never forget her name the most popular girl in school, was Greek, was told by her grandparents or something, that Turks eat babies or some weird you know myth like that.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh, my God.

Esra Ogut:

So this is what she told everybody and of course they're all kids, they all believed it, and so I realized how this thing that comes from our parents or grandparents, you know, these kind of conditionings can completely distort reality. So I had to, at a very young age, learn not to take prejudice personally, and I didn't. I managed to not take it personally, understood where she's coming from, talk to her. We became the best of friends and we even sat down and wrote the then president Papandreou. I'll never forget that, as a Turkish and a Greek, you know, eight year old girl, if we can find friendship, so can the two countries.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh, my God Wonderful.

Esra Ogut:

It's interesting because, see, this is how belief systems work. Because I know this prejudice thing is very heated in America right now. Because I realized prejudice is never about me, it's the perspective. If it's hurting me, then it's about me, because I'm agreeing with what's being said. But since I was very clear no one in Turkey eats babies I didn't have a space to take it personally anyway. And after that lesson of realizing prejudice is never about me, never again did I experience prejudice ever anywhere. I went neither as a you know Turk, neither as a woman, neither as anything, because I was done with that belief system and since I didn't occupy it, it never got reflected back in my life to me.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, that sounds like wisdom in the making. And for two eight year old girls to sit down after this character assassination based on complete fabrications and prejudice and rumors and who knows what, you managed to, I guess, be somewhat leaders of your Schoolmates and then extending it further, to write a letter, how many little children, how many little kids do that? You know Fascinating. You know so, as you move from country to country, you know life is life is brutal, as you have just recounted, and Obviously you were astute and you were taking things in and analyzing. You know, on the job, training, if you will, to be somewhat wise, and I'm gonna, I'm going to say indifferent to the boogie man fears that are out there, which are now, as you alluded to, there there's an awful lot of rumors and prejudice, but I like the line, don't take it personally.

Douglas James Cottrell:

It's not you, it's the persona, it's the Attitudes. A rumor, it's the reflection of people who are ignorant and they don't know any better. I know I've traveled to a lot of countries myself and, although you've kind of skipped over it, learning the language and the customs, well, to me that was scary. I mean, yeah, going up to the food teller and say with a handful to change and say go ahead, take the money. You know I'm buying groceries or something, so I can relate to what you're going through. And and as you continued in your life, you, you, made that big jump from from Europe, from Turkey, to America, america. Tell us a little bit about that.

Esra Ogut:

That was a that was an adventure for sure it was because I had never even come to the United States as a tourist in my life and and because I grew up in American schools but in Europe, and I loved the American kind of system of education that was in Europe. I Found it kind of more sophisticated than what we had in Turkey. I just, and because I just loved everything we were taught, you know, the freedom to Freedom of speech, freedom of thought. You're not guilty until proven. So everything that is about the Constitution, which I think is now on very shaky ground in the US, unfortunately, and that's why we left, but at that time it was very to me, it was. It resonated deeply, it inspired me. So I just had to come to America. I knew it like that statue of liberty Was my thing, it was the symbol of my life. I felt like I would find Myself, my freedom, everything I was looking for in America had that thought and my parents were like not happy about it. They did not want me to go. They said I can't, and I was like, well, watch me. And so I Kind of, you know, manifested a scholarship from the place I was working at the time.

Esra Ogut:

I was working in a TV station in Turkey at the time and I manifested a friend that also my parents knew the parents of to go and stay with, and I had very little saved up money, without knowing what I was going to do. Once I showed up there and I just, I actually had a boyfriend too, which, for the sake of that statue of liberty, I had to leave behind, and I just jumped on a plane and blindly arrived in Los Angeles. So that's how the entry to Los Angeles, you know, happened. And after that point Life was tough, because I was studying at UCLA, you know, television and film, but I wasn't allowed to work. But I didn't have money, so I had to do anything I could to pay rent. So I did all kinds of jobs, like selling shoes, selling Carpets, you know, just doing what whoever would give me whatever job at minimum wage. And it was all for that statue of liberty and the three principles of the Constitution I mentioned.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And you didn't go home, you didn't fail. One day, as I understand it, you were walking down the street with, when you say, very little money I think you told me before it was very little money and you're at a another continent, another side of the world, in a place you've never been before, and so I can only think that that was some spiritual Motivation or guidance from above to get you to where you were. But tell us the story how you came down the street and saw this yoga. Yoga studio would seem to be a beacon of hope for you.

Esra Ogut:

Well I can't really say I didn't fail. I think I kind of failed miserably the first easy five years.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Let me say this you didn't quit I didn't quit.

Esra Ogut:

But, yeah, I experienced failure over and over and over and over, again and again and I was very depressed, and I think I was kind of a depressed type before I even came to America. But I thought all my problems were because of this, because of that, because of you know, whatever turkey, because of the society, and that's the thing you know, no matter where you go, you take yourself with you. So once I got to the States, thinking I was just going to have all this freedom, I realized that I was the problem. And, yeah, there was very low, several levels of self-worth, a lot of depression. I was kind of doing drugs, I was drinking alcohol like crazy and all these things, and I was very depressed things and just feeling a lot of pain inside about how I was seeing myself, how I was perceiving myself. I really had a very, very low, very low self-esteem.

Esra Ogut:

So one day what happened is it's what we call a being choice in our system. I didn't know that that's what it was called, I hadn't heard that terminology before, but it's like whenever we decide with all of our being what we're going to belong to and what we're not going to belong to, that's like almost like a magical key that shifts your whole reality around. But it's not an intellectual thing. It has to be a thing being choice. You choose with all your beingness. You say Notice certain reality so you can say yes to another reality. So the night before I found this yoga center, I was so miserable, douglas, I remember I just kind of got on my knees, I cried, I cried, I cried from the Incredible amount of pain I was carrying and I said you know what? I'm not going to continue life like this, if this pain is going to be with me all my life, right here, right now, I'm quitting.

Esra Ogut:

Wow either this is going to change or I'm going to quit, and that's it. It was like no more of this depression anymore. It was a being choice. Now, the next morning, when I woke up, I went for a walk to cry. And as I was walking, crying, I saw this amazing building with red bricks and I was all of a sudden attracted to this building. I didn't know why. I went inside and there was all these people dressed in white. You know, they were kind of dressed weird too. I could have like been like one on earth and just left, but I didn't. And I said you know, what are you guys doing here? And they said oh, we do Kundalini yoga. Would you like to have a? You know, your first class is free. I'm like, okay. So I sat down, I had my first class. I cried my eyes out like a baby from beginning to end.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh my gosh.

Esra Ogut:

And though, in that very first class, I realized I'm like, oh my god, I have so much to heal, and I realized that I was going to be in love with myself for my inner child, because I just Saw that inner child, I saw how scared she is, how hurt she is, how low she is. And I realized that without first healing myself, without first coming back into relationship of love with myself, that nothing else in my life was going to work. So that was kind of like the first, let's say, I would call it kind of a revelation moment.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's a pretty profound Understanding. You came to, yeah, the lowest of the lowest point, that somehow you're drawn to this big red brick building.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, but it was. It was that decision the night before like no way to this Missouri anymore. It was just like you know another way, or the highway, that's it, but not this way. And whenever we do that really from our heart, from our beingness, everything changes. I've seen. I mean this is one of the major things we teach.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's what I was just gonna say, and you've incorporated some of these amazing lessons or wisdoms that you've gained over that time. Tell us a little bit more how somebody who might be at a similar point, how they can find out more about you. But first we're gonna take a break. We'll be right back.

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Douglas James Cottrell:

So just before the break, I was asking how people who have reached such a point, a point of no return let's call it to be positive how can they come to you and gain from your wisdom and experience to help them in that turnaround or pivotal point that's very serious in life.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, I will give the website. Is that what you mean?

Douglas James Cottrell:

Yes, website, how to contact you, but then what people can?

Esra Ogut:

give you. First of all, I would say don't come until you have decided to change your life, because before the person is ready and clear about the change they want, actually no help really reaches. Because the power of help doesn't ever come from the outside, it always comes from the inside. Once we decide we want to help ourselves, whether they end up coming to me or a book hits some over the head with one sentence like always, the help will be available. So that's the thing.

Esra Ogut:

Like we don't work, like I wouldn't work with myself before I arrived at the point that I'm talking about, because I was in a state of victim psychology. I was stayed in feeling very sorry for myself, and as long as we're in that psychology and we don't choose to get out of it first, nothing and nobody can help, period. So unless you're decided, don't even contact me briefly. But if you have decided to get outside of your box, it's wwwikie and esraesranowcom. You can get the email from there. You can contact our assistant. But my recommendation would be to read the book first, because there's a lot of exercises there and not everything resonates with everybody. Like they should read the book, see the information and if there's a resonance then, of course, welcome. I'd be very happy to work with you.

Douglas James Cottrell:

They can also come and see you. At the Unlimited Me the journey begins, I guess, conferences or public events to meet you or to see you and to listen to you as well.

Esra Ogut:

Yes, I mean, what they can do is when they get on our website, we have a place where they can give their emails. And once we have their emails, whenever we're doing a workshop and we always do it on Zoom or on Instagram if it's just a little kind of a podcasty meeting, we'll do it on Instagram. If it's a workshop, we'll do it on Zoom, and if it's a private session, we do it on phone. So usually we do everything online or on the phone rather than in person.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Yeah, it makes sense and I know in person is a whole different ambience and energy sharing and things like that.

Douglas James Cottrell:

But Zoom and conferences online are the way the world's going now and you can come with people all over, so that's how people can find you and find out more about you through your website, and I was quite impressed. Don't come and see me until and I think that's true when you get to that point where you're willing to do anything else. You know, everything you've done up to this point obviously hasn't worked. Perhaps it's considered failure, but at that moment in time, when people are ready, that's when you'll help them. That's a pretty good point for people to know.

Esra Ogut:

That and also to realize that the frequency of victim and the frequency of solution they're so far away from one another that they cannot occupy the same space. It's impossible. So if you're going to be a victim, at least don't try to look for a solution.

Esra Ogut:

And if you want a solution, then you've got to drop the sense of feeling sorry for yourself, because that is like a huge cage and I know it, I had it, I kind of lived it for a very big chunk of my life and I can tell you right now it doesn't work. You know, it really doesn't work. And usually we have a victim psychology that we stay and sit with if we have some sort of a benefit from it, like we're trying to get sympathy from other people or we're trying to find a savior that's going to save us or we need to hear loving words from a person but even if we get that very temporarily, it's very temporary. We can't really reach a real solution. So I love that saying. I think it's maybe an American saying, maybe British, I don't know but God helps those that help themselves. It's right there. You've got to do that first step.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I agree, people, they hear their prayer, ask and you shall receive, and everybody goes OK, I'm going to pray, I'm going to ask for anything and say yes, but there's two conditions Seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be open unto you. And that means you have to go and do something yourself. You have to make it happen. And so that's right. God provides everything. You just have to go and do it. I mean, you had to get on that plane, leave your boyfriend, your family and Turkey behind and go to a country that you never, ever, were at before. And you did.

Esra Ogut:

And it's interesting that you bring that up, as you just said it, because prior to actually going, I had, since high school, wanted to go. So I wanted and I wanted and I yearned for it. And I'm like, ah, it can never happen. I wanted, I wanted, I kept remaining in the space of the one who wants, but about two months before I actually got on the plane, all of a sudden I switched from being the person who wants to being the person who chooses, and that's what made everything all of a sudden realign Again.

Esra Ogut:

If we're going to go back to the being choice, it was a five-minute second, a five-second decision. I was pouring coffee from a machine in this workplace and I remember thinking to myself like this can't be my life. I'm not going to do this regular thing in Turkey, where you graduate from university, you get a good job and then you get married and then you have babies. That's just not me. And I said, oh my god, I don't see my life in Turkey, I see my life in America. And then I said you know what I'm going, and it was a choice with all of my being. I wasn't anymore wanting, I made a decision that you know, no matter what the conditions were, and I didn't have any conditions going for me. I'm just going to go. That's when the scholarship came, that's when the help came, that's when the friend whom I could say with came. You see, all the problems got taken care of once. I decided to belong to that reality being choice.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I found the same in my life. It's exactly right. You can want and want and want, you can try and try and try, but until you decide, and then there's no doubt, then the enthusiasm, the assurance you're definitely going to do it, and then, as you just recounted, I've had that magically if I can call that magically all these things come to you to get you to where you want to go. So I guess that's part of when you also coach high profile individuals. You're very well known in the field for what you do and, as we're talking a little bit, some of the, I guess, the initial steps for people to get to that point, when it seems like everything's hopeless, you could say no, just choose. And as you choose, and then you're willing to take the steps. You had to get on the plane, you had to buy the ticket, you had to pack the bag, had to do all these things. It just didn't arrive. You had to do these things yourself and I believe in that self-sustaining. If you want something, if you can do it yourself, go do it. That's your duty. If you can't do it yourself, then there's always somebody to help. That's your responsibility to try to get that person to help you and a combination of duty and responsibility, you can achieve everything. I mean, you're a very successful woman. You're probably modest as well, but you've done a lot and I'm not going to put you on the spot and say, what have you done.

Douglas James Cottrell:

People can read your books and find out more about you. They don't need to be lazy. They could find out a lot about you and I encourage them to do so, because people like you are leaders in the world. You've gone through the difficulties. You've gained a wisdom and life's experience so that when you talk to people, when you teach people, you're teaching from the heart, but also from life's experiences, so you're telling the truth. It's not academic. You know. This is how I did it, so follow along. So again, people with a website is a place to start and to buy the book. Again, you know, money does grow on trees. How did you come up with that title? I love it.

Esra Ogut:

Well, again, it was a being choice. I don't know if last time we spoke I mentioned the story maybe briefly, I don't remember, but I experienced. I mean, my definition of prosperity changed so much. I really kind of arrived after struggling about money like, but so badly. You know, it was always paying rent at the last time and not knowing each month if I'm actually going to make rent, and I had the shittiest apartment which was a thousand dollar, you know rent. So it wasn't even a big wow apartment or anything, was the bare minimum.

Esra Ogut:

So after having you know this, when I grew into the prosperity consciousness, I realized that prosperity is all around, it's there all the time. It's not a limited principle, it's a very unlimited principle. But our belief systems about money and prosperity that all life is hard or you can't get much unless you have to work, or you know money is the root of all evil we have all kinds of belief systems that we've come up with as we were growing up, as we were children. That separates us from the prosperity that's all around. So I was definitely on that train myself and I remember after I met my husband, who then later became my husband, I was already in my mid 30s, I was really, really broke and I realized that I didn't even have the luxury of having a baby if I wanted to, because I didn't have enough money to take care of a baby.

Esra Ogut:

And at that moment, that thought so shocked me Again. I made a being choice and I said I remember the moment again. Being choices happen like in five seconds. It doesn't take any longer than that, and I'm going to give an exercise after this for people to activate that being power that we actually all have. You know, something we're born with. We don't even need to be taught, we need to just remember. I jumped to the middle of the living room and I said to myself you know what? I will never experience, ever any problems in regarding money again, I am choosing to belong to great prosperity. I didn't know the how. I wasn't the finance person. I was more, like you know, artist person. I had no idea about the how, but once I made that being choice, just like the yoga, a week later I met my life coach and he was able to take me to the memory where I decided I don't know if I shared this memory before Should.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I let's hear it again. It's a wonderful story.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, so I'm watching TV. You know, I'm like seven or eight years old. My grandmother has friends and they're all talking about how there was an arranged marriage and a young girl has been married off to this very rich doctor who's 75, you know age of her grandfather and they're thinking it's a good thing. And I'm like sitting there watching you know, pretending to watch cartoon, like, like what in my head?

Douglas James Cottrell:

This could happen to me.

Esra Ogut:

Oh, this could happen to me, you know exactly, and I was like, no, this ain't happening to me for sure. But you know, there were just I mean, it's not how, how you know even in Turkey that wasn't even at that time that normal. But you know, anyway, it was just this one example, but the whole point is there like, oh good, she did. Well, you know, it's important to find a rich husband. A woman should never follow, you know, her heart. She should follow basically status and money, otherwise she's a stupid woman.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh gosh.

Esra Ogut:

And I'm listening to this and I'm like I remember getting like shocked and scared from this conversation and feeling like, oh my God, like how are these people going to be? You know the wayshowers of my life and I remember being very frustrated, I remember being very like not in agreement and so, because I couldn't say anything, I went to the bathroom, I shut the door, I looked at the mirror and I said you know, dear universe, I will always follow the way of love and I will always say no to money.

Douglas James Cottrell:

There it was.

Esra Ogut:

So that was the belief system that created as a seven year old and that is that was, exactly to the T, my experience up to the age of 35, before I woke up to my own programming and that, and that's why that juncture of waking up to the program was so important, because up until that point I thought from my conscious mind I want to manifest prosperity. But here I had this belief system from a seven year old girl that said love and money can't be experienced together. You have to choose one or the other. So I always went after jobs. I loved countries I wanted to live in.

Esra Ogut:

You see, I was very successful in following the love, but the love always came with being penniless, being in America, being penniless, falling in love with guys that had no money. If any wealthy person asked me out, it was a no, directly. I didn't know why I was saying no. But really, when I went back and looked, any guy lost immediately if he had, if he had money, you see, but it's all unconscious, I would just interpret as like I'm not attracted to this person. No, I'm not attracted to why are you attracted to all the poor ones? You know, that's the reason for that.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's as I said. That's an amazing story you told me before and listening to you tell it again, perhaps reliving it again. You're telling the story. That's fascinating. The wisdom there is, if I can use the word. We self sabotage ourselves from these beliefs that those old ladies were just going to be, they were talking foolish, but that imprinted on you as a young, impressionable young girl.

Esra Ogut:

No, no, no, actually didn't imprint on you, because the exact imprint would have been I have to go after money and rich man.

Douglas James Cottrell:

You see, excuse me All right.

Esra Ogut:

Even, even, even as a seven year old. We're actually very free in our choosing in terms of what we choose to conclude Right. And then the rest of it was exactly like I believed I created my reality. So I was very successful to create my reality as I believed in. It's just that I wasn't remembering the belief system.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's what you're teaching people is to go back to that time and find it. How do you do that? How can you know what people discover that?

Esra Ogut:

There are many ways, like through the coaching. Through, you know, when you talk to people in the coaching, you get them to see how they're contradicting themselves and from that contradiction of themselves you just slow them down. From there you can enter and get them to fish out the belief system. That's one way. The other way that we use is doing inner child work where, for example, in my case, it would have been that, say, if inner child was being done to me, well, how do you feel about? You know, money, I don't know.

Esra Ogut:

There's an uncomfortable feeling. Where is it in your body, in my heart? Well, ask, when did I first meet this feeling? And then, from there, your consciousness, usually with the right direction, will take you to the memory where you first made up your mind about something. This could be about men, it could be about marriage, it could be about prosperity, but in that sense I don't. I absolutely don't believe there's such a thing as self-sabotage. We're all experiencing very successfully and to the T, whatever we have chosen to believe in the past. But these beliefs are often the belief of a six-year-old, seven-year-old, eight-year-old, nine-year-old, and that's the problem.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, since we spoke last, you've taught me a lesson or two and I started to look back at some of the things, and one of my problems is people pleasing.

Esra Ogut:

Oh.

Douglas James Cottrell:

How is it that you can get meaning generically? How could people? I think it's widespread. How can you overcome people pleasing? I sort of know how, but in a way that people are listening to this, I'm sure there are many people. They can't say no, everybody comes first, they pay themselves last, they're unsure about their own success or ability to achieve, they always defer to somebody else. So I take that as people pleasing. But because it's really important for people to say this woman has walked the walk, she's been there. So I guess what I saw. Do you find people pleasing as one of those? You can choose and say no, but how do you choose not to people? Please, to become sort of mean and nasty? I'm kidding, I'm just putting that out there.

Esra Ogut:

Being nasty. Well, I think one of the understandings is to realize first of all, that aim of trying to please everybody is a delusion. Something like that is not even possible, even like it just doesn't exist. It can't be done. So when we have an aim to begin with that is an absolute impossibility, then we constantly drop ourselves back into this pattern and sense of I'm not good enough, because obviously, if you're chasing a goal that's impossible, you're constantly going to feel extra I'm not good enough.

Esra Ogut:

Now, people are always experiencing us according to their belief systems. So let's say, for somebody it's a great thing to laugh and they see me while talking to you laughing. They're going to be like oh, you know, she's so joyous, how nice. But let's say, according to another one, laughing too much is equivalent of not being very serious or, you know, being the real important thing. Well then that person is going to judge me like, oh my God, what a loser she is. You see what I mean. But I'm being the same person, of course. So you know, in a way, other people's opinions in that sense don't matter.

Esra Ogut:

But I think I mean I had, oh, I was a total people pleaser myself. I needed approval right, left and center, like I was so the queen of it, and I still have residues, if it sometimes it'll come up, you know, unexpectedly. But I've overcome in a very, very big amount. But I still definitely have residues and I, you know, work on myself too. But having a high degree of that again comes from a very childlike psychology, when we haven't overcome needing the approval of our parents to exist, you know, because we definitely needed their approval to go to our fence party or whatever be able to, you know, not be grounded or do something. But there comes a point when the authority has to leave the side of the parents, hopefully as early as our teenage hood, but since we're not coached or coaxed in that way, it usually happens way later and to decide again, make a being choice to bring the authority back inside and the only way to penetrate that is making it okay that people don't like us.

Esra Ogut:

I mean there's always people who don't like us, you know. But that pain of not being liked or that pain of not being loved, I have found in my life that it's because I wasn't giving it to myself. So I took a very big, long journey of doing all these techniques to approve myself, to love myself. And the more that approval of the self, approval of the love grew well, the less you need it from the outside. You're just like oh, whatever, you know, if somebody doesn't like you, they have a right and you can still keep liking them because really it's not even personal.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I think that's a very good lesson for people to learn. Wherever you go, even in church, there are people who don't like you because you're too tall, too short, too thin, too thick, too smart, too stupid. But that's their values and other people's values. You shouldn't accept them or impose them upon yourself. Loving yourself is basically saying well, that's their opinion. You know, and whatever their influence is upon you, you become Teflon. But sensitive people you know it's hard to get over that and you and I are people like us are very sensitive or astute.

Esra Ogut:

But again, inner child work is great for that integration to happen, like to go back and give that approval to our child's self from all the times and directions. We didn't get that and I had a whole, like you know, truckload of that, starting with, you know, being hated by a whole school was an eight year old, I mean man for a year.

Announcer:

That was tough.

Esra Ogut:

That was really tough.

Douglas James Cottrell:

It's so bad, oh my gosh. And you know. Kudos to you for being so brave to go back to school every day, knowing the next day it's going to be the same, oh my God. But somewhere along the line you mentioned that you had a mentor who showed up, and the mentor was a long time in your life, and your husbands as well, and I think that's how you met, so to speak. But it's important that people have a mentor like yourself who you can instill incrementally. People can't change overnight. I think we have to establish that you can.

Esra Ogut:

Oh yeah.

Douglas James Cottrell:

But that one thing when you get to that point of no return and you decide you choose, this is what you're going to be, it's like getting out of bed, right? That moment comes when you're in bed and it's hard to get out of bed. You know it's a struggle. But to come some moment you say, okay, I have to put my foot on the floor.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And for me that's how I relate, that, okay, when I would go someplace I confess this when I would have a trip, I'd be going to Spain, or I would go to Poland or Norway, or someplace I would. The day would come, I have to, you know, the bags packed or almost packed, and I have to leave, I would procrastinate, I wouldn't want to go. I would, you know, like, oh no, I don't want to go to the airport, the immigration, the security, the taxis, the struggle, if you will. And then I would say okay, to my bed, I'm coming back in two weeks, you'll be here and I'll tell you all about my trip. And this is my first step. And I would take that first step in my bedroom. And from there on, it was okay, and I think that's how I see my whole life. There was that struggle to initiate or get started, but as soon as I said I'm taking that first step, there was no looking back, there was no holding back. We'll be right back after this. Music plays.

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I thought about a phone consultation with Dr Cottrell. A 45 minute chat should help you out. It's not a deep trance meditation and you'll find it's just as helpful. Plus, with COVID going on, they're discounted from $375 to just $275. $100 off.

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Great idea. I love talking to him like chatting with a long lost friend. He's like tapped into a ton of wisdom, loads of spiritual insight, and he's on point. Oh, now what? I can't find his number.

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Seriously in this day and age. Ready 519-471-1110. Call from anywhere in the country If you need more info. I found his website too. It's DouglasJamesCottrellstorecom Music plays.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Welcome back, my friends. You're listening to this amazing lady, esra Ogart. Oh God, sorry, I'll say it again.

Esra Ogut:

No, you said it great, you said it great.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Okay, then I won't get Paul to edit it out, so it's just struggle. Life is always a struggle and I can remember trying to learn how to ride a bicycle. It was a struggle. I can remember trying to put my football outfit on. I didn't know how the equipment went. It was a struggle. Everything in life is a struggle and when you make that point and you say okay, and from that moment on, after you say okay, you take that step, it's no longer a struggle, it's your choice, you have nothing. There's no reservations, no mental reservations, there's nothing holding you back. But doing the next thing, what's keeping I call it, what's keeping me back or what's holding me back? Oh, I need, I need to get dressed. Oh, I need to pack the bag, you know that kind of thing. So, as people come to you, I guess the question is how do you help them get past that point that, as a mentor or somebody assessing, your question.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, how do you get? Well, first of all, we explain to them very well how the ego works, how it's a very important function.

Esra Ogut:

It's not anything to get rid of. But it's a very because I mean, this is the thing like people bad mouth ego, rate right, left and center, especially the spiritual circles, and it's like, well, if it wasn't meant to be there, we wouldn't have had it as a mechanism. So ego is like the anchor of a ship. Once we make a choice, like in my case, money and love don't go together was one choice. Being in pure misery for a very long time was another choice. What happens is the ego immediately comes and encapsulates that belief system so that we can experience it as a reality. Another way to explain it is let's say, we're the programmer on a computer. We put a program in. It's our choice. It's not even an imprint. Even as a child, we have a free choice. The way I can express that before I continue is if we didn't have free choice, every sibling from the same family would be exactly the same.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Absolutely.

Esra Ogut:

That's the evidence of it. So we put a program into the computer. The ego is the database where that program is kept for us, so that we keep watching the same screen until we change with a new being choice. What new thing we're going to believe in Now, the moment we get outside of our box I mean, if this were my box right now the minute I'm like deciding to get out through changing my belief system which, for prosperity for me, was like, oh my God. You know, my whole financial life up until my mid 30s has been run by the mind of a seven year old. This is ridiculous. Of course, love and prosperity can be together. The minute I make this being choice, the very first thing my ego is going to do is try to keep me back in the old reality. It's going to try to keep me in the box. That's when the struggle starts, when where we want to go is this direction and we have a belief system that's lying in the opposite direction. The ego is there to sustain the old reality in place. It's going to fight you very hard as you're trying to make that change, as you're trying to step outside of the box.

Esra Ogut:

One very good exercise is to learn to talk with your ego like you would to a child. Again, to retrain your ego, not according to the old reality but according to the new reality. Retraining the ego, talking to your ego, learning not to take your ego too seriously while it chatters away, maybe saying, oh, you need approval, you need approval, or hey, you know what? Again, you're not good enough. You're not good enough, it's just chattering. It's just how a three, four, five-year-old version of you felt. You don't have to take it seriously If you want to change it. You got to talk to it, you got to relate to it. That's how you change the database. Renew it On your computer screen. You can begin to watch a new reality. Again, it's with practice.

Douglas James Cottrell:

You have to repeat that often, I would think, because you don't just change, you're just like a process.

Esra Ogut:

My husband. When we first met, he was an extremely jealous guy and he realized very early on that I'm not up for a relationship of jealousy, because I wanted to experience a relationship based on trust. His story was coming from his mother, something about his mother choosing another child that he thought she loved more, or something like that, where he made a decision if you don't hold your mother's hand or control your mother's love, then you're in trouble. It's again seven eight-year-old child actually trying to have a relationship which isn't going to work very successfully, not with a lady like you.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That for sure.

Esra Ogut:

So he was very smart and he said you know, I'm going to get out of this jealousy. Well, I remember he would talk to his ego in the way that we teach 10, 15 times a day, but you know what, In six months he was a complete non-jealous person. There are people who experience that for lifetimes and lifetimes, over and over again. He was done in six months.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I congratulate him. I find jealousy is one of the greatest difficulties to overcome, because jealousy will make you allow you to do really bad things. Somehow you justify them in your mind and it's terrible. But jealousy not that I'm saying it's the thing, but it's one of the top difficulties to overcome and I congratulate him for that. Wow, you know, it's amazing how wonderful we are as beings, how multifaceted we are, and I think the awakening comes when we begin to understand that we're multifaceted and that we can love ourselves, coach ourselves, talk to ourselves. But I think that we need a mentor to start. There has to be somebody to show you the way, to reassure you, to give you a few words that you can nibble on to improve yourself. I'm assuming you would agree with that.

Esra Ogut:

Well, that has definitely been my experience as well, because we worked with my mentor both of us, our mentor, darryl Rutherford, by the way, you know. May he rest in peace. He lived till he was 98, was still writing books until his very last breath. You know, I would advise people to check him out as well. We were with him for 20 years, every week, every week, every week. And this is the thing. It's not like we don't have the power to self-transform, but the trouble is that we have the ego who's trying to sustain whatever was our latest reality, and the ego is very good at keeping us in that illusion and not letting us jump into a new reality. So, since we are our own ego 24-7, it's very important to have the help of someone else that's outside of our box.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I agree. I think that you know you need somebody to say have you thought of this way when you were talking about ego? I'm agreeing that I've heard many times. You have to kill the ego. The ego has to be a sass and you have to put it down. I turn that around and I say you have to have a good ego. You're not supposed to be egotistical, but you have to have a pretty sound personality image of yourself. You have to be you and in part of learning not to people please and part of my career, my character's been assassinated. I've been challenged by people who don't know me, they don't like me, they've never heard of me or should have never met me. And so, coming to that self-assurance, you know, and I'm relating to a lot of things of my life, as you were going through your life and those times as a child, being very sensitive and saying that's not right, you know, but I don't want to belabor the point but going to school every day knowing you're going to be hated, god bless you. That was courageous.

Esra Ogut:

That was hard, but yeah, it's so funny. Ego in Latin means I, so people who say the ego has to be put down, the ego has to be assassinated. If you take the word ego and put there what it really means I have to be assassinated, I need to be put down Look at like what a relationship of self-aggression that turns on into.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Very well said.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, so people, I mean I look at people who have that concept that the ego is bad, and really I haven't yet found one who has that idea and has a peaceful, harmonious, loving relationship with the self.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I never met one myself. Usually they become bitter. They think they've been taking advantage all their life. They have been victimized because a giver always meets a taker. And it's impossible. It's impossible. Sooner or later they stand up and they throw out all the books and all the when they get it and they get to that point, they say that's all baloney.

Esra Ogut:

Exactly.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Be first.

Esra Ogut:

Douglas, you're so right about throwing all those books out the window and about how these kind of journeys take a while. I mean again in the American public, I see that like everything needs to be fast, fast, fast. Give me the nine steps, give me the five, whatever's principles, and it just doesn't work that way, because people are confusing knowledge with the consciousness of that knowledge.

Esra Ogut:

Just because you hear a wonderful wisdom in your life and you resonate with it and you agree with it and it lifts you higher, doesn't mean just because you have the information, that you have it in your consciousness. Now, for that information to transform into your consciousness just like everything else, it takes practice. It's again over and over. You make mistakes, you get out, and then you understand this perspective, that perspective, until it becomes to as natural as the air we're breathing. Then it becomes a part of you and then that information because now it's in your consciousness works. Otherwise it doesn't. It's just intellectual.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's right. Knowledge without experience, it's just academic. But knowledge plus experience equals wisdom, absolutely right. Very well said, I think, the way people are listening to this show right now. If they have any questions, they can go to your website, ikandesranowcom. Okay. So I encourage everybody to go to the website first. And you've got more than one book. I assume you must have a ton of books out there, but the one we're talking about today is money does grow on trees. The myths we create and live by.

Esra Ogut:

No, actually I just have that one book. I haven't written a second one yet.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I must be intuitive or clairvoyant, seeing a whole bunch of books on a shelf here yellow ones, brown ones, purple. Maybe, In sort of a summary way what are your future projects, workshops and what's coming up?

Esra Ogut:

Well, right now we're very busy with doing our certification program. That's a very long program for a year and a half long but for our Turkish clients, next year, in 2024, we want to open one long workshop about prosperity, where it's going to be kind of like a nine month journey in English, and after that one, probably somewhere towards the end of 2024, I want to open up the life coaching certification program in English, because that's what we love to do and the transformations we see of people there are just absolutely amazing. So those are the two things we have in line wanting to ground for 2024 in the language of English.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, I'm happy to hear that, because I don't speak any other language really well, so it gives me hope. Well, listen, it's been just delightful to once again have a visit with you and to find out more about your amazing life. I'm sure anybody who's listened to this has any part of their life that they can relate to some of the things you've gone through. They can take hope from this. People who are way showers, pathfinders, lights in the world, go through the struggle, as it says in the good book, the way to self-realization or to empowering yourself spiritually. It's through long suffering and there's no other way. You know that this rite of passage is going through. All the times that you, if you look back, all the difficulties, they've taught you something. They've reshaped you. You're the person you are today because of these times, and I'm going to remind everybody, you had a near-death experience. Did that reshape your thinking too? From that time, that experience, that time you almost drowned.

Esra Ogut:

Of course I mean. Since I spoke about it last time, I was like you know, maybe like one time is enough, but of course I mean I of course it did. Yeah, it was a drowning experience where, just as I was Not able to come up to the surface of the water, I Heard on my right ear this is a dream and you're about to wake up. So I was for sure, on my way out. I was about 16 or 17, and even that drowning experience though in retrospect it wasn't just a coincidence I had, since I was again in my miserable cycles. At the time there was kind of a feeling of like oh, I don't want to be on the planet, I don't want to be on the planet, I don't want to be on the planet was my inner mantra. So I almost got that. Wow and.

Esra Ogut:

You know, when I heard that voice though this is the dream, meaning the earth plane and You're about to wake up I went from fear to kind of like a remembrance. It's like, oh, that's right, home Isn't here. You know, as Jesus would say, be in this world, but not of it. So I kind of like immediately woke up to the not-oftenest part and all of a sudden forget the fear. There was kind of like a weird excitement almost within me, and One of the lessons was I saw very, very like fast, little parts, fragments of my life when I either gave love or received love or gave love, and I remember thinking like, oh my god, this love vibration is so important.

Esra Ogut:

No matter how ridiculous we're being on the planet let's say, a murder, a rapist or whatever, even if we're in that role, the essence of who we are is Love, and that's true for everyone, every single one of us. So there was a remembrance of that, and Then I remember feeling extremely connected to everything. I kind of left the body and I was a part of the wave, a part of the cloud, the sky, everything, zero fear, so much love, so much harmony and so much expansion, and Also the realization, not just for me, but for all of us, that what we look for is Ourselves. We are the fabric of what we call God. God and us are one, and there was a complete Remembrance of that because I was all knowing, all fearless, all seeing. But I'm not like that in the regular earth, and Everyone I know is that way too, in their reality, and awakened self on the other side. So it was this incredible, incredible freedom.

Esra Ogut:

And the very last thought I remember having was like ah, how did I forget this? How did I forget this? How to like, how does one forget all of this? I wish I could go back to the planet. I thought, now that I remember, and Before I could even complete the thoughts, bam, I was back in the body.

Esra Ogut:

The struggle was finished. I immediately, like gracefully, got lifted out of the water. Another big wave came, the one that had taken me under before, but I was like I knew it wasn't gonna do anything to me. So, like the Moana movie Cartoon, the wave came and I knew it would do that. It just like took me and carried me to the shore, and then, of course, I ran for my life and I felt like a newborn baby. I mean, the Sun was beautiful, the Sun was amazing, the sea was like heaven, and I had this like three days of absolute delirium, of like so much ecstasy. And so the remembrance was no matter what victim role we're playing, no matter what kind of mischief we're up to as a role on this planet, our true senses, our true Identity is love, and we are all the part of the one creator.

Douglas James Cottrell:

My guest today has been Esra. Oh God, the website is hike. And Esra, now calm. I've been your host, douglas James Cottrell. Until next time, remember the journey doesn't end now, it's just beginning. I wish you health, wealth, peace of mind, peace and prosperity.

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