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Money Does Grow on Trees: Esther Ogat's Story of Spiritual Discovery

• Douglas James Cottrell PhD • Season 1 • Episode 84

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What childhood decisions are silently controlling your financial life? In this eye-opening conversation, Esra Ogut reveals how a single moment at age seven created a belief that money and love couldn't coexist—a belief that unconsciously shaped her financial reality for decades.

Born to a Turkish diplomat, Esra's childhood meant relocating every four years between vastly different cultural and religious environments. This unique upbringing gave her early insight into how our perceptions construct reality. Despite parental opposition, she courageously pursued her American dream with just $2,000 in her pocket, landing in Los Angeles to study film at UCLA.

After years of financial struggles and an emotional low point, Esra discovered Kundalini Yoga, beginning a healing journey that would eventually lead her to question her relationship with money. The breakthrough came when her mentor helped her uncover her childhood vow: "I will always follow the way of love and never follow the way of money." This simple yet profound realization transformed her prosperity forever.

Esra shares a revolutionary perspective on manifestation—we don't need to learn how to manifest; we're already doing it every moment. The key is understanding how we're manifesting what we don't want. Through compelling examples, she explains how seemingly positive traits like generosity can sometimes mask limiting beliefs about abundance. Many people unconsciously believe "if I have more, others will have less because of me," creating shame around prosperity that blocks financial flow.

Her near-death experience at sixteen provides another dimension to the conversation, revealing insights about consciousness, interconnectedness, and the illusory nature of physical reality. This profound event reinforced her understanding that our limitations are self-created and that we have the power to transcend them.

Today, Esra works alongside her husband as a transformational coach, helping people identify their limiting beliefs and "step off the hose" blocking their natural flow of abundance. Her book "Money Does Grow on Trees: The Myths That We Create and Live By" distills these teachings into practical wisdom.

Ready to discover what childhood beliefs might be controlling your financial destiny? This conversation might just change how you think about money forever.

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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, douglasjamescottrel l. com, 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 everyone. Today I have a wonderful and amazing person, Esra Ogut, who is going to talk about her life story and how she achieved great success and where she is. She's a world traveler and she's speaking to us somewhere in Europe now. I think it's Turkey. She's on the move and we're going to find out where she's going here and there, and God bless you for being here all in one piece. It's a pleasure to have you on the show and we look forward to finding out more about, uh, your wonderful book, Money Does Grow on Trees and uh, I'm I'm interested in that. Of course our whole audience is. But, more importantly, when you started out in life, did you ever think you were going to be where you are now: a world traveler with a successful business and a book and a wonderful husband? How did it start out for you?

Esra Ogut:

No, I mean, I was always, let's say, a believer of fairy tales. But since I was always told that what I believe is a fairy tale, I wasn't quite sure I was going to get there. But I could say with much confidence that pretty much eventually it took a long journey I got into a fairy tale in regarding to every single department of my life.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Wow. Well, tell us how you got to, on your fairy tale. I know yoga was part of it. I know you were doing some little uh searches for your soulmate, and you know. Tell us about your life. You were at UCLA and you have a, a bachelor's degree, so, you know, you're a smart lady. Tell us about it.

Esra Ogut:

Thank you so much. Well, um, my father, uh, he was a diplomat, a Turkish diplomat. So I kind of, from the get go, lived in a different country every four years of my life, which was, on the one hand, very beautiful, very, you know, cultural, very colorful. But on the other hand, growing up it was really kind of hard because every four years, especially when you're moving back and forth between Turkey and Europe, between Muslim schools and Christian schools, you know you're all the time having these changing values. What is great in one place is like a terrible thing to do in another place, and vice versa. So, although those times were very confusing, in a way very ungrounded, not at all feeling safe and all those kind of feelings, at the same time I think it was a great training ground to see how much all of our lives and the way we live, whether it's individually or culturally or as a country, what we call reality is basically a construct of our perception. So I got kind of introduced, let's say, into the mastery of that through the style of my life, very early on. I was a great lover of America because I loved everything the Constitution was about. You know, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and, of course, when you come from a you know Muslim culture, there's less of that,. so So I made up my mind I'm going to America america, no matter what. My parents were completely against it. They didn't allow it. I had hardly any money. I had about two thousand dollars saved and I found a scholarship at UCLA ucla because there's no other way I could come. Even the scholarship and studying film was a part of just being able to get to the States. I had to find that a thing that I couldn't do in Turkey, so it would be a good argument to my parents as to why I have to end up in America. Anyway, that didn't work either. But yeah, I just grabbed my $2,000 and, just you know, showed up in Los Angeles, California california.

Douglas James Cottrell:

, oh my gosh. So listen, when you're traveling around, how many languages do you speak? Or did you pick up? You must have had some.

Esra Ogut:

Just, you know, my English is pretty good, as you can see, a little bit of Spanish, which I forgot, like I'm definitely not fluent in Spanish. And because I was, you know, forced to learn every single language, I'm like no, no, no, I'm not going to learn. I was too busy just trying to make it in all these different cultures. So, you know, of course I understand very quickly different languages, but, yeah, just just Turkish...

Esra Ogut:

Okay, well, I asked that I've tried with turkish, I've tried.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Your English is very well, very uh and uh, I've traveled quite a bit myself. So you know, time differences, cultures. As you said, what's acceptable in one place is not, you know, it's taboo in another. So, uh, well sai d. For people who haven't traveled as much as you, uh, it's something to consider. And here you are, on your own, determined to come to America, $2,000 in your hand, and you come all this way. You didn't know anybody, you had no support. You are a brave gal, holy moly.

Esra Ogut:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So what happened on that first day? Let's just take you back a little bit. When you arrived, what happened that first day?

Esra Ogut:

Well, it was really interesting actually that you asked that specific question, because you know, when I was in Turkey and you know I would go to school here, we would have these ceremonies just before we started school, where you know you have to sound like a soldier and you know, pay respects to the flag and all these things. And I never kind of liked doing that, those ceremonies. And I'll never forget, as I was landing in LAX, it was sunset. It was, it was just this most beautiful orange color, orange, yellow color, and I felt so victorious about making my dream finally come true, which was a story within itself, which ties into actually how we create our reality, which maybe I'll get into later. But anyway, as soon as I landed and I was going through the passport control, I saw the American flag and I just started bawling. I don't know what came over me. I was just like crying so hard that the passport person was so worried about me. You know he's like saying ma'am, are you OK, are you OK? And I couldn't really like explain because I didn't know what was going on. So it was a very, very kind of I don't know, as if I'm coming home, as if I'm coming somewhere familiar, although I had never even stepped foot on the continent as a tourist, so that was my first happy arrival.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I find that amazing, Esra, absolutely amazing. But I know you look at the flag and all those ideas of freedom and from, I suspect as a young lady, attractive lady and ambassador's child, you had to be minding your P's and Q's, as we say, your manners, and you were always under scrutiny and you know probably you know a lot of authoritarian stuff for a young lady and so when you're here you're all on yourself, all alone, first day day and and oh my god, you have this emotional I can just see that the customs officer saying what's the matter? What did we do?

Esra Ogut:

yeah, how did we offend her? I'm like no offense, none, none. Yeah, I mean, I was very, you know, the expected thing in the East and let's say, countries, again, predominantly Muslim ones. You know, there's kind of a set way that your life should be, you know, you go to school, you graduate, you do well, and then you find a husband and then you get married and then you have children, and that I knew that wasn't for me, so, and I really, I think, wanted to prove to myself that I can make it on my own. So that's why, you know, instead of having the comfy life I could have had in Turkey, I was just dead set to just see what I can do just on my own, uh, which now, in retrospect, was like one of the most empowering steps I took in my life.

Esra Ogut:

But of course it wasn't easy. I was going to school, ucla, studying film, trying to work in the film business. Not much was happening, and at such a young age 23, 24, as you said, you know not, I didn't know anybody, and it got hard after a while. So I went to the opposite direction of drugs and alcohol and, you know, kind of, you know, for a while I really lost myself. And and then there came a point where I realized that I had a lot of healing to do and I realized I think I was maybe by that time 25, 26, I can't remember, but early 20s. And I realized that with the amount of turmoil going on inside of me, there's no way I'm going to make it in the world or be successful or be happy. So, although some great stuff happened in the business world where I got to you, got to work with Oliver Stone Some stuff did start eventually, after many years happening.

Esra Ogut:

I just made a choice where I said I'm either going to not continue period the way I'm feeling this miserable, or my life has to change ASAP. And the minute I made that decision and in our system we call it a being choice, when, with all of your being, you decide what it is very clearly that you're going to belong to or not belong to Immediately the next day I found Kundalini Yoga. I was just walking, you know, just walking around. I mean I really I said either my life is over not that I would have dared to take my own life, but you know it was like that kind of a decision or my life is changing 180 degrees now.

Esra Ogut:

And the next day I remember because of stuff that was going on I was walking around the block crying and I saw this red brick you know building and I was like, oh interesting, I wonder what they do here. I went in. It was Kundalini Yoga. I did my first class. My eyes were just like full of tears bawling my eyes out, and that was the beginning of my healing journey.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, in my world, I'm thinking there you were going through a crisis and you started to move. You went out, you were walking and kind of your maybe spiritual, subconscious, super subconscious is working, and you arrive at this building with no intention, no preconceived notion, nothing. You just kind of let the universe guide you and you had this amazing experience.

Esra Ogut:

Exactly. I mean, I love that saying in English uh, when you're ready, the teacher shows up, and I say when you're ready, the universe shows up. Each and every time. It never misses a beat.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, as you know, many people are going through times and you counsel them and I'm going to ask you about how you and your husband help people this way. But you're on the same path that people now, who come to you, are on. And so you have experience and through that experience you have the wisdom. Plus, you have this spiritual side of you that's developing and has developed, and obviously-- I'm just sitting here listening to your story and thinking, what a courageous person you are, but how you met your destiny. And you knew you had to be where you were at that point in time and end up at that yoga studio. So tell us, how did you get from there to helping people and then writing this amazing book, that money does grow on trees?

Esra Ogut:

Well, thank you so much. Well, kundalini Yoga really kind of, let's say, healed me emotionally because its vibration is really so high as a technique technique that doing that day in and day out and day in and day out really kind of, let's say, brought me back from feeling dead. It brought, brought me back to life. But just because I was feeling better and my frequency had like gone up compared to where it was before, meaning on the floor, it didn't mean that my life got any easier. So I was having amazing money problems, having a hard time paying rent, you know, besides doing yoga and beginning to slowly teach yoga, I kind of was really really struggling with money.

Esra Ogut:

And again I made a being choice. And by being choice. Again, you know, people think that we solve our problems through doing. You know, do we're taught from school, do have be, but interestingly enough, the opposite, for manifesting, for creating the opposite formula is necessary, which is be out of that state of beingness, act, and then you will have. So I had just recently met my boyfriend now my husband and I realized I'm in my mid thirties and if I, you know, decided to have a baby with him, I couldn't even afford to have a baby, and this whole idea was so ridiculous to me all of a sudden that I'll never forget the day and the moment where I got up from the sofa and again I made a decision, which we call a being choice, and I said I am never, ever going to experience money problems again. Soon after I met my mentor and um. And what was I mean? This story is really interesting because he pretty much figured me out through two questions in the very first session really and yeah what

Esra Ogut:

were those questions well he was like. So he basically, you know, I told him how, you know, even if I'm successful, like working with Oliver Stone, as I was in the past, like money never seems to come. Always there's some sort of a problem. So he said to me, esther, just figure out, you know, whatever is your first story that you made up in your relationship to money, and just, of course it wasn't the simple, you know. He asked a series of questions with a certain technique, until I bam got into the memory of being seven years old and I'm sitting in the living room, I have grownups, my grandparents, as friends and they're all talking about the concept of a girl who was very young, got married to a very older doctor, and they're saying, well, great she, she did really well, she did a good marriage, she married for money. Woman should marry for money. Woman who marry for love are stupid they shouldn't marry for money.

Esra Ogut:

and I'm like as a seven-year-old listening to all of this and I get kind of really mad and I get really anxious and I go to the bathroom and I look at the mirror and I say and this is how we create our belief systems, our own myths that later on create us. I very specifically stood in front of the mirror and I said I will always follow the way of love and I will never follow the way of money.

Esra Ogut:

So, basically in my psyche, I split or I created a belief system that money and love don't go together and I made a decision as to what I'm going to belong. So when I re-remembered the seven-year-old girl's decision about money, I was just so blown away as to how successfully I had experienced up to my mid-30s I was like 32, 33 at this point how successfully that scenario had been created in my life, created in my life, and that was such a bam awakening of empowerment for me because it made me realize none of us are victims. At any point in time we're all experiencing scenarios or myths that we have created and life is nothing but a perfect, you know theater with the perfect decor and the perfect actors providing to us the myths that we've created. So my whole issue with money what I didn't like, that I rejected, interestingly enough became my biggest kind of point of awakening the biggest problem, of awakening the biggest problem.

Esra Ogut:

And as soon as I saw my myth and I said, oh my God, you know, a seven year old is like controlling my entire financial life. I said you know no way. And then, from then on, with that no way and of course, a couple of other things, just prosperity started flowing, because it was just the mindset that needed to change.

Douglas James Cottrell:

We'll be right back after this short break.

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Douglas James Cottrell:

Just before the break, you were talking about a seven-year-old child looking in the mirror and basically listening to authorities, parents and, by believing what they said or resisting what they said, sabotaging your financial livelihood for the rest of your life, up until your mid-30s. And then, amazingly, you have this mentor who, in short order, somehow you get back to that point and that original wounding. You see it, you recognize it and then that determination kicks in again. You know, here's that astral and and you, you strike out in a new path. It obviously is successful.

Esra Ogut:

So now you have a business coaching and helping people, and tell us about that well, um, you know, when our lives and the same thing happened to my husband, we actually back then boyfriend, girlfriend, we were being meant mentored by the same coach, same transformational coach, and we actually studied with him for 20 years. So it was a very, very long mentoring, every week, every week, every week. Well, what happened is the more we understood how our belief systems that we have chosen to believe. You know, we can call it a wounding, and sometimes it's not even a wounding, it's just simple decisions that we make as children about life. You know, we see our parents interact and maybe we create a story about what marriage is or whatever it is. You know, we look at finances and we say, oh, this is what finance is.

Esra Ogut:

If my father is working too hard, let's say, and he's not ever present at home and loving at home, then oh, maybe finances, you know, kills freedom, right?

Esra Ogut:

So you come to a conclusion, you arrive at a conclusion and that becomes, you know, your story about how you interact and create that thing. So the more we could, with awareness, see our limitations with, you know, with my husband being coached together, the more our lives got freed up. And because people could see that example, then clients began to flow in and basically, in our coaching, you know, the major thing that we do is show people who have a problem, who have a struggle or who just simply want to do better, get them to discover their own belief systems, their own database, their own library. And when you can get the person to see for themselves, instead of giving the person the answers because the answers aren't within us, it's within that person. That's the empowerment point. When they do the discovery, when they see the coding, the library, then they become freed up to change it as they please and it's actually kind of very easy well, it's believable too.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I mean, it comes from within and, just like you had that revelation moment of going back and and seeing yourself as a child at seven years of age. I think that's pretty powerful, and when you coach people or you help people that way it's, I guess it accelerates their healing, helps them to be motivated the same, in the same way or fashion that you and your husband were. But tell us how that works and how can people get in contact with you?

Esra Ogut:

oh, thank you, um. Should I give you one more example or tell you how to get in contact? More examples I'm getting an inspired example.

Douglas James Cottrell:

You just go right ahead, give us the examples. I don't know, I don't want to. These are great stories.

Esra Ogut:

Because I do want to give a technique that maybe people can, you know, try at home. Maybe it works, you know, while they're trying it at home. Now, when we have a problem, we usually see it as a problem, like a problem that somehow we're struggling with, that we can't solve. That's not always the best way to look at a problem, because we co-create our own reality. We're kind of like mini gods creating our own reality. Rather than looking at the problem as a problem, it's a good idea to look at the problem as a potential benefit. So, instead of saying, oh, you know, why can't I create more finances, I want to learn how to create more finances. The better question to ask the self is what's my gain in keeping myself away from finances, away from finances? What's the benefit? Okay, okay.

Esra Ogut:

For example, um, a friend of mine who was claiming that she for 20 years has gone to workshops, and a friend of mine that was living in turkey while I was living in the states, that she hadn't really, you know, gotten anywhere with it, that she'll just accept her situation, I said, you know, instead of thinking of it like you can't, you can't, why don't you look at it as maybe you don't want as much money as you think you want. She's like don't be ridiculous. So I put her into a visualization where she's making lots of money. So if you have a goal like I don't know, getting married, having a relationship, creating more finances or even healing, put yourself into that visualization.

Esra Ogut:

Not to create, though. Put yourself into that virtual reality and search for what you're allergic to, what actually makes you kind of like ugh when you put yourself into the so-called wanted thing. So in her case, she was like don't be silly, of course I want money. I'm like okay, you know what? Just close your eyes. So I put her into this huge scenario where she's so prosperous, she has all this property, she doesn't even need to work because she's getting so much, you know, money from her rent. Um, this is supposedly what she wants.

Esra Ogut:

She just began sweating and sweating and sweating and sweating and sweating, and I'm like you know, and she starts taking off the jacket and I'm like, okay, there we go. So what's going on? And she's like, oh my god, I just feel so much shame. I'm like, ah, interesting, interesting, money shame. Supposedly you want it, but you're feeling so much shame. Okay, let's go a little deeper. What is the thought that you're having that's creating the emotion of shame? Because every emotion we have is like a blueprint of whatever thought pattern we have going on behind. So as soon as she could connect to the emotion, immediately the belief system came through, and her specific belief system was if I have more, others will have less because of me.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh my gosh.

Esra Ogut:

Okay, it's a very typical pattern. It's one of the typical ones out there.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Really.

Esra Ogut:

And then further, oh yeah, oh yeah. Like you know, let's be good, let's all share, you know, because there's like not enough to go around. So if I take more, others will suffer because of me, and then what will that make you a bad person?

Douglas James Cottrell:

And that's very common, oh my gosh, I know people sometimes don't want to make more than their friends, so they kind of conform, you know, and they give money away because they don't want people to say who do they think they are, they think they're, you know, with money. And of course there are people who go the other way around. They just spend the money ridiculously and they end up back where they started from. But that's a new one that that people will feel so ashamed at least to me. A new one that people will feel ashamed because they had more than other people. But that makes perfect sense to me. You know well, if you feel the shame.

Esra Ogut:

That's why she hadn't manifested much in her life. You see what I mean. Like keep yourself small because you don't want to be the bad person, because that's a, you know, belief system. But there are as many belief systems as there are people.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Yeah, For all these motivational books about the the law of manifestation, the law of attraction. And you know there's now a new law out, it's called the the law of attraction. And you know there's now a new law out, it's called the. Uh, I think his name is john saint paul. He has a new book out called not affirmations but affirmations, and it's kind of similar to what you're saying. But, uh, that was to me a very important point that people would be ashamed to be rich or to make money because they might be taking away from somebody else. So if you want to follow up on that and I think you have another example or two you might be able to help us out with understanding that.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, I mean, as I said, there's as many different myths as there are people. So, um, this, this, just one. You know, one reason where people don't choose to manifest is when they have an unconscious belief system. Um, you know where they feel. Again, it comes from the even the below belief system underneath. That is that money sources are limited. So if we believe money resources are limited and we don't believe like there is unlimited abundance, like in nature, uh, in the world, in the universe, and we believe the sources are limited, then there's like two things, two directions. We're going to go think of it as a little cake that comes.

Esra Ogut:

You know there's only 10 pieces. Either you're going to go Think of it as a little cake that comes. You know there's only 10 pieces. Either you're going to be the greedy one, because there isn't enough, you're going to want to eat all the slices before anybody else gets their hands on it, or you're going to do the opposite. You're going to be like, oh, let me take the smallest piece and let me take, as you know, maybe just one bite, because I want everyone at the table to eat. You eat.

Esra Ogut:

So one looks like a really kind of the bad guy and the other one looks like, oh, such a nice, sweet person. But regardless of the, let's say character or the projection, the underneath belief system isn't even dissimilar. It's the exact same one. Money sources are limited. So all I'm saying here is, yeah, we make up our own stories about what something is and exactly according to that belief system, the manifestation happens. So this whole idea of like, oh, I have to learn how to manifest, no, you don't have to learn how to manifest. You already know how to manifest. You're doing it every second of your life. But instead of all the time going after what you want to manifest, first see how you're manifesting the unwanted, because there's a great amount of information there I love that.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That is amazing. That's wisdom. Really. People should pay attention, say that Okay.

Esra Ogut:

I was saying that, you know, instead of everyone being so gung-ho about like, oh, let me manifest this and let me manifest that, as if it's something that you need to learn from a book. No, we are all in. For me, my belief is that we're all you know, the universe, individualized. So the power that is going through us, every single one of us, doesn't matter. Our culture, it doesn't matter. Our education as a potential is the same. How we use it is a different thing. That's a personal choice. But as a potential, we're all part of that infinite. You know wisdom and ability and ability to create, ability to manifest.

Esra Ogut:

But people are so busy trying to learn or trying to, you know, create what they want. They're not looking at what they're creating today, like, how are you creating the limitation? How are you creating the disease? How are you creating the lack of prosperity? Because when you wake up to that, it's such a soft discovery when you see it's not because of the economy, it's not because of your parents, it's not because you know you got the unlucky cards. No, it has nothing to do with any of it except you. It's a great moment of, let's say, rude awakening.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, you know, truth is a bitter pill to swallow, that's for sure. But you just hit on something that I think many, many people ought to know. It's what are you manifesting now that's preventing you to go or get where you want to go or get. I mean, that's so simple and yet so profound. Money does grow on trees. Tell us a little bit about that. There's got to be a ton of wisdom in that book. Thank you, this is really good to know.

Esra Ogut:

Well, money does grow on trees. When I first came up with the name, I thought I was so original, I was so happy. And then by the time it came on Amazon, there was about 20 other books with the same name. So, thank God, god, in brackets I put the myths that we create and live by. So, yeah, we have a certification program, we have workshops and our certification program that at the moment we're mostly doing it for Turkish people.

Esra Ogut:

It lasts about a year and a half, so so it's kind of like a school, but the results we've had been has been like so amazing, so profound, that I was like you know what, even if it's just like one tiny little bit of it, I need to put this into a book. So it's kind of a long book. It has a lot of exercises To make the most of it. It needs your interaction, because nothing just happens by reading. You know, knowledge, you know, is cool, but it doesn't mean anything until it becomes and transforms into consciousness. So there's exercises there and I put like little pieces of actually what we do in our certification course how do we find our limiting belief systems, how do we wake up to, how we're creating the problem, which I think is very important.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I really do too. I think that's an excellent point.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, it's a different perspective. I know how do we learn to manage our ego, how the ego is not an enemy, it's actually a very important function and if we can see it as a function instead of as an enemy, then we can get very good at managing it. You know understanding the separation between us and ego, because when those get confused it's a bit of a problem.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's a really good point. I put it this way People come to me as a counselor and they say I want to kill my ego. And I said why would you want to do that? Well, you know it's preventing me, it's this. And that I said no, you misunderstand. There is a difference between self-esteem and being egotistical. You don't want to be egotistical. You want to have a good, solid, you know psyche, a good core, a good ego, a good identity of who you are. Home country in Europe. After being dragged over all these different countries, bouncing around with different people and different cultures, with your father being an important diplomat and then jumping on an airplane and going to a faraway place across this great big ocean, I was going to say almost never to return, but you did.

Esra Ogut:

I did, but just very recently, so I haven't been there like for most of my life.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, you know, there was your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak, but it does take tenacity and you've mentioned a lot of points that I think people should pay attention to and that is self determination. Don give up when you're at the threshold. Take that step through it and find out what's holding you back. I love that. I've never had anybody articulate it so well as you have to say you're manifesting, if you will, your own blocks or failure or challenges right now and learning about them. That's just like take the handcuffs off right, you're free.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Very well put, yeah, exactly what a beautiful uh, you know imagery. Yeah, yeah, but you did it. You did it. Yeah, I've used that one in other lectures. I've done myself so, but it's just coming back to mine. Listening to you, you're a delightful. You're a courageous lady and I'm not flattering you and you have this book. Now, when you said it's a long book, I'm thinking that's a lot better than those little thin books that you buy for $20. If you read the last page, you got it all. Tell us a little bit about the chapters and some of the things you've alluded to in your book. I think it you've alluded to in your book. I think it's important that people buy your book. Money Does Grow on Trees, and I get it on Amazon. Do you have a website too, by the way?

Esra Ogut:

Yes, the English. We did create an English website. It's www. ikeandesra. com, that is, I-K-E-A-N-d-e-s-r-a nowcom. Um, and yeah, the book is mainly sold on amazon. And you know some other book places that I don't remember the name of, but we don't. We don't sell it from the website, so amazon would be the place to go. Um, oh god, there's so many subjects. I think again. Um, how we manage the ego.

Esra Ogut:

Ego is an important one. I think we have a very different perspective, through our mentor that we've been taught, that has been so, so helpful to us to figure, you know, to really become masters of manifestation in our own lives. Um, and that is to see the ego as a very grounding, very necessary function, kind of if we are the ones creating the scenarios of our lives. I see that as like almost like a computer programmer that goes in and says, oh, money is a bad thing, because, whatever you know, because it takes away freedom, or money is a bad thing because others will have less because of me, and I don't want to be a bad person.

Esra Ogut:

So, you are the writer, you're the programmer. You go into the computer, you put in the program and the screen can only show you whatever you programmed. It can't show you something different. And that's life. That's life reflecting our own belief systems very precisely, without a mistake, straight back at us. And ego is the database. Ego is the part that keeps those belief systems in place so that it can be experienced as a reality by us. If the ego disappeared, we'd wake up. The next next morning. I'd wake up and I wouldn't even recognize my husband, because there isn't a mechanism to remind me that the one I've married is my husband. So that's not a good idea to throw the ego no, it's not a good idea.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That would be a problem. I'm sure who are you oh my god, god.

Douglas James Cottrell:

But you know like the cliches come back. Money is the root of all evil. You know people always want more than they need. You know there's there's lots of people telling you what you don't need and and and trying to redirect your life, as you've said throughout this interview. And having a good ego and having a good self-esteem also means having desires, and it's okay to have desires, and what I'm listening to you is that you're really wise. You chose what you wanted and then you walk through the threshold. You know, you got on that plane, you went through that yoga studio, you met your husband I mean those are all things that take affirmative action but you decided that without having a counselor and a coach and things like that to guide you. How did you do that? Where did you manifest that, that ego, that self, self fortification? Where did that come from, you think?

Esra Ogut:

that self, self fortification. Where did that come from, you think? I think it came a lot from contrast. It came a lot from not feeling free and not wanting to live that way. It came a lot from kind of like lack of self-worth and wanting to move towards worth. So, you know, I think people always complain kind of when we have a hardship in life, and yet those hardships, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but the hardships contain amazing gifts for us. The contrasts that those difficult challenges create create then the dreams that we run after.

Esra Ogut:

So for me, my theme, I think, throughout my life, was my freedom. It was so important to me to free myself. Free myself from, you know, patterns of society, of how I'm expected to live or how I'm expected to be free from depending on other sources to create my life. I think I was always searching for my inner power and I think now that you ask, I mean just now, it came to me, and actually this is in the book too. But I think I also had a near-death experience when I was 16.

Esra Ogut:

Really so I think yeah, I think that also.

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Tell us about that when I was 16.

Esra Ogut:

Really so I think, yeah, I think that also. Yeah, well, I was 16 year old old and we were interrailing with friends, 16 or 17, just you know, graduating from high school, and we were inter interrailing around Europe with my friends and we were in the southern part of france and we went to the beach and there were red flags not to go into the water and the wave seemed super small to me. So, my smart friends, they stayed behind and I said, ah, I'm, I'm this turkish girl, nothing will happen to me. These are nothing for me, you know, and just went inside the water.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Don't tell me no, I'm doing this.

Esra Ogut:

There's Esther's personality. Don't tell me no. Okay, yeah, douglas, you got me, and so I dove into the waves. And then there was this like insane undercurrent or undertow, whatever it was, that just took me in. So I I was just like in this washing machine and just not like whatever I tried, I kept on going in the wrong direction.

Esra Ogut:

because you get so disoriented was a real tight issue I guess, yeah, okay, I don't know exactly what it's called and I just was holding my breath, holding, holding like in this fear, knowing that if I dare open my mouth, I'm gone. Wow, so, while I'm in this fear, all of a sudden I heard this voice on my right ear of, like, I guess, a guide, or like it was a kind of male voice right here, as if yelling at me with a megaphone, and the word I heard was this is the dream. You're about to wake up. Meaning death is the waking.

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Wow.

Esra Ogut:

So when I heard that there was like such a kind of a flood of remembrance coming back all of a sudden where I'm like, oh yeah, this is the dream, I'm going home, and as soon as I was like, oh, I'm going home, forget about the fear, there was this excitement to kind of go home. I was completely relaxed. And the minute I got into that state of relaxation in my body, very quickly I saw moments like super fast moments of my life where either I either gave love, I received love so I remember thinking, thinking like, oh my god, this is the most important thing, this love thing is the most important thing.

Esra Ogut:

How could I forget this, how could I forget this? And then, bam, I was out of the body, but it was still like a me, a consciousness, but of course, way wider than anything I was about down here and the frequency of love and the frequency of peace, and there was like zero fear, zilch fear, zilch drama. You know, if, let's say, somebody was, I don't know, raping my beloved or whatever you know, from that perspective it's like, ah, don't worry, you know, know, it's just a dream, you'll wake up. No, no big deal.

Douglas James Cottrell:

That's the perspective there I know exactly what you mean, you know what I mean, yeah yeah, they're okay. So that's uh. When you have a kundalini experience and you get to that point where you're surrounded with love, you say I've said that almost same words. You don't care about anything. So here you are. Were you floating above, looking down where what happened? Or we can hardly wait? Did you live?

Esra Ogut:

I don't know, maybe not, I'm just a projection over here um what happened, what happened at that moment?

Esra Ogut:

that is amazing spiritual revelation it was such a kind of an evolving, like, stage by stage. You know, it felt like longer than 16 years. Whatever I was experiencing after that whole, you know, love thing and and this peace and this fearlessness, I kept on saying how did I forget this? How, like, how do we not just me, though? How do we forget this? How do we forget this? Like, it seems so ridiculous that we ever even have fear, like a tingle of fear in that perspective. And then I saw like little parts of me, like other parts of me I could sense. I couldn't see what they were doing, but there were other means around really and then, like, it kind of expanded even more.

Esra Ogut:

And you know how they say all knowing, all seeing. That's how it was. I was all knowing, I had no question, I knew everything there was to know. I thought of my mom. I could see her, like doing something in the kitchen, like I could just project, see, and it was fine. Then I could come back and there was a sense of oneness. Then it expanded even more more.

Esra Ogut:

I was me, I was the wave, I was the ocean, I was that crazy, struggling body that had nothing to do with me, like a piece of clothing in the sea. And then there were the stars, the universe, and there was no I. At the very end of it, there was no even sense of I, separate from anything. Then a separation started where in my brain I said oh my god, what would it be like to live having remembered all of this and being like this, but in the body, thinking. I could bring all that into the body. And as soon as I had the thought, bam, I was back in the body. Another, another wave came and like the movie Moana, it like brought me to the shore without me at all struggling, yeah.

Esra Ogut:

And then, of course, I ran for my life and I was in ecstasy like crazy ecstasy for three days.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And then I went right back to depression.

Esra Ogut:

I love it.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Oh gosh, I love it. Oh gosh, what you're describing is a place I've been. I call it the middle mind. You, you're, you're, you're aware of everything all in the same moment and to a finite mind. How can you be aware of all these different things far away, near, and, and, and that, um, that there's no time, right, you're just in a timeless moment. But that's an amazing experience. And you sound to me like you were on your way and then, for whatever reason, you said why can't I bring this and live this way? And then you come back and then, like a hand I can see the hand that god underneath you, kind of you know pushing you like a surfboard through the water up to the beach exactly that's why I love the moana um cartoon, you know, because it's like exactly that's how, how the wave, you know, gets her and brings her to the shore.

Esra Ogut:

And two things I really kind of well. Three how we are all one, how we are all a part of that creator creation. All is one, all is all is the same, on on that bigger picture, bigger level. Um, death is a choice, because clearly I was on my way out and clearly I was curious all of a sudden, because I really thought I wouldn't forget everything that happened there. I didn't. I don't know if I would have come back if I knew I was gonna again forget everything. I just thought I wasn't gonna forget and I'm sure, like of course, pieces of it remain that then shaped my life. But and also that nothing is an accident, because most people would have thought like, oh, poor girl, you know she went to France, she was having fun and you know she drowned, had I gone? Actually, I kind of had a death wish prior to this.

Esra Ogut:

It was this constant thinking of do I want to be on the planet? Do I want to be on the planet? I'm not sure. If I want to be on the planet, Do I?

Douglas James Cottrell:

want to be on the planet. I'm not sure if I want to be on the planet and that's why you went in with the red flag, said don't do this, don't do this. You know, from an overview, that was all planned out. You were in a state from my perspective, you were in a state of I don't want to say depression, but just say imbalance. And you ended up at the beach that day. You ended up with that group of people. You ended up at that exact same spot with the red flags. You saw it like a bull with red flags, you know, got to go to the red and, as they say, bulls are all attracted by red.

Douglas James Cottrell:

You go in there and then you hit a riptide which is extremely difficult to get out of you described it perfectly with the undertow.

Douglas James Cottrell:

And then you have this voice whispering in your ear, which is usually an angel, and the angel doesn't say, they never say. You know, uh, harps and angels whatever. From my perspective, my experience, they say the exact words you need to hear, which gets you your mind focused on your, the separation you're leaving, and then you go through this big circle right back to the moment and you wake up with this amazing, wonderful experience and even while you're doing this, you have the presence of mind to keep your mouth closed, otherwise the whiptripe would have pushed the water in your lungs and you would have died. And then just like, just like baby, a baby being pushed up to the shore. And then you have this amazing memory for three days. That seems to be the length of time when you touch upon a kundalini experience or a middle mind experience shamanti, sometimes people call it uh that you have this for three days and then you, as I was indicating, you, come back back to reality I didn't.

Esra Ogut:

I didn't know that there's a three day thing too, because that's exactly how long mine lasted, and I always wondered like why three days?

Douglas James Cottrell:

it seems to be but you know, and then, of course, you're charged up. But you never forget and you were reliving that experience. I could see your face beaming and your eyes were looking, you know, like you were remembering those moments, moment by moment by moment, terrifying but elating and amazing. And here you are today, thank god, and you're now able to tell people about this experience and what I have. You mentioned it earlier. You have wisdom and have to read your book. Then you have to do I call that experience, and when you have wisdom and experience sorry, when you have knowledge and experience then you have wisdom. I got ahead of myself there. So in this book we have just a few minutes left in the interview it. I could talk to you all day I know, me too.

Esra Ogut:

I'm curious about your experience. I want to hear the details of that oh, my interview is coming up my briefly.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Mine was a willful, uh, attempt to meditate into a deeper state of, I call it quantum meditation. It was like the same state of mind that Edgar Cayce and my mentor, ross Peterson, entered into, and I understand there's another man, paul Solomon, who did it. There's only about the four of us that seem to be able to do this, at least up until this time. And so I was there one day and I had this experience where I could just feel myself as if I was coming, my feet and my lower body was coming, I was in a recliner chair, were coming up, and then I was only attached at the head. The rest of me was in the air, and I had that same experience. You could have said, douglas, your wife ran away with your best friend, somebody just wiped out your bank account, somebody took your Jaguar and drove it off the cliff and somebody stole your motorcycle and on and on, all the things right, and I didn't care, I did not care. And then, when, when I came back, I still had that feeling, but I came back into my body and same feeling was just a tingling, vibrational, pleasant, arousing, kind of wonderful, loving feeling, and it lasted for a while.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Okay, now in my experience I've met people who have had the same type of willful doing yoga and other things uh, willful kundalini experiences. I don't call it that, I just say you know, you, you arrive. That that's that full self-awareness. And I've read places where if you've had once in your life, that's it. That's amazing. You'll know that there's no fear of death. I don't think you're afraid to die now, and I'm not, and other people have those experiences. You know there's an afterlife. If you have it twice in your life, you're really blessed.

Douglas James Cottrell:

I met somebody who had it three times and now they were spending the rest of their life trying to have it a fourth time and I said to them, kind of cheeky, you know like you're wasting your life. Now you've been blessed, know this experience that you got to do something, not just go look for this thing. But anyway, getting back to my experience, I was about 24, 25 when that happened and uh, I know and I'm reliving it now, as I mentioned it but I could feel myself come up out of my body. I was fully aware, but I was aware of everything, yeah, and so this is a. This is a true experience that you're related, but this interview is not about me, it's about you yeah, well, you know, I mean it's about you tricked me into talking a little bit.

Esra Ogut:

Yeah, but I mean I was really, really curious and I think I think the stories like this are important because, you know, manifesting this manifesting that is okay, wonderful, but all that comes when we reconnect. We remember to you know the vastness that we actually are, and it's about kind of coming out of the slumber and forgetfulness, as if that's not the case.

Douglas James Cottrell:

So I think it's really you know, on the ball, what we're talking about well, I wanted to tell you my experience, a, because you asked, and, b, that you would know my experience, and that the people listening to this interview, wherever they are in the world, will also know that we've shared this experience. And, more than likely, a few of them have already had this experience and they're like oh my god, what happened to me? Or you know?

Douglas James Cottrell:

with some sort of uh, mentor or counsel. Uh, they can, they can hide this and cloak this, but uh, we're gonna, we're gonna, um, just a few, but we're going to just a few minutes left. We're going to get you to tell us again how people can get your book. And is there anything? Is that you know? I'm reading the? What is a transformational coach? Can you explain that You're a transformational coach? Your husband is, I guess, too. Yes, how do people come to guess too, how, what happens and how would? How do people come to see you and what happens?

Esra Ogut:

well, um, they either, you know, take private sessions, um, and then they can, you know, come to workshops that are, you know, six weeks, eight, eight weeks long, where they come to the long course, where then they can become, you know, coaches themselves, and that was about a year and a half long this is your, this is your business, okay, okay yes, yes and um.

Esra Ogut:

It's basically you know we teach in it. How do we raise our frequency? There's some like yoga aspects of it, but really what we love to teach people, show people is exactly what I've been talking about how they can manifest whatever is their dream and that it is possible. And it's just they have to go in and find how they're stepping on the hose and if they figure out the belief system or the reason that they're stepping on the hose, they pull their leg off the hose and everything flows. So this is the gist of what we do and through that, you know, manifestations regarding relationships happen, healing in relationships happen, sometimes diseases go away, because it's not just one thing, it's really like with the, with our consciousness, that we work on, but rather we teach people how to work on themselves, and I think that's very, very important.

Esra Ogut:

How do you? Because you're a wise being, we're all actually wise beings, although we might be pretending we're not. So all the answers are within us, and so when you can just get them to find, go down their own labyrinth and find their own codings, their own setups, I mean the level of freedom that comes from that is amazing and everything changes with that but they do need a mentor, they do need some instruction.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Your book when he does grow on trees, a good place to start yes, definitely and if people do want to come for counseling, for life-changing mentoring, uh, how can they get a hold of you?

Esra Ogut:

again, they can yeah, they can get in touch with us from the website www. ikeandesra. com okay, well, listen, this has been a wonderful interview. Let's do it again sometime.

Douglas James Cottrell:

Well, I wish you and your husband absolutely the best. We'll make it happen again.

Esra Ogut:

Thank you.

Douglas James Cottrell:

You're a wonderful person. I admire your courage and you truly can teach people, because you've been on the same path that they're on, only you're a little further down the path now, and that makes the best teacher.

Douglas James Cottrell:

It's a pleasure to have you. My guest today is Esra Ogut, and she's in Turkey as we do this interview today, and thank you very, very much for being here Again. Stay tuned for next time. We have another exciting guest on how to make you more aware of who you are. This is Douglas James Cottrell. Peace and prosperity everyone.

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