Anne Bercot Interview

Ann Bercot

Anne Bercot is a lecturer, teacher,  philosopher and writer.   She is French and has been living in the west of Ireland for more than 20 years.  For the last 28 years, Anne has been leading seminars in France and Ireland on the work of Alice A. Bailey, an esoteric teaching inspired by the Tibetan master DK.

Her teaching helps people to understand their own evolution in relation to their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves, looking especially at the connections between love, energy, and consciousness.

Her individual clients often come to her in great pain and confusion yet leave with a changed perspective and a renewed vision about their life and their purpose.

Anne’s book “Un Double Arc En Ciel”, a fictionalised autobiography, was published last year in French and is available on Amazon.

Anne may be contacted at her email address:  annebercot@gmail.com

Ann Kelly:
How do you know when you can trust yourself Anne?

Anne Bercot:
There are many many levels on which you could trust yourself in fact, there are all types of levels.  Tell me more

Ann Kelly:
If you are going to take an action, do you trust yourself enough to know that it is the appropriate action

Anne Bercot:
Well it all depends again which type of action you are talking about because if it is a physical action, I would rely on physical reasoning.   Can I do this? Have I done it before? Do I have that type of experience, the strength and the tools? If I have, then I have no reason to not trust myself.  For instance, I was teaching for years, so I know for a fact that I can do it and trust the way I do it from experience.

I might also be motivated on an emotional level, taking something as a challenge and chancing it because I feel ready to learn from a new experience. I would trust myself then out of curiosity or enthusiasm and be prepared to accept the results of my decision, whatever they may be.

I could trust myself too after wisely using my intellect, doing my list of pros and cons and using my common sense cleverly. The answer is often at the very top of our questions.

But it is at a deeper level that I would trust myself the most;   in a spot where I know that I am connected with my soul’s purpose. Being a daughter of man but also a daughter of God, I know that inside of me I have a lot more wisdom than I think.   So I would trust that inner knowledge.  First, I would check if my motivations are clear and make sure I am not motivated solely by a personal gain of some kind. Then, if the intention is pure and harmless, if it serves the common good, I would trust fully the higher part of myself where I believe all answers are. I’m talking about a more subtle, mental level; a higher mental level, more discerning than the intellectual one, which is actually the level of intuition.

Sometimes this intuition is recognition, a kind of remembrance of a contract I signed in another place at another time. For instance, when I was very young I had the “intuition” that I would meet a man and would live with him for a special purpose. It was a strong feeling, almost an inner obligation.  So by 16 I had decided I would look for this man and find him. Mind you I did find him and even though I hadn’t a clue what I was supposed to do once I found him, I was absolutely sure I had to do it. It was vast and deep, not only based on my own desires, not only emotional, more like a task; my decision came from my higher self.

Ann Kelly:
And you know the difference?

Anne Bercot:
Yes, I know because always it has to do with motivation. Are my motivations tricky or are my motivations pure?

Ann Kelly:
How do you know the difference?

Anne Bercot:
Because when the motivation is NOT pure it is strictly for my own benefit.   It is not going to be for the bigger picture, the wider perspective.  I can feel it is being dictated by the solar plexus more than by the heart. It happens all the times in politics.   We are going to have elections in France soon and it is amazing to hear the promises made. They are going to do this and that; build a hospital or a new crêche and so on but in fact most of them want the position to have power. They want to be elected but most of them won’t do half of what they are offering. You know what I mean?

Ann Kelly:
Yes I do.

Anne Bercot:
So I couldn’t trust myself in those kinds of situations because I don’t know how to deal with power

Ann Kelly:
Why do you say you don’t know how to deal with power?

Anne Bercot:
Power is not an energy which I use. First I am not able to use it the way I think it should be used; with a real vision and a lot of compassion.   From what I have seen this energy is still very often linked with ambition, glory and money and I don’t have the skills to lead at that level.

Ann Kelly:
So, do you live on one level only in your daily life or on several?

Anne Bercot:
We all use different levels in our daily life. Physical, emotional, mental, but I must say that due to my age, I try to live at a spiritual level most of the time.  I call it living above the belt.   This doesn’t mean that I always succeed. If I decide “Now I’m going to get a glass of wine”, I should definitely not trust myself on this one, because I absolutely know that it’s not good for me and it’s not necessary and I should take an herbal tea instead for a better health, right?

Ann Kelly:
Right!   (Laughing)

Anne Bercot:
But I still choose the glass of wine. So you see I don’t live every minute above the belt, but I don’t go there either without knowing where I stand , so I can trust myself to be objective enough to know what I’m doing. You know what I mean?

Ann Kelly:
Yes, you are conscious of the level you are operating at.

Anne Bercot:
I don’t do it on an impulse, you know. (Laughing) I do it on bad will, not on good will!   (Laughing)

Ann Kelly:
So Anne for people who don’t have your depth of learning and experience in life how would you explain to them about that higher level that you talk about; above the belt?

Anne Bercot:
When I say “above the belt”, I’m talking about using my heart chakra instead of my solar plexus and using my throat chakra rather than the sacral one. That is the first thing I would explain to people: the fact is we have energies that feed the animal part of us and the angelic part of us. Those energies pass through our energetic centers known as our chakras.

The lower ones, under the belt take care of our physical needs, our personal desires, and our passions. The ones above the belt feed our love, our creativity, our spirituality.  After a certain age usually the upper ones become stronger than the lower ones, if we feed them properly.    It’s a path to go from instincts to intuition if you wish.

Of course if a lion is running after you, your need of security will give you the strength to jump up a tree. You do not have to think long to be sure this is the good choice because it is instinctive.

Some people may feel they have no access to their intuition. They do not remember any contract. They say they do not dream, they can’t read signs so it must be difficult for them to know what to do, how to decide to act   Still, as I said, we have many tools to make a decision and people can trust who they are: their resources, their experiences, their knowledge, the lessons they have learned, their aspirations, their higher values, their day dreams.

Ann Kelly:
How do you discern higher values from everyday values?

Anne Bercot:
Well again for me it has to do with, am I doing it for me personally, for my own benefit or am I doing it for the welfare of others? Am I doing it through love and compassion or through fear and desire? Where do I stand when I do this, under or above the belt?

Ann Kelly:
Are you saying then that if one does something and there is personal gain, it’s not higher level action or intuition is not involved?

Anne Bercot:
I do not deny personal gain. I am talking more about acting with either selfishness or harmlessness.   If you take a lover and he is free and you are free, it is no one else’s business. It is personal but it doesn’t harm anyone. Right? It is a clear decision to use the under belt consciously!

On top of that maybe it’s not even lust, maybe it’s the start of a great love, so the only thing you have to ask yourself is: is it harming someone? If this guy is married, if I am married what I’m going to give here (to him) I’m not going to give to my own family (time, affection, transparency), so then it could be harmful. The Soul will never decide to do something which is against the group, even if the group is only two. You see? That’s what I think is higher level.  I would be very careful about that. Harmlessness, as you say.

Ann Kelly:
So that would be one of the filters?

Anne Bercot:
Well yes, for me even though sometimes we think our actions are motivated by love, at the end of the day because hell is paved with good intentions, even some good intentions can harm people. But I would be quite enthusiastic and if my actions are motivated by compassion for others, I would trust myself enough to go ahead.

The time I chose a builder, I chose him for personal reasons because he was good looking and I thought he had a very bad reputation. Of course, I was going to save him and give him the good reputation he needed etc. All this was for personal reasons, right? And I was quite sure of myself because I was thinking I was God or something like Him. (Laughing)   I thought I could bring something to this poor guy and elevate him.   I don’t know what happened to me. So when I act like that, even though it can look like I trust myself a lot and I know exactly what I chose, each time I see why it went wrong because the motivation was personal.

If I had only thought about my husband or his money because it was not even my money, I would not have chosen that guy.   But for the pleasure of seeing him around and for the great acknowledgement I would get from the community by showing them how great this guy was, I was just thinking about me. It’s one example. The more I live the less I trust my judgement to judge people. Discernment is most important.

Sometimes it’s difficult to be able to trust yourself because life is going to show you that each time you grow, you go up another step of the ladder and then you see things quite differently. So something that I judged as good a year ago, I don’t judge as good today.

I’ve become more discerning or I’m discerning from another point of view that I was not allowed to reach before, because, I didn’t have the level of consciousness. My cells were not subtle (refined) enough, for me to get that new vision/point of view.

And then I say to myself, how could I trust myself to know what I’m doing because I realised later, I didn’t know what I was doing. Looking from the new point of view I see almost the contrary of what I saw at the time.

Ann Kelly:
So what does that mean for any ordinary mortal?

Anne Bercot:
It means that depending on the level of consciousness, you progress in your discernment but still we have to use the tools available to us at any stage

I say that energy follows thoughts, right? So because I try to think rightly on each step of the ladder I trust myself to act accordingly but I remember too that everything is relative

Ann Kelly:
Have you any example of when you did trust yourself at that higher level and what happened?

Anne Bercot:
Yes I have plenty. You know, I realise as I talk to you that in fact I trust myself according to my faith. If I have a real big faith and if I am expecting a miracle, which wouldn’t really be a miracle because it’s just a law answering a certain state of mind, then I absolutely know it’s going to happen.  That alone is a powerful element to make it happen.

Ann Kelly:
Is your faith is based on a lot of learning, a lot of personal evolution?

Anne Bercot:
Maybe it is. That’s why at the beginning I said that I would trust myself.   First because I have the experience, I know I can do those types of things, I have done it many times and then I believe at a higher level it could work the same way. If I know that it’s possible, it will be possible.  Then because energy follows thought, certainly I participate in the manifestation. I co-create the manifestation through that faith. It is part of the law of attraction.

Ann Kelly:
I remember some years ago, you telling me the story of your life. You were a psychotherapist and then something happened.   At what point did you know that you had to make a big change and how did you know then you could trust yourself to do that?

Anne Bercot:
Well there are two things. For instance I was a healer with my hands for a while.   I trusted myself totally because my faith was so big and I felt I had a contract; I felt and knew I had the power in my hands. Then when I started to study more, I realised what a healer should be really like and I lost the trust in myself. Suddenly it was the contrary of what you asked, I knew that I could not trust myself enough because I was not at the level I thought I was, or at the level that I realised a healer should be at.

I’d say the same about being a therapist, it is not about: “did I trust myself enough to do something else”? it’s that I didn’t trust myself as a therapist anymore because I realised that with the worry of innocuity or harmlessness , I couldn’t go deep enough in the heart of my brother or sister to know exactly what was going on.   So in fact, I changed healing with my poor insights into a form of healing through teaching, based on a knowledge I understood and experienced, because I know now that you have to have an immense love to be a therapist. When I will be ready I could be a therapist again. I am working on it. You know what I mean?

Ann Kelly:
Yes, I do.

Anne Bercot:
It may be difficult to know the exact difference between instinct and intuition especially when we do not get it. When I came to Ireland at first and fell in love with this country, I had the instinct or the intuition that I had to stay. But I didn’t know why. Years later I realised that I had to stay because it is thanks to this land, to the poetic energy of the country that I re-connected with my past life and did a lot of forgiveness of myself and others. So that’s another way too that I know I can trust myself; when there’s evidence of a form of obligation deep down. I had to stay in Ireland. I could not leave Ireland. I was crying when I’d leave Ireland and it was personal but I could see that it was something that was a lot bigger than me too, that something deep down was expecting me to stay for a result that I didn’t know at the time. But I knew for sure that I couldn’t let this country pass by. Like I knew when I met this guy Michel that I could not let him pass by, you know?

Ann Kelly:
So before you ever studied Alice Bailey and started to teach, at certain times in your life you knew things intuitively?

Anne Bercot:
Exactly! I knew intuitively and even though, as was the case when I came to Glandore, that it was going to harm Michel’s family and eventually the children, even so, it was such a powerful thought form inside of me that I knew it was the right place and the right time, I had to do it, even if I didn’t know why I was there. It was like it was imposed on me.

Ann Kelly:
That’s the nugget I want to get at.   What is it that enables somebody to know or to trust despite everything

Anne Bercot:
I think it’s a kind of memory we have within ourselves. I really think that we sign some kind of contract before we come and nothing that happens in our life is new, but some of us recognise more than others where we are on that path.

As I said I remembered my man very young when I was 15 /16.   I remembered I have to meet a guy somewhere. I was ready to go and look for him all over the world. I had a vague memory but still strong enough to know it was important. I think we all have it because we really come here to make the return, to return to the father or whatever we can call that.   And so we will all have to go through different opportunities to learn. Unhappily we seem to learn more through suffering than joys!

One thing that I learned through the suffering was that the suffering was not coming from the facts, but from the fact that I was not working with them, but working against them, right? I understood that I didn’t have to fight for my happiness. I had to trust life because if my life had been planned and if my soul had signed for it, I was not alone, right?  So I started to trust more and more my feelings at their highest point, checking my aspirations more than my personal desires.

And then I suppose that the trust I have to take action, is the trust I have for life because throughout my life I have seen that even when I didn’t know where life was bringing me, it was the perfect place all the time. Even if I hated it and even if it was very painful, at the end of the day, when I look at my life, I think the jigsaw was the perfect one.

So I suppose you cannot know or see at 30 what I see at 71, but to me there is total evidence that God is living in us through our breath and our lungs. We are not alone. We just have to be very careful and very discerning to be able to catch what we should or could do. It is written deep down in all of us and our real work is to go deep enough. We achieve this by being vigilant every day. If I am vigilant and I am looking for more light and more love I can trust myself fully.   Even if I am alone against the whole world, when I have the vision intuition provides, I can do anything.

Ann Kelly:
Wow! Thank you, Anne. That is brilliant.

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