“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Imagine your image of yourself as an old garment. It no longer serves your purposes—throw it away! Do not say, “It is miserable, but it is mine and I love it!” Throw it away!

When an artist paints a painting, you can look at the painting and say, “Ah, the artist was in a certain frame of mind” or: “Look at the dull colors and the dreary landscape” or: “Look at the wild colors and the fantastic forms” or: “See, there is no form and yet there is marvelous vitality.” ...And so are each of you artists and you create the world that you know. And when you look at the world you know you can say, “Look, this is what I have created!” And if you do not like what you see, then there is no point in ripping apart the painting or ripping apart the framework of your life. Instead, you change your pigments. And, in this case, your pigments are your thoughts and your imagination. And then you change your painting.

One is to relate to your animals. For a brief time think of them as they are—unrelated to you. Imagine what it is like also to be a tree, to be a nail, and then to be an entirely different consciousness. Then after many trials, make an attempt at a bridge from their consciousness to the self that you think of as you. This will allow you some freedom.

Your imagination works in negative ways. Change it, so that you imagine in a constructive fashion. You do not dream along the same ways that you have just spoken. Whenever you imagine something you want, you always do it with the idea that “I cannot get it!”

You had negative ideas but youth was strong enough to hold you up. And as soon as early youth left, then you allowed the negative ideas to hold sway. You have every opportunity now to begin again. No one can force you to be the self that you are and can be. But no one but yourself can make you recreate the failure that you have been recreating. You can meet appointments and meet with people about work. There is nothing stopping you but your own imagination. Change the nature of your imagination. The power is within your own hands, and I tell you to use it. For I know that you can use it!

Now. My prescription immediately is to think in terms of motion. Do not say again, “I think in terms of immobility.” Instead, immediately change your imaginative image of yourself. You must and you can do this. You must first change your image in your imagination and act upon it immediately. You must refuse, and absolutely refuse, to accept any more excuses from this superficial portion of yourself. You must imagine that within yourself—for this is the truth—there is a stronger and more powerful self, a larger self.

And when the “little” self says, “I am afraid and I will make excuses,” you must imagine the larger self saying, “I am strong. I will not allow the smaller self to make excuses. There is no need for them.” You must identify with the larger portion of your self.

You would do much better if your attitude followed thusly: I am in such a position that my seriousness has given me no benefits. My imagination has brought me fear. And I seem to be in a prison. All my hard work has brought me nowhere, and therefore I shall change my tactics and I shall play. I do not care, for I am playing, which game I try first. So today I shall call up and make an appointment immediately as a teacher and I shall pretend with all my might that I am an excellent teacher. And today I shall be a teacher as no teacher ever was! And I will think of all those students that I do not know yet and how I can help them and what fun it shall be! And so I shall call up and make this appointment. And it does not make any great difference whether I get this particular job or not—for if I do not get it, tomorrow I shall be an artist. And I shall call up and make an appointment as an artist—but I shall be free in whatever I do—and spontaneous.