“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In greater terms positive and negative have little meaning, for the physical experience is meant as a learning one. But if you are unhappy then the word negative has a meaning.

So as your beliefs change there will be alterations in your experience and behavior, and points of stress, creative stress, while you are learning. Our rich man just mentioned may suddenly realize that his belief is limiting, in that he concentrated upon it exclusively so that money and health became his sole aims. The shattered belief may leave him open to illness, which would seem like a negative experience. Yet through the illness he may be led to areas of perception he had earlier denied, and [he may] be enriched in that particular manner.

The shifting of belief may then open him to question his other beliefs, and he realizes that in the area of wealth, for example, he did very well because of his beliefs; but in those others, perhaps deeper experiences opened by his illness, he learns that human experience includes dimensions of reality that had earlier been closed to him, and that these are also easily within his reach — and without the illness that originally brought them forth. A new conglomeration of beliefs might emerge. In the meantime there was stress, but it was creative.

In the larger context you realize that the doctor can at best give you temporary relief, yet you may not be completely convinced as yet of your own ability to change your thoughts; or you may be so cowed by their effectiveness that you are frightened. So there is a period of stress in between beliefs, so to speak, while you dispense with one set and are learning to use another.

But here you become involved with one of the most meaningful aspects of the nature of personal reality, as you test your thoughts against what seems to be. There may be a time before you learn how to change your thoughts effectively, but you are engaged in a basic meaningful endeavor.