“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You will accept your present position, whatever it is, as being a part of that direction, and realize that from it can come all the creative elements that you need. Being yourself and trusting in your own integrity, you will automatically help others. It does little good to repeat a suggestion such as, “I am a worthy person. I trust myself and my integrity,” if at the same time you are afraid of your own emotions and become upset whenever you catch yourself in what you think of as a negative frame of mind.

As lovers can see the “ideal” in their beloved, and yet be well aware of certain inadequacies, certain deviations from the ideal, so can you, loving yourself, realize that what you think of as imperfections are instead gropings toward more complete becoming. You cannot love yourself and hate the emotions that flow through you at the same time; because while you are not your emotions, you identify with them so often that in hating them you hate yourself.

Use your conscious mind and its logic. If you discover that you feel unworthy, then do not simply try to apply a more positive belief over that one. Instead discover the reasons for your first belief. If you have not already done so, write down your feelings about yourself. Be perfectly honest. What would you say if someone else came to you with the same reasons?

Examine what you have written. Realize that a set of beliefs is involved. There is a difference between believing that you are unworthy and being unworthy in fact.

When you catch yourself falling into a mood in which you feel inferior, look at your second list, of abilities and accomplishments. Then use the positive suggestion in your own worth, backed up by your own personal self-examination. You may say, “But I know I have great abilities that I am not using. When I compare myself to others, then I fall far short. What difference does it make if I have a few mundane achievements that are shared by many others, that are in no way unique? Surely my destiny involves more than that. I have yearnings that I cannot express.”

If you allow yourself to be more and more aware of your own beliefs, you can work with them. It is silly to try to fight what you think of as negative beliefs, or to be frightened of them. They are not mysterious. You may find that many served good purposes at one time, and that they have simply been overemphasized. They may need to be restructured rather than denied.

Many of your beliefs are of course cultural, but you have still accepted those that served your own purposes. As a rule, men in your society believe themselves logical while women are considered intuitive. Women, now trying to assert their rights, often fall into the same trap, but backwards — trying to deny what they think of as inferior intuitive elements for what they think of as superior logical ones.

If you believed you were unworthy because you were scrawny and bullied, then in some way you undoubtedly used that belief for your own purposes. Admit it. Discover what the purposes were. Perhaps you compensated — became athletic later, or used the impetus to go ahead in your own way. If your mother hated you, you may have used that to assert independence, to give you an excuse or a pathway; but in all cases you form your own reality, and so you agreed to it.

(Pause.) Many people who write to me feel that they have unusual psychic or writing abilities, or sense an outstanding need to help others. They constantly compare what they do with what they think they are capable of, but often without making a start toward the development of their own abilities.

The loving acknowledgement of their own uniqueness would in itself show them how to begin to use their own abilities in their own way, and to trust their present situation. The ideal is not yet materialized. It is just the essence of a direction. But that direction can only be found by using what you have in the now that you know, and by acquiescing to your own opportunities and abilities, and using those through the power of the present.

(The night had cooled off comfortably. “But you know what?” Jane asked. “Right now I feel really tired….” Break proved to be the end of the session. After debating about whether or not to go back into trance, she finally decided against it.)