“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(To John:) You do not feel free to move. Symbolically you do not feel that you have freedom of motion, and you are expressing this through the body mechanism. You did indeed shake yourself up when you decided to put your smoking aside, but this was simply because you felt subconsciously a loss. The smoking to some extent had been used by you as a method of giving yourself comfort, a way of giving yourself pleasure.

There are reasons why you chose the particular symptoms that you have, and reasons why they emerged at this particular time. Now. There was the feeling, the inner fear that you do not have freedom of motion in the economic or professional sphere—the fear, quite simply, that you were not going to make it. Some of this has to do with the symbolism you have attached subconsciously to the age of 40, and you see yourself coming closer to it. Some has to do with your assessment of your position within the firm, with your assessment of what you would get outside the firm should you leave it.

Some of it has to do with your assessment of your own abilities, and with the growing impatience to use them more fully—and to be well paid for using them. (Humorously.)

Now what happens is this. You began by wanting to express withheld bitterness, often explosively. At the same time you did not do so. One group of muscles therefore were tensed for action, and the other group of muscles tried to stop the action. You wanted to go ahead but felt you could not, so that this was reflected in your posture long before you felt a symptom.

Now when anything is wrong with your body, it is trying to tell you something. And when you understand what it is trying to say, and if you make an effort to do what is needed, the symptoms are no longer needed as a method of communication.

You were particularly frightened during vacation because of the inactivity. Old fears were aroused that you have never faced consciously. You never faced them honestly. You are terrified of inactivity, for many reasons: bodily inactivity, mental inactivity, some of this based upon fear of your mother’s disease. You must go, go, go, to prove that you can do so, and any threat to your mobility is not only strongly felt but negatively exaggerated.

Supposing you left your job and simply could not find another, what would you do? You could not bear to sit at home. This fear subconsciously nagged at you, and it has for this reason, among other, that the symptoms were with you before vacation. This year you felt the vacation almost as a threat because of the fears that had built up during the year.

—and we will give you recommendations so that you can rid yourself of the symptoms. To do so will take some effort on your part, but you can remove them completely.

You do have full freedom to move, both physically and in the economic world. You allowed negative patterns of thought to take an upper hand, and fears to predominate. These fears were then symbolically acted out by the body. You do have freedom in your joints, for example. I will try to put this simply.

You do not want to accept the basic fear of immobility and lack of motion. You are too afraid of the fear itself. You recognize it but you do not know what to do about it, and this frightens you further. You act this out subconsciously then, hampering the free motion of the joints, which then become stiffened through the inactivity. The stiffness then convinces you that the joints are indeed at fault; this adds to the problem, which then gives more fuel to the basic fear.

I do not suggest that this be kept up for any length of time, at a steady rate. The cortisone itself to some extent becomes habitual. Now not habit forming, but habitual. You can prevent this if you cease taking it now and then for several days. It can hold you over but at the same time the body is getting used to a more or less artificial element; element not in terms of chemical. The cortisone is somewhat, say, like a crutch. Do not become addicted to that.

Now I can tell you what to do, and I can assure you that this works. It is up to you to follow through however. Now in your mind you now have the image of yourself with hampered motion, stiff joints. You have the fears that this image can evoke, and you must be very on guard against projecting this idea or image into the future.

Now. In your spare moments, see yourself in your mind’s eye easily performing normal physical pursuits as you did before. Remember the feelings that you had, but see this in your mind’s eye as present. Do not compare your present state with your state before you were ill. See yourself in your mind as clearly as possible square dancing, and enjoying yourself.

You must use mental images of mobility and action. At the same time tell yourself often that you are free to move. Do not command yourself to move, or demand it. Simply remind yourself that you are the one who has been projecting these ideas onto your joints and you can remove the ideas. (Pause.) Give us a moment.

Now I want you to mentally talk to the portions of your body that hurt you. You do this whether you now it or not, but you have been saying the wrong things. Tell your feet that you free them. They can step forward.

Tell yourself that you are free to move ahead. Do not tell yourself you are feeling fine when you hurt; I do not mean this. You must however realize fully that your ideas are responsible. Give us a moment here. (Long pause.) You must face the fact fully that you are and have been frightened, and that fear is a natural reaction, and that there are ways of responding to it that are healthy and constructive. You can face your problems and deal with them. You are free to do so, and you should remind yourself of this fequently, for you doubted your ability to handle the problems. (Long pause.)

You must either accept your situation as it is, change it, or at least feel that you have the ability to change it. You feared that you did not have the ability as things stand. (Long pause.) You thought that you would not advance. You feared,and do,that changing your job would deny your family.

Do not force this, but again, for at least five minutes in the overall during the day, imagine as vividly as possible that you are moving normally and easily anyway you choose. Do this almost as a game, not with a heavy hand.

Tell yourself several times a day that you can deal with whatever problems you have. Do not keep thinking of the job situation so that you are hammering yourself over the head with it constantly. Whenever you find yourself projecting failure in any sense into the future, even into tomorrow, stop yourself, remind yourself that your thoughts form reality.

I suggest however that you freely express both bitterness and discontent when you feel them, whenever possible. Do not put it off in other words unless you must. If you are in a position where this is difficult now then imagine the bitterness or discontent is a football, and you are kicking it with all your might. This in itself will activate the legs and feet and prevent you from further stiffening those areas.

Give us a moment. (Pause.) The illness has not been thrust upon you, and this is your freedom. Since you have done this to your body, you can stop doing it. Try to become more alert to your own stream of consciousness. Notice when you are giving yourself negative suggestions.

If you catch yourself thinking when something hurts, “I am sore,” then ask yourself what you are sore about. You do have freedom, several choices as far as your professional life is concerned. You are overemphasizing the negative aspects of that situation, and the overemphasis makes you feel trapped and powerless.

There is obviously much more to be said here. Do you have some questions—on the matters at hand?

Give us a moment. Probabilities always operate, and yet within that framework the large proportion and the points I have made will come to pass. Now you must deduct some points here and there for distortion, but the overall still applies. The time elements as you probably see are not as dependable, even when the event itself is correct. This simply has to do with translations difficult to assess from my standpoint.

Now. There will be an effect—not one I believe that you have foreseen, and not immediate. You worried them. You are a problem to them, as they are to you, even while you both receive services from the other, and your report may help take all of you off the hook. It may take all of you off the hook—they do not know what to do with you either.