“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.

The failure was being rejected, you see. Now the dog was a hunting dog. Symbolically you have always equated hunting with a man’s work in modern society. That was one connection. You would not feel free to hunt successfully with the animal, for he was, you felt, the symbol of an unsuccessful hunt in the work world.

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.

If you allowed this to continue and did not check it, then gradually the inactive joints would be accepted as a basic problem. You would think: “If I could move freely, then I could solve all problems,” when the true point is: when you feel free to solve the problems, there will be no physical symptoms to worry about.

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.)

We have some further recommendations. It is difficult in one evening to give you all the important data. You have been denying your own feelings for some time, or only giving lip service to them, and we will have to set you straight and free.