“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.

You harbored thoughts of immobility. You feared you could not get ahead. You did not know what steps to take. You set up limitations in your mind. You used your imagination, a very valuable tool, against yourself. You saw yourself in the future worse off. You felt your freedom threatened until little by little these ideas began to predominate.

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.

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.