“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.

When you turned from the habit, and would have turned to food for comfort, you denied yourself this out of fear of gaining weight. Subconsciously you felt cheated. Now the comfort was needed to begin with so that you could make up for other things that you felt you did not have, and to help you cope with problems, as you are aware.

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.

This was reflected in other portions of the body as well. As you noted, you felt off balance subjectively, and unsure. Now. You had grown used to smoking as a way of comforting yourself. You removed the comfort. You refused to add another, and at the same time you did not face the inner problem that was bothering you, that made the comfort so necessary to begin with. We will go into this more deeply, for you can indeed rid yourself of the symptoms, but I would like to make one point here first. When you bought the dog, subconsciously you felt that the dog was almost a symbol of your failure.

She knew subconsciously that you would consider that a failure. We will have much more to say. In the meantime take your break, but (smiling) keep yourself together.

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.

While you tried to deal with them on a conscious level, you became more and more frightened of them, and more and more you began to try to dissociate yourself from them. They were a part of you however, and sought expression.

The family all knew, subconsciously again, that the dog had to go. Everyone was overly nice to the dog, so no one would know consciously, what they knew subconsciously—that you considered the dog the symbol of failure. It was a closely guarded secret by all, hidden, but not entirely, from the conscious minds of those involved. No one wanted the dog killed, but it was not coincidence that you yourself loosened the dog’s collar, or that your wife was the one who left the dog; for symbolically the two of you were connected here. Now give us a moment. The act itself was symbolic, and the dog picked up all of your attitudes through its own sense of communication.

To protect yourself from her disease you had to move quickly physically. You also had to move quickly in the area of work. You were sensitized because of your mother’s problem to fear inactivity. Any threat to your motion or advance, even in the business area, becomes highly charged for this reason. Earlier you felt that you could strike out. There was plenty of time. Then you became frightened after the age of 35, and you began to soften up your blows. (Jane gestured widely, with a fist.) You began to hold back, become more cautious, and then slowly began to entertain thoughts of the possibility of failure.

—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.

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.

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.)

Now. In the long run your present situation would deny them far more. I am speaking of the physical situation—the illness itself.You have every good chance of ridding yourself of the symptoms now, but you must immediately begin to use your imagination, so that it works for you and not against you.

Now there is something else. You want comfort of a certain kind, and you will not ask it of your wife.You feel, again,that you should not need comfort, that she will interpret such a need either as weakness or that she will become frightened. You have been denying yourself comfort of this kind, and it would help prevent the periods of depression, and the mood of depression that has gradually come over you and robbed you of your resistance.

Give us a moment. (Pause.) She is quite able to give it to you. It is to some extent her idea of her place and part, to offer comfort to her man when necessary. You usually prevent her from this role. You have been overdepriving yourself on several points, and the stiffness deprives you even further, you see.

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.

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.