“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You would be grateful then when Ruburt did originate such a crisis, simply because the pressure behind the repressed feelings was more painful then, so that it was defeating its own purpose. You helped initiate these crises in your own way then, by intensifying the noncontact behavior that you knew would cause Ruburt to take steps. On occasion you increased your own noncontact behavior when he did not react when you thought he should.

He would have become instantly alarmed had you not then begun to retreat. This has been a highly formal, ritualized behavior pattern, a psychological dance, so formalized on a subconscious level that it left little leeway for spontaneity, and threatened to freeze you both in highly unconscious regimented behavior. He was to keep you from getting too far apart. You were to keep you from getting too close, and when certain automatic points were approached you both went into your act. For some time the behavior worked. The spontaneity was gradually squeezed out to such a degree that it lost its workability, and both of you were beginning to consider making adjustments. You did not understand the pattern, however. You ran into the invisible danger points and reacted in the old ways.

He of course reacted to the annoyance on your part. The tests from this standpoint were highly explosive, for he did not understand the situation, and found himself in a position highly ambiguous. You were encouraging him to even further spontaneity on the one hand, to intuitional freedom, and yet to his point of view requiring him to exert all kinds of discipline, which he felt was your role—to follow the intuitions so far, know when to stop at the proper target, and it was here that he first deeply felt you as a taskmaster.