“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I have told you what I think. The hearing, you see; the state of the hearing, is among other things a symbolic, physical statement of the lack of communication that has existed between you and your husband. Only now it is you who will not hear. That is not the only cause for the condition, however. The “habit” was set in the past when you “shut out” noise that you did not want to hear. You are in the habit of shutting out sound.

Now. Often, you use sound as a barrier. Also, you use monologs, and set up a barrier of sound to protect yourself from other people. And you do not realize that you do this. You erect barriers like walls—so that someone wanting to communicate with you cannot get through, cannot find a “hole” in your conversation to reach you. And the more nervous you are, the more frantically you erect this barrier of sound. You use sound as a barrier, therefore, and when you become doubly threatened, then you do not hear the sounds that come from without, but retreat from them. The entire “gestalt of sound” is therefore highly important to you in your “mechanism of survival”. You have used it to protect yourself, either erecting sound yourself to protect you from communications coming from without, or, when this fails, by refusing—refusing to hear. You must, therefore, ask yourself where this charged attitude toward sound originated, and why you use it in such a way. And I will give you some clues.

You are denying yourself a certain joy in your own present femininity, and for several reasons. With some purpose, you see to it that you are not as attractive physically as you know you are. You play down your attributes, rather than dress them up. You have been worried about and afraid of the feminine aspects of your personality. Now some of this has to do with the situation that did exist between you and your husband, and to some extent with the situation as it now exists. There is a free and easy flow of communication that is wordless, that you block.

Now. You can be a very attractive woman, and you can fix your hair; you can play up your attributes, and you know it. This will automatically, you see, change the situation, for you will not change the physical aspects unless an inner recognition has first led you to do so. You will feel the richer for it, emotionally richer for it, regardless of your husband’s reaction.

You overeat, to compensate for the other joys that you do not allow yourself. If you began to paint for an hour a day, you would not need to eat so much. When you bring food and drink with you, you do two things. You bring along your own “security blanket”, for one thing. You also show that you are insecure and frightened outside of the home environment, and must bring nourishment from there along with you. Now the joy that you experience when you are painting will be yours, and not desert you whether you stay in your house or go to someone else’s. You will not have to worry about “carting it along” with you. As you probably suspect, the overeating is the one great indulgence that you allow yourself, and even then you surround it with all kinds of taboos. It is not the fact that you overeat, and that you are desperately frightened because you overeat—because of your sister’s history. You do not overeat simply any food, but you surround eating itself with taboos, so that it must be “pure food,” “good food,” to your way of thinking. And there are foods that you will eat and foods that you will not eat, and you project moral implications upon the foods. Some foods are “good,” to your way of thinking, and some foods are “bad.” To you this does not necessarily or alone mean they are good for the body or bad for the body, but in themselves you give them moral characteristics as you would people. So that beneath the whole attitude is the idea: “This is an evil food,” and be shunned as you would shun an evil person, within that framework of thought.

I am not telling you not to get treated medically when you believe that you need it. I am telling you that often you use medical treatment as a further punishment of the body. Often you use medical treatment as a reassurance. You are not quite certain, yet, that you form your own reality, and you want to make certain, in the meantime, that the medical profession can help you out!