“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You expected too much when you moved here. You expected many things —a complete renewal, a reversal of certain circumstances in your life—a new relationship with your husband. You overidealized the situation ahead of time. You thought there was going to be a second honeymoon. You also thought that you would enjoy having your husband around all of the time. Because of previous conflicts, that can be resolved, you did not enjoy having him around all of the time as you supposed that you did. There were also conflicts of direction, as to who would “rule the roost”, and you resented his “taking over”, or what it seemed to you to be. You were used to managing the home alone. You thought that you would welcome his cooperation and aid, and because, now, of other conflicts with him, in the east, in this life, instead, you resented his help. You wanted to rule as you had in the past. You wanted the home to yourself.

([Mary:] “Yeah. I thought that he would be home and we could...uh... he’d have more time to farm, and we could work something out, but I was really relieved when he went to, had to go to work at night and I could read and study by myself.

(During break—I think this break—I told Jane and Rob of when I was very young—ten or eleven. My bedroom window was only about 15 feet away from my parents’ apt. house. The scandal at the time was the noisy and violent arguments of an Italian couple, Anna and Jimmy. If Anna didn`t boil Jimmy’s eggs just right, he’d curse her out, and she’d retaliate by throwing some of Mom’s dishes at him, both of them screaming. All thru my life I’ve thought “nice, civilized people” didn’t raise their voices, get angry enough so that it showed, or display any kind of outbursts. Jim, I believe, feels the same way [or did]. The very few times early in our marriage when I would lose my temper, he would absolutely infuriate me by saying softly, with a smirk, “Temper, temper!” and so I would clam up.)

In this is this life material. You are in the habit of shutting out sound. Now, you can even catch yourself if you are alert enough doing this by the feeling that you have. In a conversation—now listen to me—In a conversation that you now decide sounds boring when you enter it, you can catch yourself thinking: “This is boring. I will not bother to listen. It is too much trouble.” Now you think those thoughts come to you because it is so difficult for you to hear. Instead, those thoughts were yours long before the disability showed itself. You thought that way first, before the condition, And whenever unpleasantness arose, you would make a series of decisions to shut out the sound until these decisions, one upon the other, finally “conditioned” you; you conditioned yourself not to hear. The problem is that after awhile, you see, you conditioned yourself so well that you no longer control the process that you began. And only then do you become frightened.

Now this does not necessarily refer to me, here. But if you do not care what they think, then, again, you will not listen. Observe yourself—in conversation. I do not mean to watch yourself so closely that you cannot think, but observe your own reactions and your thoughts. Honestly ask yourself in situations: “Do I want to hear? And if I do not, why don’t I?”

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.

([Mary:] “Yes, I do. That’s what I thought you meant, too, before.”)