“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.

Now. You were disappointed, then, shortly after you made your move, and you began to retreat. Whether or not you are consciously aware of this, in your earlier life, when you became extremely nervous or upset or had a bad problem, you began to “shut down” stimuli. You did not hear as well. When you wanted to retreat from the world, you shut down on your hearing so that you were not distracted. The habit simply persisted, and you grasped upon it as the situation continued. Now. Because of some circumstances and conflicts with your husband in this life in the past, you did not want to hear what he had to say. You were finished listening to him, and therefore with him, particularly, you began to have trouble hearing.

I want to tell you what I know about your days, and then I will tell you what you must do to change them, You are beginning to organize your life about your lack of hearing. You are beginning to make it a characteristic. You are beginning to force other people to relate to you in that regard. Now you are obviously doing this because you are getting something out of it, and you must discover what that something is and I will help you.

There are several things that I will ask you to do. First, however, you must begin to love sound. You must not concentrate thinking: “I cannot hear.” “What is there to hear?” “What are they saying?” “How bad is my hearing today?” You must instead sensually enjoy those sounds that come to you, and even imagine sounds when you are alone. Now this will automatically set your inner self toward the anticipation of further sound. You must take at least an hour a day during which you do not think of loss of hearing, and I will give you some hints as to how to do this.

Regardless of your farm, you, in your own mind, feel “scattered”—that you are not doing enough in other directions, and you are not sure what those directions are. You feel blocked. You are doing two things with the ears, of course. You are telling yourself that you want to hear. The other part of you is saying: “I do not want to hear!” “I do not want to hear what you have to say.” You are, therefore, sending contradictory messages. This accounts for the decrease in hearing.

([Mary:] “What?”)

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.

([Mary:] “That’s what I had a feeling.”

Now, listen. You are not “hearing me out”. As you behave with me, you behave with your husband and. others. You are not listening to me so much as thinking of your next question and what you want to say.

I mention it only to show you how you operate. It is obvious in this situation. It is a characteristic. You are sometimes so impatient to express your own ideas that you do not listen to others. Also, often, you do not care, quite frankly, what they think.

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?”

Now some people do not like to look at unpleasant objects or sights, but very few of them would stop using their vision and give up the good sights so that they would not see bad ones. Yet this is what you are doing in your present course. Give us a moment.

Now. To some extent you punish him for his past attitudes by not appearing as attractively as you could. You think: “It serves him right! What does he expect?” At the same time, you are afraid that if you do appear as attractively as you can, that you will be hurt again by him, and you are unwilling to take the chance.

What our friend here told you (Rob) is indeed true. You must realize that you are a unique and a blessed individual, and you must be as kind to yourself, and kinder, even, than you try to be to others. For they also bathe in the joy that you feel. It is most important that you understand this.

Imagine for an experiment, now, a world in which there is no sound. Do not imagine that you are deaf. That is not what I am saying. But imagine that the world itself has no sound for anyone to hear. Do you see the difference?

([Mary:] “How long a day, each day, should I practice what you just suggested?”

If you are joyful, you will help other people simply by being what you are. If you try to help others and you are despondent, you do not help them.

([Mary:] “I’m beginning to understand what you mean.”)

([Mary:] “What in the morning?”

([Mary:] “The difficulty with the what?”

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!

([Mary:] “Yeah. I see. I don’t know what to tell my doctor when I think he’s going to suggest an operation. And I don’t know what to tell him. Shall I say I’ll think about it?”)

([Mary:] “Yeah. I just didn’t know what to tell the doctor. ‘Cause he might want a statement of when I would get an operation, and I don’t—I haven’t made up my mind if I want one or not, yet.”)

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