“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.

In periods of depression you feel that your life, the main points, have passed, and that you have lost time—important time that you feel you cannot recover. All of these fears work together to cause the present difficulty. Now. There is no one who can change your life for you. But you can change it. And in that lies your hope and your salvation. And so you must begin to do so. You are now organizing your life about your hearing defect. In the main, you are forcing others again to relate to you in that regard. You mention it often. You bring it into the conversation. When I tell you now, “often,” it would not otherwise be noticed, for you also exaggerate the extent of the hearing loss. I did not say there was not a loss. I am saying you are exaggerating the loss that there is.

([Mary:] “Then you...then I take it you would not suggest an operation?)

(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 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.

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.

Now you used the energy that your classmate (Eleanor) was sending you for other overall purposes. While you did not want to hear, her energy could not force you to hear. Indeed, you would automatically put up a defense, because you considered not hearing to be important to your survival. The exercise that I just suggested to you will, if followed, now, help you open up sufficiently so that energy sent to you can be utilized for that specific difficulty. But while you refused to hear, you would consider energy sent to you particularly to make you hear also a threat to your survival, and would be determined to block it. You must realize that your survival depends upon enjoying all of your senses fully. Reading the session alone should help you realize that.

And enjoy it. And the exercise—do not strain at it. Now, you use your imagination well. So imagine these new sounds as they would appear, until you are really dazzled.

([Rob:] “...the question would automatically answer itself —about your operation. Did you remember that?”

I would leave it open, and leave yourself open. And try the experiments that I have suggested.

For now, I would forget the deadline. It will only make you nervous.

([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.”)

I would put it off, then, if you are asking my advice.