“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.

You need, first of all, to develop some of your abilities in a purposeful manner. You are not using them. You are playing with them, but not using them as you want to. The organizational part of yourself wants you to organize yourself, and so far you have not done this.

Now. As far as your fears are concerned, in your periods of depression, you feel that you have not used your abilities in a “responsible” way. You feel that therefore, you cannot “pat yourself on the back.” You feel to some extent like a hypocrite because in, I believe, New Jersey, at least before you moved here, you spoke of your writing but you did not work with it in an organized fashion. You did not direct it.

But you must give yourself some relaxation from the constant concentration upon negative aspects.

Since then, however, you began to “close down” and say: “I will listen no longer.” You must learn, therefore, to be more forgiving, both to yourself and others. There are also some conflicts of a quite natural type between you and your daughter Ruth, who also has strong organizational qualities and artistic abilities, as you have. Now, on some occasions, you resent her manner toward you. And you resent it bitterly. At the same time, you allow your own actions to bring out this manner from her. You know when you are doing it that this reaction will result, and you do it, regardless, In that particular dilemma, your husband is between.

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.

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?”

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 mentioned some yourself. To you, noise, from your early years, was to be avoided. Sound did not convey pleasure. You were not thinking in terms of the communication of pleasure. It became, to you, a method of conveying unpleasant information, and therefore to be shut off whenever possible. You will find that if you begin to cultivate the pleasure of sound, this will help you.

Begin to play music that you like. Listen to the rain. Do not “just listen,” but allow yourself to be open to the different pattering sounds and sound patterns that the rain makes. Become fascinated with the behaviors of sound. Tell yourself that sound is like light; that it is easily available.

...yourself...to speak gently.

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.

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. So far, you are denying a good portion of your hearing because sound can be unpleasant, and carrying this a bit further now, it can also be “bad.” You know the three little monkeys who sit: “see no evil” and so forth. Now you have simply hit upon the “hear no evil.” You have added to it the fact that you will not indulge yourself in joy, or in joyful pursuits, Unless you can rationalize to yourself by saying: “I am doing this for someone else,” and that is the only reason you let yourself work with the necklaces that you made. You could say: “I am making these for class members” and therefore justify the pleasure.

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.

The book that you bought, Psycho-Cybernetics, and the other one—both of these are good for you. But do not simply read them. Use them. Each book approaches various problems from different viewpoints. But together they will be of great help. Since you yourself began these reactions and originated them, you yourself can change them. And you can change them as of this moment.

You are imagining a situation in which there is no sound to be heard; whether or not you have ears, there is no sound. Then, imagine that, suddenly, a raindrop falls and makes a first sound... the first sound that can ever be heard. And imagine the impact and the beauty of that sound. Then slowly imagine other sounds appearing in the world, appearing in the same way that a flower might appear, so that sounds begin to be born in the universe. Imagine, then, the joy of hearing that sound in a world that had known none. Whatever sounds, then, that imaginatively come to you, feel the brilliance and miracle of them as they are born out of the silence. And then give thanks for a world of sound, and let yourself revel that you live in this world where sound is a part of your environment and surroundings. In all of this, do not think about your ears, but do the imaginative exercise exactly as I have suggested it. That alone, done once a day, will help arouse again within you the joy and wonder of that particular sense.

If you do that, it is fine. But it is not as important as the painting. Doing things for other people is important, but doing things, as our friend (Rob) said, for yourself is imperative.

It did originate in a past life, as mentioned, but it did not have to reassert itself, now. It served your purposes, however. And it was also another method of retreat. You did not have to go out into a strange enviroment, away from the home and hearth. Now, it predated the hearing difficulty in its strongest form, but the “habits” were always with you. You always “favored” one foot more than the other, and you built up muscular reaction. When you began to “clear” your foot—when you got the new shoes—your hearing gave you more difficulty. You needed more of a crutch, to make up for the symptom you had lost, simply because you did not understand the reasons behind the difficulties. And without understanding, you can medically rid yourself of one condition, only to make ready certain that you have another one planned to take over! You were finally driven to some kind of desperation, so you accepted the new shoes. You used the symbol. You could have been quite as comfortable without the new shoe, but the symbol was a good one, and you used it and took advantage of it.

But then you became frightened, and that is when the hearing difficulty, then, bothered you so deeply. You will not need to substitute symptoms in such a fashion, as you learn to look into yourself.

One small point. You have been punishing yourself quite often in the way in which you approach the medical experience. The idea of an operation, on the one hand, frightens you. On the other hand, you feel it is “just punishment for these ears of mine that will not work.” The same applied to the mouth. In that case, again, the attitudes cause your reaction.

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