“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You forget Ruburt’s literal-mindedness, and you overlook it. He can use it to advantage. His beliefs, for the reasons you are uncovering, led him to believe he was inferior in the physical arena, and so he withdrew from it.

The core beliefs and the resulting subsidiary beliefs are interrelated and work back to back, one to the other. The literal-mindedness applies. That is why the dancing is important. There is a difference between saying “we danced,” to Ruburt, regardless of how well he danced, and the belief that he could not dance at all. True, that is a subsidiary issue, but it is one where he has insisted upon keeping some physical freedom open.

Now any other physical arena of that kind, opened, is highly beneficial because of that literal-mindedness, and each time this happens the predominating beliefs are to that extent weakened. Here is something else that he can do. He has proven it to himself, therefore. He is free to move in that regard.

As a result then of other beliefs Ruburt withdrew from the challenges of physical activity. Simply deciding on a conscious level to reenter that arena, in his present state, shows in itself a change of belief, for before he did not want to try, and considered it a threat to his work.

To some extent he still does. But he is beginning to understand, and is willing to enter that arena. He wants to enter it, and there is the important change in belief that has occurred. He is still frightened, and will be worried lest he become too involved in it, but he is willing to handle that on a conscious level now, which is another important change in beliefs.

Before he did not believe he could handle that consciously, so it is important. Not that you go camping or not go camping, but that you realize the freedoms that you have; use them, encourage any physical ideas of that nature that he has, and do not make him feel inadequate to try.

He feels inadequate enough in that regard. Give us a moment. You, who do not have the physical difficulty, should now make an effort to initiate such things on your own. Ruburt realizes that he must no longer structure his life through his symptoms. You must realize that also, for there your ideas of limitation simply prolong them.

It is precisely the challenge of things like dancing when he is in poor shape, but coming through when others are watching, or a trailer trip, or riding a bicycle when it seems impossible, or climbing a tree, that has the imaginative literal qualities that inspires him to change beliefs, whether or not those issues in that way make sense to you.

In trying to show him his realistic condition in the face of such ideas you end up by making him believe also that they are unrealistic, stupid, and that he should not need challenges but only the simple joy of walking across the floor.

He went to an extreme (intently), cutting out physical distractions because he believed that he had to. He was afraid that he would go to the extreme in the other direction. Now he is ready to open up. His beliefs are changing. But in the context of that change, the challenge of extremes still appeals to him. It is this that you have not understood. For that matter neither has he.

Number one also shows your own attitudes, for he is not continuing to lose weight. It stabilized. The karate image will now help him gain, and helps him correlate his ideas of creativity with a different kind of image than he has had before.

Your eating arrangement (in Apartment 5) occurred and in its way helped to stop the loss of weight. The dress was worn deliberately. He was ashamed to be seen in it, and yet it serves a beneficial purpose, for his own love of his body will automatically cause it to gain weight. His pride will do it for him. He was afraid it would make you feel worse. Yet the continuing cover-up physically denies the needed feedback that would be quite automatic as he looks into a mirror for example and knows well he needs to gain more weight.

This, you see, is connected with the trailer idea, and I am telling you because you still do not understand the importance of belief and imagination combined. He has gone ahead despite, in this case, your negative interpretation, and seen himself under certain conditions traveling in a trailer, writing, granted, but in front of strangers in a bathing suit or shorts, and he does not want to look like a bony witch. So already in his mind he is gaining weight, seeing himself fairly agile—but he felt this was in spite of your attitudes, not with your enthusiasm or understanding.

He felt that in your world and interpretation his ideas were Pollyanna, but I tell you that is practical creativity—and it can wipe out many negative beliefs, more in a moment than you can realize.

The times that Ruburt managed rather considerable improvements even in the face of strong negative beliefs, were times when he managed to convince himself against all objective evidence that there was nothing wrong with him physically but habitual stiffness. That belief minimized the seeming impediments, allowed greater physical freedom that in its turn by contrast began to lessen the preliminary negative beliefs. That was the summer of which we have spoken, and the conditions did not continue for the reasons given.

He feels far freer and any work done before the ordinary day begins gives him a sense of physical freedom. Such a situation automatically provides no distractions and a resulting lack of stress. He is freer physically then to work at such times. Intuitively the connection between pleasurable creative activity and the mundane world of having to make money with it is to some extent broken.

When he gets up ahead of you he feels gleeful. He has put one over on you for a change, where usually he sees you as coming out ahead in that regard. He is also relieved that you do not see him immediately, and this alone lessons the stress, for he is afraid that his condition bleakens your morning.

He could quite happily accept your early rising but he felt that you poked fun at him when he spoke of working at night or rising early—again not understanding how he could utilize extremes.

For some time until recently he was afraid, as mentioned, that his body could not recuperate. That is why any physical achievement or normal activity is to be encouraged. The belief behind all of this is simple, and you have it—that all of his energy, concentration, and attention had to be devoted to his work. Because he is so literal-minded this was his interpretation of it.

He did not believe he could consciously discipline himself as he thought you did. When this became entwined with your way of life and financial conditions, he dug in deeper. At the same time he did not want you to spend anymore time away from your own work. He cut out more and more stimuli toward distraction.

It would not be any solution if the beliefs were not faced, but with that understanding it can facilitate improvements. Enough sleep is important when beginning, however, or of course he will simply want to sleep through. In the ordinary schedule he becomes tired and blue toward the end of the afternoon if he feels that he has not done enough work.

He has felt a love for wherever you lived, and an abiding love for you, but also some conflicts involving the housewifely chores and the writing. You help often, and have always done so, but he felt that because of the male-female relationship any help you gave was something he should be thankful for, that you were doing it out of the extra goodness of your heart—that he should not have to be grateful.

(11:30.) Give us time. A strong impeding belief is the one that the body could not any longer perform no matter what he did, and this largely was the result of a concentration upon negative aspects.

It served a purpose, showing him what his body was capable of, and raises the question of why he was not using it. In all this I must tell you however that you both do still concentrate upon the negative element, and ignore the power of anticipation and its values in changing beliefs.

Ruburt must assure himself that he can perform adequately physically, that this is physically possible, and then that he can do it while using his full abilities as a writer, as a creative person.

Now. The resistances are two. The most important one is that Ruburt must make a conscious effort not only to alter his habits but to handle what he thinks of now as distractions by conscious effort, the changing of a pattern, rather than by unconscious limitations on the body. So of course a dilemma is implied.

Beside this, when beginning such a venture, time must be allowed for the waking-sleep patterns to be adopted. The eating patterns also, and he will want to eat more. But such change represents at his level of behavior a definite attempt to substitute conscious alterations to seek the same ends.

Some resistance then can be expected. The method is important in that it is one alternate way, represents a conscious effort at solving the problem in a different way, and provides less stress while the preliminary beliefs are worked on. I will give you more on the preliminary beliefs. The important thing about them however is that Ruburt thought they were a proper method of achieving certain ends. He now realizes they were not; with your help other alternates can be used. Working together here (in Apartment 5) in the day is also one.

It also provides Ruburt however with constant stress, as he becomes consciously aware of other distractions, in his terms—physical wishes to do things that come in conflict with his staying at his table.

Before, he was even unaware of what he was blocking out—the desire to move, to wash a window, to go outdoors.

The procedure I suggested was simply meant as an intermediary, handy method that would allow him to realize he could handle the matter in other ways. The method of itself would also be illuminating enough in many areas to help release him from other beliefs. The effort required is considerable, in a way, yet the knowledge that he could make the effort would be important.

He does have a need for people, and for normal interactions, that is being inhibited. He is also still worried about you; should he suddenly decide he felt like going on a shopping expedition in the middle of the afternoon, what would your reaction be? You would not want to lose the time.