“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.

Give us a moment. Use that power that you have, and it is multiplied. Use the freedom that you have, and it is multiplied. You are, Joseph, now, able to see many of Ruburt’s negative concepts, but you are blind still to many of your own. The feeling and belief in freedom must come before its physical manifestation, and this regardless of any beliefs to the contrary.

Your life is not—and I repeat—not as limited as you believe it is. You are not using the freedoms that you have. These freedoms used, particularly in view of Ruburt’s literal-mindedness, would do much to weaken the beliefs in powerlessness that exist.

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.

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.

Before we get to your questions: if you want any more sessions from me on this matter, then each of you are to keep a list of any improvements you notice in Ruburt’s condition. You may not notice the same things. Your lists do not have to coincide, but you are each to keep such a list. Is that agreed upon?

(10:10.) You are both asking me for help, so I insist upon that list, and I also insist that each of you make an honest effort to stop structuring your present experience according to Ruburt’s symptoms, and as much as possible leave them out of your plans.

With Ruburt’s literal-mindedness, again, there is a big difference, a vital one, between freely imagining a trailer trip which then becomes a probable beneficial reality, and being told it will not work.

You do not understand the alterations in beliefs involved that even led him for example to think of that mobility, and how cleverly the idea of work and mobility were combined, or the attempt at correlation involved. The same applies to the karate body image, its significance escaping both of you largely, where Ruburt was seeing himself with a body image combining power, agility, and weight.

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.

When you imagine trips or any physical activity and carry them out, you are concentrating upon freedom, not limitations, and then you have those freedoms to build upon. Now with the tooth difficulty Ruburt did this, in his literal manner, while working with the preliminary beliefs at the same time.

In the nighttime or early morning there is no distraction from the outside so at that level you lessen the stress, and Ruburt is freer. As long as you are working with primary beliefs this can be an excellent method of accelerating advances while reducing stress.

Now some of this is connected with ideas of sex in earlier years, adolescence. If a male writer or artist had to work to develop his abilities, then a woman had to work twice as hard. You also picked of course a woman you knew would not want children, but Ruburt felt a division between his biological nature and his art back then.

That is why any physical achievements are important. You are correct, however. The badminton was dropped because it succeeded so well—but also because Ruburt was not able then to face the dilemma between the accelerated motion in the game and the slow motion otherwise.

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.

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.