“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Beneath all of the other issues and reasons at any given time, and perhaps the answer to your earlier voiced question, is the act that, more important than you realize, that for some time in vital areas you have not approved of yourselves. You have not had your own approval. An animal approves of itself unthinkingly. It certainly does not judge itself against any other animal. It knows quite well that some are stronger and some weaker, but it approves of its own uniqueness—glories in it, without having any other picture in its mind of what it should be. It has its own approval.

Ruburt believes he should be a TV personality, a healer, a writer, an excellent psychic versed in all of the most esoteric traditions, a magnetic personality. He believes he should be objectively intellectual, cool and calm, and spontaneous at the same time. He should be in glowing health—glowing—and shine amid the multitude. A rather impossible task, that would make any individual feel quite inferior by contrast.

You expect yourselves to be different people than you are—not appreciating at all the abilities and characteristics that you do possess, but forever weighing them against other abilities and characteristics that you have told yourselves you should possess.

Your achievements, singly and together, have not brought you the joy they should, because you think indeed that your achievements should lie elsewhere—or that, in the face of the selves you think you should be, your realized selves are almost shoddy versions. This disapproval erodes your attempts to change, Ruburt’s in particular.

When you do, however, you see results. You pick up each other’s negative moods, however, so you ride emotional storms. Ruburt does not feel he can properly see his way out. Your feelings of spontaneity and discipline go back and forth. Ruburt should stop telling himself that he does not want to see people. He may not want to have visitors at times. On other occasions he enjoys spontaneous encounters. The eye problem has to do, physically, with his present stance—the lack of balance between the two sides of his body, causing pressure on one side of the jaw, and the ear canal, which further aggravates the fullness in the sinus, hence affecting the eyes.

(“How is all of this hooked up with the walking difficulty?” By the question, I meant how has Jane’s walking difficulties through the years resulted from her feeling that she should be all those things Seth recounted at the start of this session—a TV personality, a great psychic, writer, and so forth. I didn’t make the question clear enough, so Seth answered it in more immediate terms—which is also valuable information, of course, that we can act upon. However, the original question remains, and I explained it to Jane after the session; she suggested I ask it again next time.)

That entire situation however “ideally” should have passed some time ago. Ruburt’s individual and your joint fears, however, prolong his tension, lengthening what should be a transitory period.

(10:28.) Give us a moment.... His feeling that his work pattern should be like yours makes him worry when he becomes very relaxed. The suggestions I gave you about suggestion fell short largely because at the same time you could not jointly find a position of calmness. It should be easy for you to see that when Ruburt was ready you were not, or vice versa.

It does not involve criticizing creative abilities of your own by comparing them to others that you think you should possess.

My last session was largely ignored by both of you, and yet in it there were important clues. Your own painting is growing despite your own ideas of what you think it should be. “Unknown” is a creative triumph despite your joint ideas of what that book should be.

Despite your joint ideas of what that book should be (emphatically).

Your feelings of hopelessness are your enemy. They must be encountered, not shoved under the rug. Often one could help the other, but when the feelings are not voiced they go underground. Ruburt should give himself so much time a day—an hour and a half, say—for free creative thought, writing or whatever that turns into poetry, painting? All right.