“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

If you doubted yourselves and feared for the basic goodness of your beings, Ruburt far more than you, then this doubt was still relative and not absolute. By the time you met, however, certain attitudes were already paramount, regardless of your diverse backgrounds.

Though Ruburt was a good-looking young woman, with much vitality, he had no children, and indeed had been determined not to, for writing was the overwhelming interest in his life. He also needed love, however. Though you were in your thirties, you had not married, and your sex life was rather controlled. You both had at that point decided not to concentrate upon family life. You had furthermore decided, and separately, before you met, to avoid conventional long-term relationships in the world of business. Neither of you wanted conventional jobs, regardless now of any prestige or security they might bring. In that regard you saw yourselves as like spirits. You believed in the importance of developing your own abilities, because those abilities so naturally manifested themselves as strong elements of your personalities.

I am describing attitudes. Years ago, when it looked—generally speaking, now: I am simplifying—as if you might be swallowed by Artistic, you rebelled and became ill. You made certain readjustments, the sessions began, time went on. You were not selling paintings to any considerable degree. Ruburt knew he would not take a full-time job either. You may sometimes forget now how vehement your joint ideas were in those years, against the ordinary individual’s prospect of working eight hours a day, year after year, in the same place, doing the same thing. So Ruburt added the necessity of money to his creative goals, in a strong fashion.

Your other attitudes, mentioned earlier, continued, and the more the world seemed to knock at your door, however gently, and the more the mail came, the more convinced you both became that your solitude must be protected. The attitudes mentioned belong to some extent to each of you. That is why, for example, you went along as long as you have with Ruburt’s condition. Neither of you liked it. To that extent, Ruburt does speak for both of you (as Jane said this noon), and in your own way both of you rewarded him for creative material, and withheld approval for any tendencies that ran counter to those mentioned attitudes.

When Ruburt really became worried about becoming pregnant, he simply stopped having his period, and that took care of that.

When, as time progressed, the need for constant decisions to speak here and there, to see thus and so, to do housework or write, or whatever, Ruburt simply began to cut down on the body’s availability to action, and he felt that that would take care of that.

You were each for some time relieved. These are patterns of attitudes of long standing, and at different times, as Ruburt improved, and new decisions came to mind, he backtracked, and you largely went along. With the continuation of the physical restraints other problems grew, and Ruburt would become frightened that his body could not indeed heal itself, and you feared the same. The past “failures” seemed indisputable evidence.

Now: Ruburt felt that you were more naturally disposed toward solitude and so forth, discipline, more naturally opposed to distractions than he was.

Your attitudes of course affect each other, so Ruburt looks to you for your reactions. He is somewhat afraid of mentioning any improvements, for fear either that you will not approve of them, or that you will, and then be disappointed on the following day. Your encouragement of his walking is excellent.

The soreness lately at night will pass, but as he sleeps this week the shoulder blades and rib cage and neck area have all been stretching. The sensations are one thing, and again the bodybuilder has his coach, but if Ruburt awakens sore, with you asleep, he can feel isolated.

I do not expect either of you to be saints, so certainly do not expect it of yourselves. If you hear Ruburt grunting, et cetera, try to recognize the event, and try to reassure him, when possible. That is important. On the other hand, he should begin to definitely tell you when he is feeling better, when he feels releases, so that that new evidence can begin to more effectively take over from the old.