“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This is more or less what I was getting, and told Rob, though I’ve probably forgotten some things. That Rob was having a “body vacation” or that his body was taking a vacation, a rest; and that the contrast between his floppy state and his usual one would let him know how tight he’d been.... Something about us not taking vacations….and even not wanting to rest between mental creative projects; that Rob had his stomach troubles when he needed a rest....a vacation of some sort could have prevented that....but since we prefer to do things differently, we should frequently arrange changes in our lives....that we control....changes in the house, routine, hours....or even a week off to do the house or yard or whatever.... The mind wears the body out sometimes....and then the body sends signals of distress....

(I insisted I could take notes okay, even as the feeling deepened. The malaise became more profound. I didn’t feel like writing the notes I wanted to about what was happening. Indeed, I didn’t even feel like taking the cap off the pen. The sensations were extremely pleasant—and heavy, yet looser and looser. My eyes closed. I sat motionless for minutes at a time, bathing in a most beneficial, relaxed state. It was actually one I’d been trying to approximate ever since I’d begun to feel bad after finishing checking all the page proofs for the books we have coming out this year. But when I’d told myself I wanted to relax, I’d had no idea such a profound state could be obtained. I had approached it in a casual way through self-hypnosis: the same lax, heavy looseness in the limbs when I made the effort to move. I savored the experience now because I felt at a deep peace and my body was almost free of aches and pains. But at the same time I wanted to know more.

(My state persisted—so much so that I felt like a long-distance runner nearing the finish line. I was engaged in a contest to see if I could help Jane get ready for bed, set the alarm and the electric blanket, turn out the bedroom lights and open the curtains and a window—all before I gave out in a heap on the bed. Indeed, I lost my balance twice while helping Jane undress, and each time collapsed on the bed beside her, to her evident concern. Nor were those episodes painless, for in one of them I put an unnatural strain on the deltoid muscle in my right shoulder. [I’d injured the shoulder last summer while pulling on the starting cord for the lawn mower; it’s bothered me ever since, although not steadily.] The pain was intense, although not as bad when I’d first hurt the muscle. I struggled to rouse myself enough so I could take pressure off the arm; I was afraid I’d re-injured it. So even in that state of deep relaxation, in which I could move only with effort and concentration, I learned something that I fully realized at the time: Even though I was far out on a “trip” of some sort, I could still feel pain. My muscles weren’t magically healing themselves, nor was I undergoing any kind of overall healing that might confound my own beliefs, or those of medical science. Not that I’d thought I was....

(But nevertheless, I knew I was having a most beneficial experience, and one that might very well head off other, deeper troubles. This I understood quite clearly. I believed Jane-Seth’s material about my being on a “body vacation.” It was impossible for me not to believe it, considering that I’d felt so poorly since early in the month, and that I was so much better right now. I just hoped more beneficial results would flow from the experience, and I was appalled that I’d been that badly off, that “tight,” so that my body greatly needed such a drastic kind of relief.

On the one hand, you pursued your version of what was expected of you. You went to school, became a commercial artist, and did very well at it. Now you liked that work, Joseph – not only because of the art, but because of the communication that was involved. Particularly when you drew animals, you could use them as symbols for noble virtues, but in any case it was the means of communication, a communication that to some extent could bridge the particular emotional troubles people might be having at any given time.

At a certain point your body does not care. It relaxes you anyway. Now Ruburt has much slighter versions, in which, say, daily or weekly tensions no longer collect as they did, which allows him some physical improvement—but he also feels that if he really relaxed he would only do the dishes or whatever. The world would hardly fall in if neither of you did anything for several days. The relaxed body, however, the truly relaxed body, can physically perform of course far better than the tense one.