“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Such beliefs discourage feelings of curiosity, joy, or wonder. They inhibit playful activity or spontaneous behavior. They cause a physical situation in which the body is placed in a state of defensive aggression. Under such conditions it seems only rational to look for the worm in the apple, so to speak, and to expect pain or danger in each new experience or encounter.

I do not mean to imply that it is always detrimental to make such queries as “Are you ill?” or “Are you tired?” Such questions do indeed predict their own answers. When a person is feeling in good health, exuberant and alive, such queries will be nonchalantly shoved aside — they will have no effect whatsoever. But constant questions of such a nature do not help an individual who is having difficulties — and in fact too frequent expressions of compassion can also worsen a person’s state of mind, stressing the idea that he or she must be very ill indeed to attract such feelings of compassion. It is far better, then, to make no comment at all under such conditions. (Long pause.) I am not speaking of genuine questions of concern so much as rather automatic, unthinking, negative comments. Period.