“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Those beliefs paint a dire picture, in which any given situation is bound to deteriorate. Any conceivable illness will worsen, and any possible catastrophe be encountered.

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.

This retreat from pleasure begins to cut down upon normal activity, new encounters, or explorations that might in themselves help relieve the problem by opening up new options. Such a person becomes dejected looking — unsmiling and somber, leading others to comment upon such a dejected countenance. Comments such as these: “You look tired,” or: “What’s the matter, don’t you feel well?” and other such remarks often simply reinforce the individual’s earlier sense of dejection, until finally this same kind of give-and-take leads to a situation in which the individual and his fellows begin to intermix in a negative rather than a positive manner.