“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

[...] It all seemed to be so self-defeating that I had trouble visualizing what other portions of the personality might be getting out of it. [...]

[...] We do not want for example a desperate attempt to run, which is self-defeating. [...]

[...] A sense of defeat is connected with the railings. [...]

[...] “Does the Sinful Self have any conception that its policies have now become self-defeating?”

[...] (Pause.) By changing the names of objects you automatically look at them in a new fashion, yet certainly all objects will not be given names, for this would defeat our purpose. [...]

Though caught up in a life of seeming frustration, obsessed with family problems, uneasy in sickness, defeated it seems for all practical purposes, some portion of each individual rouses against all disasters, all discouragements, and now and then at least glimpses a sense of enduring validity that cannot be denied. [...]

[...] He makes them a combat zone: his will versus his symptoms, and this defeats his purpose.

But then the flesh knew it was flesh,
And howled out its defeat,
And I was flamed to life
By vulnerability.

[...] To me, her opacity toward her fantastic abuse of her own body speaks loudly and clearly of the dominance of the sinful self—the willingness to use the body for its own ends, regardless of the consequences, even if those consequences ultimately are self-defeating.)

[...] By the denial of hope and the inhibition of joyful emotions he tried to protect himself against disappointment or defeat.

[...] The triumphs and defeats of any given day have more or less vanished, but those nightly hours are somehow contained in these pages, and to that extent they endure.

[...] Otherwise, I said, the whole process becomes self-defeating not only for the conscious portions of the personality, but for the very body itself. [...]

[...] He felt that any success of his that was not matched by you pulled you down in your parents’ eyes, and was therefore part victory and part defeat. [...]

[...] You said, at that time, it was a kind of self-defeating attitude, and it would have been much more beneficial for him to utilize his energy in striking some kind of an inanimate object or running up and down the road.”)

[...] Any attempt at rigidity is therefore defeating.

You would be grateful then when Ruburt did originate such a crisis, simply because the pressure behind the repressed feelings was more painful then, so that it was defeating its own purpose. [...]

[...] On certain levels, it was the gesture of defeat that brought triumph and survival. [...]

[...] A very capable mayor who had been in office for some time was defeated. [...]

[...] Or if you dare test it, your fears will defeat you, and only serve to convince you further of this inefficiency.

[...] It doesn’t seem right, or natural, that an individual might have to spend say fifty years suffering in life for things that happened to him when he was a child, say; I don’t think nature would arrange things that way—it’s too self-defeating....” [...]