“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(10:l4.) The benefits of such distractions do indeed, I admit, seem quite invisible to you, and in your joint experiences they often appear simply as nuisances. Therefore, you are hardly ever able to follow them through so that you can connect any particular insight or auspicious event with the “originating” distraction. I can quite honestly compare such distractions with, say, the distracting thought that might take you from a familiar train of thought into another new mental territory. The distracting elements are exaggerated, however, because of your joint misunderstandings on the subject. The visitors, for example, are not numerous. In many cases, however, the contact alone opens up different aspects of your own consciousness in response. It is almost as if you were able to look at our material from your own viewpoint, and yet at other levels to perceive it from your visitors’ viewpoints. That adds to the richness of the material, for you bring to the sessions not only your own experience, but the sensed experience of others.

With a changed attitude, however, you will be able to follow those distractions’ “transformations”—that is, you will be able to glimpse how this distraction ends up in that insight, or how that distraction actually initiated a beneficial event, when in the past, everything seemed unrelated. Events fit into each other. They are composed of a psychological thickness.

I have a suggestion. It cannot harm either of you to try it, and it is this: try to take it for granted that distractions have a meaning in Framework 2 that is not as yet obvious in Framework 1. Oftentimes events that seem distracting, annoying, or that happen out of context, actually are parts of other patterns, larger ones that are part of Framework 2 activity. I gave you one example that you understood clearly, when I spoke about the individual who wanted to catch a plane. All of his plans went wrong. His efforts seemed to be challenged at every turn. He was beset by difficulties. He missed his plane—the plane crashed.

Ruburt fears that if he were suddenly better he would add to your distractions, so when distractions seem threatening to you he emphasizes the symptoms: if he were better, would you want him to do all the chores? So your ideas about distractions intertwine. [...] All of this because distractions, so to speak, are considered threats. [...]

[...] You spend four times as much time worrying about the distractions as the so-called distractions themselves actually take. [...] You imagine future distractions, yet when Ruburt projects his symptoms into the future, you see clearly his error—though he may not.

[...] When you concentrate upon the limitations and the distractions, then they multiply. [...]

[...] He interprets your remarks therefore as aimed against distractions in general, recognizing your symbolism, and this makes him uneasy because in his own life he has taken the steps he has to cut down distractions.

[...] Such courses would also represent distractions to you. He thought you hated distractions, and for a period of time he felt that you thought him one.

[...] Though your particular interpretations of distractions may vary, to him the noise itself, for example, is not so charged. But quite rightly he recognizes the noise as your symbol for distraction. [...]

[...] He tried to escape from DISTRACTIONS—in capital letters—in a black-and-white fashion, making no distinctions at all. For a while anything that was not writing was a distraction.

Living each day at a time, you respond to the present, and you need not in one day protect yourself from a lifetime of projected distractions or threats to your time that must, in your day, be imaginary, since they are probable events from the future.

Distractions can be easily dealt with, as they occur, by making conscious decisions. [...]

You then begin to anticipate further distractions. When a so-called distraction at one time is welcomed at another time, then obviously it is no distraction, but expresses a need. [...]

To some extent you do not trust your own creativity enough, but think that it is so weak that it will be destroyed or dissipated by the slightest distraction. [...]

The few distractions of any vital nature then can be handled. [...]

[...] Ruburt always concentrated in his own way upon one challenge at a time, boring in, so to speak, and ignoring anything else that might distract him.

He wanted to write, to use his creative and psychic abilities to the fullest, and so he cut down all distractions. [...]

Yet when he improved he felt that he did not want those “new distractions,” and so the power of his will still kept the body down. [...]

He went to an extreme (intently), cutting out physical distractions because he believed that he had to. [...]

[...] His problem, the artificial dilemma that exists in the daylight hours as to how to spend the time, and the fear that ordinary distractions will take him from his work. [...]

[...] Such a situation automatically provides no distractions and a resulting lack of stress. [...]

[...] The ordinary distractions of life immediately then cause conflict. On the one hand, they are living, these distractions. [...]

[...] Distractions may occur, but you can deal with them if your attitudes are clear, and if you see that overall you are doing what you want. Then any distractions will not be that important.

Now obviously, if you cut down distractions, or all experiences, there would be little left to enjoy or examine. [...]

[...] If you do that, then distractions will seem to minimize almost immediately. Not only will you react to them differently, but the distractions themselves will vanish in a considerable manner. For one thing, your focus will automatically serve as a new point of organization in your own lives, so that you will automatically begin to sidestep many distractions of your own making. [...]

[...] This bothers both of you considerably, so that Ruburt in particular will anticipate distractions a week in advance.

[...] You could not paint freely in it, for you were so on guard against distractions that anything could distract you.

Ruburt used his body as a symbol of the entire situation, and the symptoms as a way of maintaining privacy, and lack of distraction on both of your parts—again, inhibiting sexual freedom, spontaneous outings that threatened both of your ideas. [...]

[...] Inquiries for help, to both of you, represented distractions, those who would take your time, in the old terms, and give nothing.

Distractions, or fear of distractions, have their own reality, and set up strongly positive electrical charges which can be detrimental, although other conditions, chemical and electrical conditions, must also be considered. [...]

[...] She was aware that the material was good, yet at the same time she felt annoyed and distracted. [...]

[...] In these communications, therefore, Ruburt’s consciousness expands, and yet focuses in a different dimension, a dimension between his reality and mine, a field relatively free of distraction. [...]

[...] Distractions can occur, as any information can be distorted. [...]

[...] Not being fully mobile has given him a built-in excuse to avoid distractions. You both thought of anything not work as distraction. [...]

[...] You cut out everything else — other people would cause you to pick up on them, or be distracting….”

[...] This is simply because there are less psychic distractions, and it is easier for Ruburt to focus into one clear channel.

[...] It is difficult for Ruburt to block out these additional psychic distractions…. [...]

The phone represented distractions. [...]

[...] If that moment has distracting, unfavorable aspects, then resolutely bring into your mind whatever images delight or please you at the moment. [...]

[...] The voice may be so frequent that it becomes highly distracting, or it may only appear in times of undue stress.

[...] He decided not to be distracted even by the public, or by public issues. [...] He does not need to fear that he will be distracted. [...]

[...] This is simply because there are less psychic distractions, and it is easier to focus into one clear channel.

[...] It is difficult for Ruburt to block out these additional psychic distractions.

[...] He was doing very well in having to deal with such distractions when you commented about the reincarnational material. [...]

[...] Then, still kept symptoms to guard against distractions, etc. [...]

[...] Jane:] Part of me feels that the symptoms are an acceptable even ingenious way of seeing that distractions are cut to a minimum; to focus my abilities, like a kid getting a cold to stay in, but more sophisticated, cuts through the necessity for explanations, etc. [...] Extraordinary talent takes extraordinary discipline, and the symptoms can be used against any distraction.

Now both of you have to some extent the false belief that you must protect your abilities against the world and its values, and distractions. [...]

How many distractions do you honestly feel are automatically cut out because of Ruburt’s condition? [...]