“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Such alternative reactions frighten the ego because they seem to injure the ego’s self-image. Yet all characteristic reactions, whether denied by the ego or not, are kept for use as alternative actions. In many cases actions unacceptable to the ego may be precisely those actions that are necessary for whole other areas of the personality. When too many actions are restricted by the ego, they may begin to form impulse patterns or groupings of various rejected impulses. These then adhere through attraction, and attempt to find expression regardless of the ego’s attempts to restrict expression.

The ego must act therefore as a director of activity in the personality’s relationships with the physical environment. The ego is concerned with purposeful action. However when the ego is too restrictive its conception of purposeful action becomes so narrow that many legitimate and necessary impulses are dammed up, forming these rejected action patterns.

As the number of rejected impulses grows, more and more energy is of course concentrated in this area, the energy that is inherent within the impulses themselves. This sort of grouping together of rejected impulses will occur mainly when the ego’s restrictions are too severe, so hampering that very deep and basic needs of the whole personality are being denied expression. It is therefore for the benefit of the whole personality that these impulses be given expression.

When the ego is a very rigid one however, it will not accept the reality of these rejected patterns so easily, and according to the nature of its rigidity it may restrict so many areas of activity that the inside action, or the inside impetus for expression, almost equally balances the ego force itself.

This restriction will show in all areas of your work if you do not break it, and you can do so. Its effects literally color all of your painting activities, and serve to reinforce the restrictions of an emotional nature. [...]

[...] It will no longer be as restrictive. [...]

[...] This serves to tighten you up and overwhelm you with a sense of desperation at times, and is highly restricted.

[...] This restricts you in two main ways.

[...] Such a feeling, recognized, can also serve—as it did serve the woman’s mother—as a critical point of recognition that the desire to die was triggered not so much (long pause) by the feeling of life’s completion as by the fact that the individual had set up too many restrictions in life itself—restrictions that were severely cutting back its own possibilities of value fulfillment, or future effective action. [...] The person recognizes the restrictions and changes his or her ways accordingly, opening the doorway not into death but to further life and action in this space and time. [...]

Now these are powerful and “magical” statements, and as Ruburt made them mentally he could psychologically feel his agreement with any given one, and also the degree with which in the past he had not wholeheartedly accepted those abilities, but had set up certain restrictions about them—so a new flash in communication was set up, and new recognition came into his conscious mind. [...]

[...] The woman who had cancer and was cured gave up the restrictions she had placed about her life. [...]

In Ruburt’s case, he began with a group of ideas and beliefs that only became restrictive when carried to extremes. (See the 645th session in Chapter Eleven.) In your own experiences, many of you may find yourselves concentrating upon certain areas of activity with such energy that you ignore others, considering them restrictions.

[...] This afternoon, and at various times, he has been able to isolate certain series of thoughts and feelings, and identify them as restrictive. [...] These patterns lead quite predictably to moods of powerlessness and restriction.

[...] They are, as Nebene’s were, the result of a comparatively narrow, rigid focus, conscientiously embarked upon, and carried the same kind of restrictive “holy cause” charge.

[...] The restrictions were thought to be ways of protecting creativity and ability.

[...] The other diets you have been discussing are indeed restrictive (as I had said earlier), particularly for general purposes. Special diets, at particular times, restricted ones, can be of benefit in certain specialized areas of development, but there is always the danger of going overboard.

[...] Everything was working, but in a very restricted fashion as far as locomotion was concerned. [...]

[...] The entire head and neck area was restricted. [...]

[...] I want to stress that Ruburt’s body is responding remarkably well, and that it is not a matter of operating better in a restricted posture, but a much more significant response, in which the body is, quite simply, straightening itself out. [...]

[...] Anyhow—by Sunday evening the whole head, neck, eye, ear, area quite improved in motion; moves faster, those ligaments more resilient, and the motion though restricted, I’d say, near normal. [...]

[...] To some extent you are using the energy crisis, each of you, to cut down on your extra-curricular activities—not to be good citizens, though that is in your minds, as much as the fact that the restriction on travel fits so in with your predispositions. [...]

[...] What he is becoming aware of clearly and consciously is the residue, the checks and balances, that he has been using to restrict physical activity.

I told you that he was ready for a giant (underlined) improvement, and a necessary requirement was and is his recognition of the impulses that he has been denying or restricting. [...]

At the risk of repeating myself, your in quotes “role” to one extent was restrictive in the sexual and emotional area; you were the one who drew the line. It was partially a distorted, unconscious understanding of this that led Ruburt to the exaggerated projection of that restrictive role to those other areas of your life.

[...] So he began to build up restrictive tendencies of his own. [...]

[...] You became annoyed at him, wondering why the spontaneous woman had suddenly turned so restrictive. [...]

The cautions are natural enough under the restrictions man usually places upon consciousness. [...]

[...] Your creative endeavors have brought you good rewards (long pause) in more areas than you realize, but part of your account was in an ordinary savings structure so that you were, in those areas, somewhat restricted—and restricted by Framework 1’s largely trial-and-error framework. [...]

[...] It is not restricted to one three-dimensional lifetime, nor is it restricted to three-dimensional existence alone.

[...] Faith does not restrict itself to one area, but shows it effects in all portions of your life.

[...] The same person, years older, may find that the identical belief has been held too long, so that it denies very important emotional give-and-take with contemporaries, or becomes restrictive in other ways.

(Pause at 10:48.) A young mother may believe that her child is even more important than her husband, and according to the circumstances this belief may help her pay the necessary attention to the child — but if the concept is held as the child grows older, then this can also become highly restrictive. [...]

[...] Therefore it chose a highly restrictive early environment. [...]

[...] The purpose however was two-fold again, the development of an environment in which controls would be there: the symptoms taking the place in this case of the mother’s restrictive presence, and the comparative isolation in the house, the comparative solitude that he felt was necessary then for the emergence of the creative abilities—both of these you see existing in the child environment.

[...] He should be on the alert for restrictive statements, vocal or mental—I can’t, for example; I’d better go slowly; or mental pictures of that nature. [...]

[...] Ruburt was not aware of it, specifically, as he began to limit, say, the range of the eyes’ motions, for that happened inconspicuously enough as the head motions were restricted. [...]

Television, oddly enough, provides for many people an opportunity to leap over restrictive categories, and to identify in other ways, perhaps, than they would otherwise. [...]

[...] In one more or less habitual position a few months ago, Ruburt could walk and move his head in a restricted way. [...]

(I asked Jane if she thought the sessions served as a balance to those sinful-self, very restrictive ideas — that when she gave up on the sessions that other self was free to exert its power and beliefs. [...]