Realizing You Are Not Alone, Grounding, Stepping Away From Anger And Building On Previous Successes
Tuesday April 1, 2008
8:25 P.M.
Seth… Good evening.
Group… Good evening.
Seth… A pleasure to have all of you here this evening. We shall not wait for our tardy individual. A little bit of housekeeping that we must go through. We will start off with our friend Frank: One of the things that for you should be quite disturbing is the concept of becoming enmeshed in techniques. One of the ideas that you routinely do is to force feed if you will a great deal of my information to some of your patients and in doing so you have a great tendency to not help them. Now let me explain this in a slightly different manner that you can understand. You have been coming here for approximately?
Frank… Nine years.
Seth… So now you’ve been here for nine years, and I have been very careful on all aspects of every word that I have uttered towards you or anyone else who has been in this group. Each step builds upon something else, and this information is vitally important for all, either a reader, or someone who sits around the table. So that when you use information here you take away a person’s immediate level of understanding because they are not ready for a great deal of this information since they have not been prepared for it. In other words when you have a client who you are dealing with their talking about themselves and although my information may be exceptionally valuable to them you start, you will excuse the expression, rattling off information and points where they are not ready to hear this. So, you end up losing their ability to function with you because they look at you as a person who is just giving information who is not listening to them. Do you understand?
Frank… Em hmm.
Seth… And what you must do is pay more attention to them and less attention to me. Not that my words are not valuable, but you can work them in, in a much different manner than you do. And that is something that I believe is mandatory for your own health, well-being, and prosperity. Do you understand?
Frank… I do.
Seth… That takes care of that little bit of housekeeping. Second bit of housekeeping concerns you, Isabella. You will note that in my earlier discussion with you today you through me had an idea of how you define yourself. An incident happened at tonight’s dinner where you had great difficulty in understanding what was going on. Now this is due to the fact that one, you were defining yourself in an improper manner. Second, not only were you defining yourself in an improper manner you were worried how someone else will judge you. Now I am not saying of course that that should be mean or disrespectful to anyone by any means, but you are being mean and disrespectful to a very important person and that of course is yourself. So, you must redefine yourself not in terms of anyone else whether it be male or female or anything. You must define yourself in terms of what and who and what you are. For you and we will get into this later you are not grounded, you are too flighty. And therefore, your tendency here is to react as a lonely individual and if you will read last week’s (session) and I will start covering that in a few more minutes.
Isabella… Is that a learned behavior? Or…
Seth… Well, it is what you do with yourself. You have to unlearn that behavior.
Isabella… How could I…
Seth… If you are a confident individual and somebody…
Isabella… Cancelled.
Seth… gave you message, whatever the message was. I am going to change this or whatever you could have said…
Isabella… Okay.
Seth… That’s it but you didn’t do that. You wrote that but you didn’t do that at all. You’ll excuse the expression here, you were churning; you were trying to redefine yourself in terms of this position. Do you understand?
Lastly Jasmine, again you have a great tendency here to put yourself into inferior positions, whether it be with your son Douglas, whether it be with Isabella or your sister or your mother or anyone else because this is how you define you. And again, one must never become fearful and again that is part of grounding one’s self, and we will touch with this in a few moments. One must never become fearful of what! When you do not know and have no concept of how another will react your tendency is to become overwhelming concerned with the what.
Jasmine… What if? What will happen?
Seth… You are in the process of defining yourself as what you are not. Do you understand this so far? That is your basic premise here.
Jasmine… In general?
Seth… In general. Now in defining yourself as what you are not you routinely define yourself as the fact that you are not content, or you are not happy. You are not! And when you define yourself in that respect then you are not of course satisfied or happy or content. And because you define yourself as not satisfied, happy or content then of course you are not. So, your object here is to redefine yourself into something you would choose to become. Well, I am not going to define myself as something that I am meaning not happy, not content and you are a worrier. So, if you redefine yourself as something you are not you will become happy, you will become content, you will become satisfied. Do you understand this?
Jasmine… Redefine myself as something…
Seth… That you are presently not. Are you routinely happy?
Jasmine… No.
Seth… Are you routinely content?
Jasmine… No.
Seth… So that is what you are.
Jasmine… Yeah.
Seth… So, if you change your perspective and redefine yourself as what you are not that means you will be happy and you will be content etc. Do you understand this?
Jasmine… Meaning I am not…
Seth… If…
Jasmine… I am not sad. I am not miserable.
Seth… You are not worrisome. You are not.
Jasmine… That’s how I should define myself?
Seth… As something that you are not. If you are something and are not content with it? Do you understand?… Do you follow me?
Jasmine… Em.
Seth… And I think that is the key here that you must do.
That being given, first are there any questions from last week’s ideas and lecture about loneliness and being alone?
Isabella… How do you… when you are at a point and you are feeling unloved, it says when you do not feel loved you are making yourself feel lonely.
Seth… Correct.
Isabella… So how do you go about not feeling unloved?
Seth… By asking yourself a simple question, first is it true?
Isabella… No.
Seth… Why go further?
See how simple things become when you define yourself in specific ways. Just as Jasmine has to redefine herself from what she is to what she is not and that would be profitable for her.
Isabella… Em hmm.
Seth… So, someone who feels that they are unworthy, unloved, unlikable must redefine themselves by simply asking a question. Am I not loved? The answer is of course I am loved. So, you don’t have to go too much further, do you?
In our aspect of Change, one tends to be moved from their center spot because they don’t ground themselves in reality as it is. There is a great temptation for want within all souls who inhabit the physical plane. I want a better job. I want to be happy. I want to be prosperous. I want to be loved. I want to be not left alone. I want to be able to help others. The difficulty here is that none of these statements first grounds you and second of all allow you to change your viewpoint. Fear which governs those statements literally pushes one away from attaining that which you desire. Just as I explained to our friend Frank, his desire to help causes him to become mired down in the technique of instead of allowing himself and his clients to create properly. Just as our compatriot Kaetorina years ago tried to force feed, yes, I use things again, force feed a patient information that caused the patient to run because she became invested in the idea. One must place themselves always at the greatest point of power which obviously is now the present. And in doing so you will look at that which surrounds you with different eyes. The fear of not attaining something often is a camouflage unit if you will that causes individuals to move away from that which they actually require. To move away from what they obviously require. A clear example of this is seen when an individual becomes so engrossed with another’s actions that our first individual literally takes on the attributes and problems of the other. You cannot ever force yourself to become another, which is what our individual does here. Fear…
Stephanie… Control the situation?
Seth… They choose… let me finish. They fear that the other will not become so strong that our first individual believes that unless they take on the difficulties of another the other will not be able to succeed on their own. Examples here abound, the idea of a stage mother or father who is so invested in their child’s “career” often acts as a stumbling block if you will for the child themselves. Note here that I am not stating that one should not be concerned about another. It is what you do with your ideas that matter. How often is it that when you as an individual becomes so enraptured with another’s play that you become literally fearful and then angry when the other individual does not live up to your expectations? Statements such as: “Why didn’t you listen to me? I’m older I know better. Can’t you just understand that I have your best interest at heart. Just do it my way; you’ll see.” Statements such as these are annoying and anger producing, both to the individual who is listening to them and to the soul who utters them. One must obviously step away from their anger. The anger is produced when you view the other as not listening to you therefore you erroneously believe that you are lonely and alone. You are pushed off center out of fear for the other as well as yourself.
Frank… Say that again.
Jasmine… Pushed off center, fear for other?
Seth… For fear for about the other as well as for yourself. Give us a moment. (There is a pause as Seth is researching which is always interesting to observe as Jerry’s head moves back and forth quickly as if reading.) Your dis-ease if you will, your anger is a manifestation of your perception of being alone. “How could you not listen to me?” You are not grounded. You are being tossed by events that are obviously not under your control.
It should be noted here that your anger is first unreasonable and second destructive to all those around. I am sure our therapists in the group have noticed that when their patients are angry, they are not centered and at times make little sense. Each of you must learn to build upon what you have already succeeded in doing. It is the successful individual who uses their success to promote that which they require. Just as a teacher builds upon his/her student’s ability and encourages a transformation within each individual so must you encourage a transformation within yourself. If you are not something that you enjoy then you build upon your successes, meaning past successes and change that which you are into something that you can easily maintain. The grounded individual maintains himself/herself by fostering success.
If there is something that you do not like about your past, you use your present to change your past so that your future road moves in a different direction. If you are always a victim of others, what purpose does it serve for you to maintain that viewpoint? If you define yourself in ways that do not promote you, question them. You will note that fear is overwhelmingly responsible for the not doing of anything. It is far too easy for you to attempt to maintain the status quo. “I’ll allow that to happen. Why argue with this?” These actions and reactions to events obstruct your growth and development. It is obvious now that you can never truly be alone, yet most individuals fervently try to be alone. “Don’t bother me. I’ll work it out myself. It’s okay. I know I can do it.” These are but a few of the statements that individuals make that prevent change itself. You become so embroiled in the idea of not accomplishing something that you don’t. Each of you must make an effort to move yourself out of your own habitual nature of doing something. You will find that when you are angry or bothered you tend to repeat the way in which you view and do an event over and over again. You do it over and over again because you are not allowing yourself room for growth. Your judgment is actually warped. These ideas prevent change. When you maintain that which is, you are in reality telling yourself you are not! Build upon that which you are. Do not engage another’s play and make it your own. Define yourself in the highest and most noble ideas that you can and do this as often as necessary so that you believe you are what you desire to be. I believe at this point we shall take a break.
(9:07 P.M.)
Let us move along. Are there any questions? (There was laughter and group banter with Seth saying something to Jasmine about not becoming overwhelmingly happy. This seemed related to the discussion at break which is not on tape.)
George… Could you talk a little bit more about how you use…
Seth… Speak loudly and slowly and distinctly, please.
George… Could you elaborate a little more about how you use, go about using your previous successes to promote yourself without being egotistical?
Seth… First you must understand what success is for yourself. And I believe that is a vital factor with anyone. Now, it is never a question of being egotistical if you are promoting yourself to yourself. I am not saying you would say to someone see how good I am. See what I did. See what I have accomplished. That may be looked at by others in a nonprofitable way for you. But let us assume for example that you have enjoyed success in terms of a surgery or a type of surgery that you have done. Are you with me so far?
George… Yes.
Seth… Now, if you enjoy that type of surgery you will build upon the idea of this type of surgery, I would like to promote for myself, and you will look for instances where you can use your skills to promote yourself in that situation. It is the same thing that any student has when they have a success in school. A good parent and certainly a good teacher will say, “Do you remember how you did on this subject matter? You applied yourself. You found it interesting.” So, you are going to use that as a building block to keep on going. It is the keeping on going that tends to give you a sense of direction. Do you understand? So, if you understand that you will promote yourself so you may change what you do not enjoy or do not like into something that you find favorable. For example, if you did not like for example doing surgeries on let us say birds. You may be very capable of doing it but if you don’t like it you will tend not to promote yourself to do that. Do you understand? Does this make more sense to you now?
George… Yes.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Frank… Can you give a good example of grounding one’s self in reality?
Seth… Yes, it is very simple. Don’t do what our friend Frank does. April fools to you. (Stephanie giggled.)
When one grounds themselves in reality one has to be cognizant of what’s going on. Your vision cannot be narrowed, it has to be expanded. And by expanding your sense of, you ground yourself, you are not distracted. You are using what was to promote what is to promote what will be. Do you understand? (Frank said something about writing it down.)
Do you understand?
Frank… Yeah, you’re recognizing what the, you are recognizing reality, what it was, not fooling yourself.
Seth… Correct. And since you are not fooling yourself as you just said you are able to change and make changes with ease.
Are there any other questions?
Stephanie… Where you said that the fear of not attaining something is often a camouflage unit, what are you talking about attaining? Are you talking about the want of whatever it is?
Seth… Read the statement itself again.
Stephanie… The fear of not attaining something is often a camouflage unit that causes individuals to move away from that which they actually obviously require.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… The fear of not attaining something?
Seth… It is if I go ahead and lose weight.
Stephanie… Okay.
Seth… But the fear of losing weight will people still like me. Will people still deal with me? Will I be looked at differently? Therefore, I can’t lose weight because it will make too many changes around me. So, the fear of not prevents you from doing what you would like to do.
Stephanie… If you are not dealing with the changes.
Seth… Correct. Do you understand now?
Jasmine… You’re having to deal with the changes.
Seth… Same thing. Do you understand?
Stephanie… Yeah.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
George… Could you talk about the statement that people will say, when you are trying to do things along with the say I can do it myself? How does that prevent you from accomplishing that which you are trying to?
Seth… If you say, I will do this by myself! You rule out everyone else.
Jasmine… From helping you?
Seth… Of course, you become alone. You understand?
Jasmine… You isolate yourself from others.
Seth… You are isolating yourself even from yourself. It is a refusal to seek assistance.
George… Was it wrong to think that you don’t need assistance?
Seth… It is always incorrect to believe that you are alone. (I believe George is repeating his question for Jasmine.)
It is always wrong to believe that you are alone.
George… But if you feel you can do something?
Seth… Doing something and accomplishing it successfully whether you have help or not is one thing. But to make a statement, “I will do this by myself!” is detrimental. Because no matter what it is, are you better off with some sort of assistance or being alone even if you can?
George… Always better for… (being open to the idea of assistance.)
Seth… It’s al… you are correct, it is always better with others. Since you are part of a mass consciousness. Do you understand?
Are there any other questions?
Frank… Just bouncing off of that; so, the idea is even if you are doing it alone others are available. Just the fact that you are saying, no I’ll do it alone…
Seth… Once you isolate yourself you are not grounded.
Frank… It’s also a camouflage?
Seth… Always.
Frank… No, I’ll do it alone?
Seth… It’s fear that someone else may criticize you in a manner you don’t like.
Frank… Or other reasons, no?
Seth… There are many, I just use that as an example.
Frank… Okay.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Stephanie… Let me just ask when you’re talking about the person who enmeshes themselves in someone else’s play and you said, “Your dis-ease is a manifestation of your perception of “being alone”, how could you not listen to me?” You’re not, you know then you’re not grounded. Is that for anybody who tries to do this or do they have a prior issue with being alone…
Seth… Both.
Stephanie… to come up with?
Seth… It matters not.
Stephanie… Uh huh. So just the idea that anyone who promotes this idea of wanting someone to listen to them; if they don’t, they are going to feel alone?
Seth… Of course.
Jasmine… If they are not listened to, they feel alone or they don’t do that.
Stephanie… If you are imposing yourself on another…
Jasmine… Yeah.
Stephanie… And they don’t want to have any part of that you end up feeling alone. That’s a concept I never really, I mean obviously, I never thought of that outcome in that situation.
Seth… Well look at it from a different standpoint. Let us assume that you are dealing with someone, use your husband as an example.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… And you say to him, listen this is how I would do this. I would ask for a raise. I would insist upon this, this, this. You are now enmeshing yourself in his play.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… And if he then says to you, I am not going to pay attention to you. I don’t think you are at all correct. How does that make you feel?
Stephanie… Right, you feel… alone.
Seth… Alone!
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… You have your answer. Whether he’s correct or not matters not. For you have now pushed yourself into a position where they don’t listen to you, you feel empty.
Stephanie… Right and people don’t realize this is a phenomenon that goes on all the time.
Seth… All the time.
Stephanie… Right, that’s why imposing self on another in any way would put them in a position to perhaps be a victim…
Seth… Would it not be better in my example to you, let us assume you wanted to again speak to your husband about getting a raise, getting a better job? Say, I understand that you are doing your best you can here. But do you really think that they are adequately compensating you for what you’re doing? It is how you give information or give your ideas to another that allows a sense of communication as compared to saying, listen when you do this you get this, when you do this, you do this. I want you to. I don’t want you to. And if they don’t listen to you and they don’t pay attention to you, you do not function well.
Stephanie… Right. That’s a much clearer example of how you make yourself a victim verses obviously making the other person a victim…
Seth… first
Stephanie… First.
Seth… and yourself second.
Stephanie… Right.
Jasmine… Imposing your will on them?
Seth… You cannot impose your will upon anyone.
Jasmine… By trying to.
Seth… You try to. For example, if you were to turn to Isabella and state, when you go out and you don’t put on makeup you don’t look well. That means you’re caring about what she does more than what she is caring about want she does. Does it bother you that she says, leave me alone I’m not talking to you?
Jasmine… Yes.
Seth… Ah! So now who is losing here?
Jasmine… The person who made the comment.
Seth… And the other because you may in reality have been correct.
Jasmine… Em hmm.
Seth… But through past times over and over again you’re not building upon your successes. You are using criticism and failure to promote what you believe is a correct idea. Do you see the difference?
Jasmine… Yeah.
Seth… Even if you are one hundred percent correct you are not winning. Are there any other questions?
Stephanie… Oh, can I ask a patient question?
Seth… Certainly.
Stephanie… Ah, I have a patient.
Seth… It doesn’t matter Isabella will type this up anyway.
Stephanie… Oh. (Isabella reacted a bit.)
Seth… April fool. (Said softly.)
Isabella… Thank you.
Stephanie… (Laughing.) Um, she has incredible intimacy issues. I’m not quite sure how to help her at this point to become more comfortable with moving toward that.
Seth… The question is not… you cannot move her toward anything.
Stephanie… Well, she is stating; I need help with this. Why can’t I, why don’t I want to cuddle? Why don’t I want to be close? Why is it…
Seth… Because it’s fear. In other words, what it is, is when you give of yourself you are opening yourself up in ways that allow two individuals to feel each other. If one is not sure about the other. If one is angry due to constant difficulties. If one does not trust the other, then the intimacy issue becomes important because since you cannot trust the other to accept you as you are…
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… there can be no true give and take.
Stephanie… Right so I, you know spoke to her about this, the idea that this is probably what is going on. But then the question becomes how can she help herself to trust this individual more?
Seth… By small steps.
Stephanie… To notice that they are occurring?
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… Yeah, because they are but, and she is taking note of them but doesn’t want to move herself.
Seth… Why should she? She moves when she becomes more comfortable…
Stephanie… And more of him promoting that…
Seth… And it is going to take time to reestablish that which was not and that which is now lost.
Stephanie… Right, I spoke with her about the fact that this has, all of this stuff had gone on for years. So, the idea of that trust issue is saying “time” it’s a while to recoup that.
Seth… If for example you have an individual where intimacy is lacking or at least to one person or even both it matters not.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… Each time there is a movement towards each other…
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… there is success. But when one or both individuals re-hurt each other…
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… you start again. You cannot believe that intimacy occurs if I am nice on
Monday but difficult on Tuesday, what am I doing on Wednesday?
Stephanie… You restart literally from the beginning of the injury?
Seth… From the beginning every single time.
Stephanie… The psyche, the beginning, years prior?
Seth… Because all you are doing is reliving a hurt.
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… In other words, let me explain it to you this way, let us assume that every time you were in Frank’s presence not you Frank, Frank’s presence, he insulted you, he hit you, made you feel badly about yourself, any or all of those and then through work upon your part, two, three, four times he didn’t. So, you are establishing a sense of feeling likable towards that individual, towards our hypothetical Frank, correct? And then on the fifth time he hits you, hurts you or insults you again or makes a repeatable offense…
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… Where does that immediately take you?
Stephanie… Right as if the, as if the good days didn’t exist.
Seth… They can’t exist because the hurt is reopened.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… If for example you were telling me that the person was kind or nice for a year, two years, three years, two months, five months whatever it was, well everyone is allowed to make an error. But when things go on in a repeatable manner over and over and over and over again even on a once-a-week basis what you gain you lose. Because you cannot assume that your patient although he/she of it wants to move towards the other individual and being a student of human nature that I am the other individual wants to move towards your patient but every time that he/she moves towards that patient they’re hurt, what is the natural reaction of anybody who is hurt do?
Stephanie… Move back.
Seth… You move away as far as you can.
Stephanie… Right, so anything resembling the past hurt, resembling will reopen?
Seth… Push somebody away.
Stephanie… So, let’s just say the husband is going to need to be aware of what it is that is a trigger for her, and he has to stay away from those things and act…
Seth… That may or not be feasibly possible. Let’s assume it’s possible.
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… Let’s assume that the wife is a spender and does outlandish shopping so the husband every time there is outlandish shopping gets annoyed, bothered or upset. So, he has to make it perfectly clear to himself, one I cannot tolerate this behavior, say something and two if he notices that the other individual is trying say something. I understand you are trying but look what you have done to me. You’ve gone shopping again. You’ve hurt me again.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… How do you expect us to become closer if you keep on hurting me?
Stephanie… Right, so her role would be standing up for herself when there is a re-injury of any sort that resembles.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… So, he can get a clue in the moment.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… Okay so I guess for her she is feeling not sure and isn’t able to stand up for herself, so she is not saying a word and then he doesn’t know when these occurrences happen.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… Right, okay and is it…
Seth… Do you see how the being lonely, not being grounded, not stepping away from anger and not building from your past is exactly what you’ve described here?
Stephanie… Yeah, (said softly) it’s exactly that.
I mean this seems like a real monumental task because when you are talking about… You know if the goal is intimacy and there’s years and years of this dance, you know, how, I don’t know, how does one you know…
Seth… By starting! The simplest way is to start.
Stephanie… Right, but this re-injury, what if this guy reflexively because of his stuff does all this routinely and you know…
Frank… Well since I do work with the husband, he does but it is the same thing, he’s being hurt at the same time by her.
Seth… So, they both have to work out their hurt.
Stephanie… She is still in a rage at him.
Seth… When the rage stops feeling can start. That is the getting rid of anger. Step away from it.
Stephanie… But what’s going to help her to get rid of that rage?
Seth… You get rid of the rage because is it profitable.
Stephanie… But does she, are other tangible things causing her rage or is she just hanging on to it?
Seth… They may be and then they may be.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… If you are enraged at somebody the question that the good therapist would ask: What’s bothering you? What is happening within this last day, week or month that is causing you this rage?
Stephanie… Some of it’s not on the surface for her, like she’ll just recoil but I know rage is behind there.
Seth… Ask a question.
Stephanie… Yeah. I mean I know that she still doesn’t trust that he is going to back off and give her space and freedom. So…
Seth… Space and freedom has to be demanded by one individual.
Stephanie… Yeah, she needs to stand up for herself.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Then let me leave you with this: Change means coming to the realization that you are not alone that there are others around you. Ground yourself. Step away from your anger at… Build upon your successes. Change when necessary. These actions promote your needs and in doing so your wants are lessened. Have faith in yourself, raise yourself, make yourself better than you could imagine, and you will see how you will prosper. (It is important to note that the “four distinct points” that Seth started to present in Session 366 are stated above and that Session 366 should be read and studied directly along side with Session 367. These four points could be viewed as four steps to create change in areas of our life that can be quite difficult. F.N.)
I bid you all a hearty good evening.
(Session ended at 9:51)
