Seth 393
The Story of the Cider Man and Change as a Trust Issue
Tuesday January 6, 2009
8:22 PM
Seth… Good evening, a pleasure to have all of you here again. A few bits of housekeeping that that I believe would be profitable. Isabella, it is very important that you deal with Kaetorina in terms of typing that session, (Seth 392) at least the front portion (The beginning portion of last session was not captured on tape and was recreated from Stephanie’s notes.) and then you can type the back by yourself. You have two weeks. Kaetorina, you have two weeks to do that and accomplish that. Second of all, how is the reading of an assignment for two people… going?
Jasmine… I’m having trouble.
Seth… Are you attempting it?
Jasmine… I attempt it but then I can’t get too far.
Seth… If you would read three or four pages a day it will start making more sense, you are on approximately page thirteen or fourteen. I would like you to go back to page one and start again.
Jasmine… Okay
Isabella… I don’t need to go back right? Because I have been highlighting.
Seth… Then you may…
Jasmine… I already understand what I read through.
Seth… Go back to page one! Go back to page one. We will start with our friend Frank, thank you so much for typing that session. You should feel proud of yourself.
Frank… I still have another one.
Seth… I know, I am aware. If you would like me to not thank you (Frank said no and was laughing.) then I will take it away.
All of that being stated I would like to tell you a story: The story was an essay if you want by Mary S. Kittel. (Seth spelled out the author’s name.) And she describes the following: In the fall of every year when the smell of wool sweaters permeates the air and the thoughts of football start. She goes ahead and goes across country to seek out an individual that she calls the Cider Man. And she also describes her enjoyment of the cider, and as she is driving through the area where the Cider Man lives, she passes some towns, some villages, some old houses, farms, until finally she arrives at the Cider Shack. Where besides selling cider (sweet cider) you can put that in parenthesis, he may sell some apple butter, and a few other assorted items. On the bench or table, if you will, there is a coin box (Someone sneezed, and everyone said bless you Seth said interesting.) where you pay for the items that you have taken.
Isabella… I just heard this story. I just heard this exact story.
Seth… Would you like to continue? (Stephanie laughs.)
Isabella… It is based on the honor system the idea that in this community…
Seth… Let me finish Isabella, you are aware of it.
And so, you go ahead, and you put your coins or dollar bills in the coin box. And she further describes that her favorite time to go to the Cider Shack is at night when the stars are out and you go ahead (Jerry’s phone started ringing the “Star Wars Theme,” it was Betty, Betty said Happy New Year and Frank said Happy New Year.) and through the light from the door you take your purchases. Mary is quite sure that the coin box has been ravaged by teenagers just taking money from the box. She is also quite sure that the adults may have taken a gallon or two and left enough money for only one. Yet the cider man sticks to his traditions. Now the object here is for each of you to try to understand what this story means. What are the implications in a very broad sense if you will of this tale? You do not have to go Isabella because you may have a semi-understanding of this, and you are not to speak.
Isabella… I will not say anything about the story. I remember when I heard it that I thought to myself how important it was for me at the time because it was dealing with issues I was working on.
Seth… Now, would you like to go, Frank?
Jasmine… Can I just ask a question, she comes in and she sees the box has been ravaged?
Seth… No, she didn’t see that the box was ravaged. She is sure that at times the box may have been ravaged by some teenagers, or adults didn’t put their proper money into the box. They took two gallons instead of one.
Jasmine… The Cider Man was never there?
Seth… Rarely.
Jasmine… So, she takes what she wants and leaves the (correct) money. She knows that…
Seth… Yes, but there is more to the implication thereof let’s go on.
Frank… I think that the Cider Man is providing an experience and opportunity, and it is about the honor system, and he is providing an experience for those people because it doesn’t hurt him if the teenagers have not learned and they are taking the change, he is above that. And the same thing with the parents who might take things, it is like, it’s a lesson.
Seth… Jasmine?
Jasmine… I think that he is setting up an experience for people to show their trustworthiness or lack thereof.
Stephanie… I think that I guess the fact that he’s set it up speaks to me about that, that’s an extension of him. So, to me it would give me the idea that he has incredible integrity and that he is very honorable, and I don’t know whether he sets it up for others to do whatever they’re going to do.
Seth… How many of you have seen, for example, Halloween when the adults are no longer there, and they leave a whole large bowl of candy outside with a little note that says please leave enough for others and mostly teenagers will take everything that’s there. This essay, if you will, is obviously about trust issues, but on a greater scale under our subject of Change it is why change itself is in reality a trust issue. A further part of the essay itself and I will paraphrase it from here on in, basically shows that individuals who would see a neighbor’s horse would take the horse back and re-lock the gate to prevent the loss of the animal. It shows the caring one has for another and that city folk, country folk are in reality bound together. When one develops a proper sense of trust the beauty of your humanity is allowed to grow and to flourish. Change itself cannot be accomplished in the vacuum of fear and suspicion.
The more you look for something that you perceive as being wrong and I shall quote a great author on this, myself, the more you will manifest the disastrous results that you are afraid of. The old expression seek and you shall find clearly demonstrates the idea that fear, greed and suspicion work together to prevent change itself. The above three cause one to maintain the status quo. Individuals fail because they become over involved with a lack of trust primarily with themselves! If you cannot trust yourself then whom can you trust?
Do you have a problem with that Isabella? What is your problem?
Isabella… Um, I am obviously in the throes of a trust issue right now. I’m sure you will prove me wrong, however I don’t see my trust or lack of trust in him as having anything to do with the fact that I don’t trust myself.
Seth… Of course, you don’t. One because, as your statement clearly demonstrates you are in the throes of a trust issue, that is the first statement of fact. The second statement of fact is that you do not believe that you yourself are capable or worthy of leaving a coin box on a bench. The reason for that….
Isabella… Meaning, allowing myself just to be open, to be there for the taking so to speak.
Seth… Correct. You don’t trust yourself with that. You want things done to prove; therefore you don’t trust. (Isabella agreed.) You don’t trust you to believe that you are worth anything and since you don’t believe that how can you trust someone else not to betray you? (Isabella agreed.) You (with Tommy) have very similar problems.
Isabella… I’m not saying that.
Seth… I’m just adding that in for your own information.
What bothers you, Jasmine?
Jasmine… Nothing.
Seth… Yes, it does and that’s a lie!
Jasmine… It’s ridiculous; I’m just trying to understand something that you said about Isabella. I don’t understand the point of putting me in it.
Seth… Because if you do not trust yourself and you project your views upon her then it’s your problem.
Jasmine… Why am I projecting my views upon her?
Seth… Because you have done this for quite some time. Your involvement, which is unnecessary at times with her happiness, makes you unhappy because you cannot or will not trust yourself to allow Isabella the freedom to fail. Do you understand? (Jasmine agreed.)
Jasmine… Okay.
Seth… You don’t like it, but it is factual.
Isabella… If the issue is more about the fact that I… I’ve been using …. I’ve been trying to use what you said about the fact that in the foreseeable future nothing that… he will do nothing wrong is basically in my head.
Seth… I did not say that he will not do anything wrong. I stated that for the foreseeable future it is your perception that matters. And your perception is doing something that is incorrect. Most of you “therapists”, “teachers” must use the idea that the perception of one individual towards another when there is a lack therein…
Isabella… Of trust.
Seth… Anything; immediately starts forming my Triad Personality. (Information on The Triad Personality may be found in sessions 385 and 386.) You become suspicious…
Isabella… Fearful.
Seth… Fearful.
Isabella… Anxious.
Seth… You may list any of these types of difficulties as you have.
Isabella… Angry.
Seth… Angry, anger goes along with the wider the void the greater the anger.
Isabella… But it is not just anger at…
Seth… It is always anger at yourself.
Isabella… Yeah.
Seth… So, when I tell you, when I speak of the fact that for you it is your problem and not his it is then a completely factual statement. The delusion that somebody, the delusion that somebody, patient, student can do nothing wrong means that you are projecting an individual who is perfect. Since there is no one perfect the failure rate of that idea becomes monstrous. You are creating that which you can never achieve and since you can never achieve it, meaning perfection and the person that you are projecting those thoughts towards can never achieve it, you again become angry, frustrated, disappointed which then causes one to re-look at the other and find more fault. Therefore, what you fear most and worry about you will in fact have created. Therefore, again you are the one who has the true problem.
Isabella… So, it is the idea that because you are focusing on it, you are creating it, you’re looking for it and then all of a sudden there it is provided in another test let’s just say from the universe, obviously. And so, it is a projection of what I’m thinking in my head or anybody for that matter what their projecting of somebody else.
Seth… It is always been in general the trust issue becomes manifest as somebody over here knows. (Referencing Stephanie.)
Isabella… So how do you trust, do you just have to have faith that it’s not going to hurt or that someone’s not going to hurt you?
Seth… I would suggest that you change the word have “faith” into the word “belief”. If you have faith in someone the likelihood of having a Ponzi scheme fostered upon you… (Belief verses faith issues have been mentioned numerous times early on in sessions in reference to Jerry’s difficulties with accepting his own psychic abilities and the accuracy of the Seth material itself. Belief verses faith would become a major topic of study for the group starting on August 11, 2009, apparently as a result of a question on the topic by Stephanie.)
Isabella… A Ponzi Scheme?
Frank… That’s like what Madoff did.
Isabella… Oh.
Seth… You may spell that for her. (Which Frank did.) Correct.
…fostered upon you. Read out loud that to me again.
Isabella… If you have faith in someone the likelihood of a Ponzi Scheme fostered upon you…
Seth… Fostered upon you is likely since faith has no beginning or no end. A belief system is closed-ended and does not require an absolute adherence to an idea, thought or feeling.
Frank…. And that is why so many people were taken advantage of by Madoff?
Seth… Yes, we can skip that, that is nonsense at this point.
So, if you have belief in someone and you ask specifically how does one do this because the ability to allow yourself to fail.
Jasmine… How do you…?
Seth… What are you missing Jasmine?
Jasmine… I’m lost. I don’t understand how people got taken in (There was more of an exchange by Jasmine that was not audible.)
Seth… They will explain it to you as…
Jasmine… A belief system…
Seth… Because they had faith in this man that has no beginning and no ending (Jasmine agreed.) If they had a belief in him that he would do something correct for them, it gives them the ability to challenge, to look and to examine that which is going on.
Isabella… Because faith is…?
Seth… Limitless.
Isabella… So, you just believe?
Seth… No, you just have faith.
Isabella… Have faith. So, when you believe?
Seth… There is no adherence to a specific idea or pattern of beliefs if you will. So, there is no ability to challenge…
Isabella… So, if you believe in somebody then you can challenge that?
Seth… And when you believe in somebody if you are hurt that is an acceptable outcome since the greatest gift you can give to yourself is the ability to fail. It is when one has been hurt; when one has been victimized one needs to try again. Now, the old adage is true what should one do when one falls off a horse? The answer is clear; you get back on the horse. You don’t leave things go. The belief is that I can find somebody who will cherish and nurture me. If this individual succeeds, then he may become a life long player. If he fails, one must examine the reasons why he fails and why you are hurt. One, important now, must never expect in a proper belief system; one must never expect in a proper belief system that which the other finds impossible to give. In other words, you cannot force a person to be or to become that which you expect them or demand from them, to be!
Isabella… What if your expectations, what if you belief that your expectations are too high?
Seth… Change them. Do you see how change fits here?
Isabella… Because in my head of what I expect a man to do for me, okay, any man, not Tommy, not anybody are so almost unrealistic, the idea of the constant reassurance, the constant this, the constant that because that’s what I feel a lack of within myself. The expectation that I have is so great that nobody will ever be able to live up to that.
Seth… What are you telling yourself?
Isabella… Umm, what am I telling myself?
Seth… What are you telling yourself?
Isabella… That I need to lower my expectations?
Seth… No, what are telling yourself by that statement.
Isabella… Oh, that I require…
Seth… That you want somebody to care for you always.
Isabella… Correct.
Seth… Under any system or set of circumstance.
Isabella… That’s right. (Said in a self-deprecating manner.)
Seth… And therefore, you are asking somebody to be perfect. Go back to my original statement.
Isabella… Right and just looking at the Tommy situation…
Seth… Do you see how change cannot occur in an area of anger and deception and fear?
Isabella… I think this is more of an ability for me to change. I think this is a challenge for me.
Seth… Where must change first occur?
Isabella… Within yourself.
Seth… With self.
Isabella… Because I think that ultimately…
Seth… Where must trust first appear?
Isabella… Within self.
Seth… This whole discussion this evening, this whole lecture this evening is about self learning to trust. You cannot change unless you trust yourself enough to make yourself different.
You cannot change without allowing yourself the luxury of becoming something that you are not.
Isabella… Can I ask a question?
Seth… Go ahead.
Isabella… So…
Seth… Do you understand (Isabella said she did.) the principle of the story why the narrow view of it was simply about trust but the overall view, the true meaning of the story is truly about self. The Cider Man loved himself enough…
Isabella… That it didn’t matter…
Seth… That he did not need the validation for anyone else to be honest. The lesson was there, be honest, be straightforward, do what is proper and if you don’t it is no problem for me.
Isabella… They have to live with it.
Seth… Correct, go ahead.
Isabella… Uh huh. So, in this case, obviously with Tommy there is a tremendous amount of learning for me and about me not being the center of his universe which is obviously set up for a purpose.
Seth… But you may be the center of his universe, but you are not his only priority.
Isabella… No, I know that, but I have to be okay with that and I want to be able to change. And I want to be able to change the idea that I don’t necessarily need him to constantly reassure me.
Seth… Let’s ask a simple question…
Isabella… Because, because… yeah.
Seth… Stop…stop. Let’s ask a simple question; when you go ahead and you ask someone you said this, you said this, I thought of this, I thought of that, the question is why are you asking anyone but yourself? Because you don’t trust yourself enough… What are you missing Frank? (Frank said something inaudible and laughed.) You do not trust yourself enough that you must seek advice and answers, not that that is incorrect, but you become so dependent upon others that the “you” falls by the wayside.
Isabella… Em hmm.
Seth… Do you understand?
Isabella… Yes.
Seth… It is not that I would not have you ask; I would not do that to you. (Isabella said something else like “I find it difficult.”)
But you do understand.
Getting back to our… (To Jasmine who was away from the table.) You missed quite a bit. I will finish up with this. Notice here Jasmine, you are so concerned for her missing something that you project that fear outward. My question to you is how much of these notes are truly accurate?
Isabella… George is asking where she is. (This is referring to George who was on the phone and whose dog got out of the house and he was searching for her.)
Seth… She is wandering around the streets towards the park. (Isabella repeated this to George.) And she should, not a guarantee, but she should okay eventually should she decide to, make her way home. (Isabella again repeated this and was giving George assistance on the phone.)
Again, it is the projection, Jasmine that you do that causes you great dis-ease. You missed quite a bit of important material. I hope your typing fingers are good because you just volunteered to do that. (Stephanie giggled a bit.)
Isabella… I’m still having… I know that trust is a major thing.
Seth… Yes, for two people here not for you. (Referring to Jerry and Stephanie.) Not for you. (Stephanie giggled again.)
Isabella… Not for me? Then why am I having such difficulty with it now?
Seth… Because you are not having difficulty, you are projecting the idea of trust…okay?
Isabella… Yeah.
Seth… on to yourself instead of going ahead and learning to be happy.
Isabella… I know! I’m totally doing that!
Seth… We shall move along.
Isabella… No, I’m serious! I know that’s exactly what I am doing. I’ve never sabotaged the way I am sabotaging now.
Seth… Well, that is certainly a deception and a lie.
Isabella… Well, I feel it, maybe I am more aware of it now.
Seth… Fair enough.
Isabella… So, I am much more aware that I am sabotaging this whole thing which is totally going to be my fault. I am going to ruin this great relationship because I don’t trust. So, how do you get past it?
Seth… Were you here? Did you take notes?
Isabella… I have to learn to change into something else.
Seth… I would hate to make you type this session as well as the one with Kaetorina. So far, she has volunteered to do that.
Isabella… No, I understand what you are saying about changing…
Seth… Aren’t you glad Frank? (Yes, but somehow, I am the one typing up the end of this session. F.N.)
Isabella… About changing and trusting yourself and that that becomes the important piece. But I think for me it’s the fear. But there is no reason why I feel I need the constant reassurance; it is not necessarily a trust thing but fear.
Seth… Triad Personality. (The Triad Personality is the triangle explained by Seth in session 385 involving love/hate and the expectations of self place on the loved one which can create and expand voids)
Isabella… But fear that I am going to get hurt again.
Seth… So what?
Frank… It is the idea of the three things fear, greed, suspicion for you is fear.
Isabella… Right.
Frank… How can you change if you have so much fear?
Isabella… Right.
Frank… If you have so much fear it is getting in the way of you making the change, so you have to work at reducing the fear, reducing the suspicion…
Isabella… Right, that’s the…
Frank… because you are bordering a little bit on paranoia.
Isabella… You think?
Frank… I do. And then you will be able to foster…
Stephanie… Pick up on that in the session.
Seth… Let me put it this way; the people at the table next to you were commenting on, “The girl is paranoid.”
Isabella… Well, I am totally paranoid.
Seth… And you are proud of this?
Isabella… No! Obviously not I’ve lost ten pounds from this whole thing already.
Stephanie… Really?
Isabella… I have. I am going to sit with this.
Seth… I believe at this point we shall take a break.
(Break was taken at 9:03.)
Seth… A clear indication of trust issues is certainly evident with Frances (Jasmine’s mother.) and her heart problem. She believes that her children if there for the procedure will make everything fine. This of course is foolhardy. Now, if you place your faith in your children’s ability to heal you, it is certainly detrimental to yourself but more so to them, for you place a burden on them that can never be filled.
Change again, must come from within and you must be able to trust yourself enough so that it does not matter if someone takes an extra gallon or two of cider.
Are there any questions or comments?
Isabella… Is it more than just trusting yourself? Because you said trust enough so someone can take an extra gallon or whatever and it won’t matter. Isn’t it also more about like loving yourself and cherishing yourself and being okay that…
Seth… It is all part of the same thing. You are just describing it differently.
Isabella… Okay.
Seth… I could say simply that the same idea would be true if you went ahead and stated you could not be happy unless you allowed someone else to take an extra gallon of cider or two or the teenagers took what they shouldn’t have. No matter what you describe it is always from within the self to grow and to prosper. Your growth and prosperity must never become dependent upon someone else’s thoughts and feelings. It is your responsibility to grow, to make something more than what you are and unless you take responsibility for that which occurs then of course you cannot succeed. Does that make sense to you now?
Isabella… Kind of.
Seth… What kind of do you not understand?
Isabella… Well, I guess it’s the idea that you have to take responsibility for actions…
Seth… Or for inaction.
Isabella… Right and I guess that has to do also with taking responsibility with understanding and having belief in someone else. That that’s part of you and not necessarily from what they are projecting and being okay with who you are and what you want…
Seth… Are you allowed as an individual to make an error?
Isabella… Of course.
Seth… Why isn’t someone else?
Isabella… They are allowed except… they are allowed…
Seth… Not from your perspective.
Isabella… Well, it’s from my perspective of when I feel hurt by their mistake.
Seth… I would like you to…
Isabella… And how do I know it’s a mistake and how do I know…
Seth… Let’s assume that it is.
Isabella… But how do I know that it isn’t and not a purposeful thing?
Seth… That’s all the same.
Isabella… Okay?
Seth… Something that is done to hurt is an error.
Isabella… Right.
Seth… No matter how you classify that, what you feel about it is still… it is an error and if you are allowed to make an error and it hurts someone isn’t someone else allowed the same luxury? (Isabella was silent.)
Not according to you.
Isabella… Well…
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Isabella… I have another question. Can I ask about sarcasm?
Seth… How do you define it?
Isabella… Umm, it’s a pseudo…
Seth… Go upstairs now, we’ll answer some other questions, go find a dictionary and come down and read.
Stephanie… Okay let me understand, the idea of the Cider Man who takes no issue with anybody’s stealing the money, not putting enough in, all of that stuff, that’s because the trust issue there is that he knows that can’t touch him? He trusts himself that he provides his own prosperity?
Seth… He has made a belief system to show others what a neighbor is.
Stephanie… Right.
Seth… So, his belief system is there. Nobody is going to shake his belief system from him and because you are not going to detour him from that belief system whose problem does it become if you rob, if you cheat?
Stephanie… Right, she does.
Seth… And they have to live thinking that he’s the fool, especially teenagers, when who is the fool?
Stephanie… The teenagers and people who steal.
Seth… Correct, you understand the difference.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… Can you apply it to what goes on with you?
Stephanie… Yeah, that’s why I’m asking. It’s like the idea that mistakes that occur or hurtful things. You’re saying that the trust is if you trust in self to be all you need it doesn’t matter what mistakes are around you even if they affect you negatively.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… That you are still in charge of you, and we would work around them.
Seth… Correct. It is their problem, but you make it yours.
Stephanie… Right, and that is the lack of trust right there.
Seth… Correct but we have covered this for years.
Stephanie… Yeah. (Laughs.)
Seth… I still see there is a long road for you to walk down.
Stephanie… Well, there is a glimmer speck of light.
Seth… I wouldn’t say glimmer. (Stephanie is laughing.) Certainly, speck would be a little too much. And that Isabella was sarcasm.
Isabella… Yes, a taunting, sneering…
Seth… Excuse me, sarcasm?
Isabella… A taunting, sneering, cutting or caustic remark, jibe or jeer, generally ironic. Sarcastic means of having the nature of occurrence sarcasm, sneering, caustic, cutting and so forth. Sarcastic implies intent to hurt by taunting with mocking ridicule.
Seth… It can be. Now your question?
Isabella… I think I’m taking his sarcasm personally.
Seth… And the question is?
Isabella… Tommy is extremely sarcastic. That is his personality. That’s his humor. Now…
Seth… Why is someone sarcastic?
Isabella… That’s what I want to know. (Group laughs.)
Seth… I asked the question first! Therefore, you are the one who has to answer it.
Isabella… Well, I’ve been asking so I don’t think this is my definition. I think it is what I have heard from other people; it’s that somebody is sarcastic in order to cover up their own insecurities…
Seth… Because?
Isabella… Because they feel uncomfortable about something, so they tend to be sarcastic to…
Seth… Shift.
Isabella… Okay, to shift the meaning. So, in the comment that he made about the boys because I said… he wrote me the text about two little boys say hi…
Seth… What are you really asking when you respond…
Isabella… No. I said thank you so much that was such a nice text.
Seth… What are you really asking?
Isabella… For him to say again that the boys like me?
Seth… You are really asking, and it certainly may be true…
Isabella… For reassurance?
Seth… Ah! That they really do. So, the question is…
Isabella… Yeah?
Seth… So, the question is why?
Stephanie… That it was real.
Seth… That’s right you don’t trust that it was real.
Isabella… So okay, so he obviously knows that I do that.
Seth… Correct. So, he mocked you.
Isabella… Screw him. So, he… this is why he is sarcastic with me because he knows he can be.
Seth… And because you’re not learning.
Isabella… Don’t you shake your head at me, fool. (Not sure who that was directed at, Isabella laughs.) So, this is his way of kind of trying to teach me in a weird kind of way because…
Seth… Not a weird kind of way. He’s telling you that if you are going to go ahead and be stupid, he can be stupid.
Isabella… Okay, so that’s why he is doing it?
Seth… Move along. Are there any other questions?
Frank… A “patient” question. I am having a lot of difficulty with the same couple. (Asked about previously.) I am actually concerned whether they will come back or not and they are so abusive to each other verbally in terms of their tone and I was wondering if you could give me some help with them. One of the things I was thinking about trying was, if they come back, taping them and letting them hear the way they sound because they just can’t seem to get past this.
Seth… Can’t seem or won’t?
Frank… I think they are refusing, won’t. Won’t!
Seth… Why?
Frank… Because they want it, each wants it their way.
Seth… Each one wants to win.
Frank… They want to win.
Seth… And so, the question is why do they want to win? And what you then have to do is to first not only see them as joint effort, but it is also mandatory to see them as a separate entity onto themselves so that they may correctly or fearlessly if you will express what their anger is. So, until their anger is released, they must win. There is no possibility of a compromise. You understand?
Frank… So again, with the triad, the anger has to come down and what I should be doing is to see them individually.
Seth… And together. In other words, if you saw one individual one week, one individual the second week…
Frank… And then together in the third.
Seth… Correct. Or profitably for them it would be one, two, three sessions a week.
Frank… Three sessions, if they would agree to that.
Seth… Or any other way. One, one week, one together one the other week, one together. In other words what I am saying is you would see them twice a week. One the husband then together one the wife and then together. At least in this respect there is more of a continuity.
Frank… So, either twice a week and one switching.
Seth… Correct.
Frank… And then I am caught up with that they are so mean to each other and I feel badly that…
Stephanie… In session?
Frank… Yes, in session. I get up and I say stop! I am very directive, very much and I am almost feeling like, you know, if they are going to fail, I mean I am hired to make them not fail but maybe, maybe they should fail. But that should not be my concern, I just need to work as hard for what they hired me for originally and if they do, they do. And yet I would, I would take it a little personally.
Seth… It seems to me the question is why would you be so foolish to even do that? (There was a pause as Seth tapped to indicate to take notes.) You are making their play yours and therefore you fail. Were you here for tonight’s session?
Frank… Yes, I was. (Frank laughed. Stephanie was perhaps reacting to length of session.)
Seth… (To Stephanie.) Would you like to type the next two? You can exchange it two for one!
Stephanie… No because he is going to ask a lot of questions.
Seth… Two for one!
Frank… (Laughing.) I am not going to ask that many questions, Stephanie.
I… That is why I said that in as tentative manner as I do but still it is a feeling and it is actually a feeling with many of my patients because you would like to see them do well. And if they are not doing well, you think you are not doing as good a job as you could be.
Seth… Let’s put it into a simplistic effect, cause and effect. I believe you know what an oncologist is?
Frank… Cancer specialist.
Seth… How many patients do they cure?
Frank… (Laughed.) Very few unfortunately.
Seth… I believe you have your answer. Thank you
Frank… You know I very much understood that in working with the mentally ill but that was the nature…
Seth… What do you think this couple is?
Frank… Well, they are more, whacked!
Seth… They are mentally ill in their desire to win.
Frank… They are not mentally ill in the same way as the population that we worked with. They are in a very severe way with what they are doing but it is not same.
Seth… You are trying to define the term foolishly. I am using your terminology.
Let’s move it along. Are there any other questions?
Then let me leave you with this: The idea of trust is to learn to appreciate yourself, first! You are not writing this down? To learn to appreciate yourself first. In doing so, you find that your wants and needs will become apparent, and change becomes possible. Each of you has within themselves the ability to foster the change upon themselves first and not project that which you believe are the failings of another back upon that other individual. Change yourself and the world will change around you. A hardy good evening to all.
(Session ended at 9:40 P.M.)
