Seth 394
Change, The Avoidence Mentality and Learning to Love What You Hate
Tuesday Jan 13, 2009
8:30 P.M
Seth… Good evening; pleasure to have you all here again this evening. Let us do some housekeeping. Jasmine, now you have certainly spent a great deal of time today doing nothing. Example, you waited in a physician’s office for quite a while. How much of the Seth material did you read during that time period?
Jasmine… I didn’t bring that book, and I forgot about it.
Seth… And again, if you remember, we talked about that you had a year from original proposal for you to read. I would strongly suggest that you attempt to at least read four to five pages per day. And that should be your first bit of work and the reason for that is that you will find a great many solutions to your supposed difficulties within that book. And what you do not understand you can certainly write a question down or highlight it or make notes, written notes not mental ones because they become foolish because you don’t remember, nor would anybody else for that matter. And at least have the ability to follow through which you don’t give yourself. As a generalized statement that is one of your major difficulties within this incarnation. You do not follow through, you start out, you over do and then you don’t complete. So, this is one of the things that you should attempt to do to correct yourself. Even if you were reading “The Secret” what message are you giving out to the universe by your lack of sincerity? You understand?
Jasmine… Yes.
Seth… Our second book, how is it coming?
Isabella… Which one, “The Nature of Personal Reality”? Good, I am struggling through it.
Seth… Absolutely correct, you should be struggling through it because it is forcing you to think. Where are the questions?
Isabella… You answered but you answered in our private session the one that was most pressing at the time. So other than that, I’ve been okay.
Seth… I’m aware that you got the message that I relayed.
Isabella… Yeah, but I don’t, I think I am doing things incorrectly so at some point tonight I think I would like you to clarify.
Seth… It’s very simple, I will clarify it now. When you ask even a positive natured or make a positive natured statement about anything, in the way which individuals, not only you but individuals as a whole frame their questions they are often looking for advice or approval.
Isabella… Em hmm.
Seth… That is what you are doing incorrectly.
Isabella… So, if I wanted to relay something positive because I have been really consciously trying!
Seth… I am aware. I’m not saying you are not trying.
Isabella… I know but…
Seth… I am saying if you have to master something…
Isabella… Okay, so I am asking you so if I want to relay a positive story how do I relay it without it coming across as asking for advice?
Seth… Tommy telephoned me and told me how beautiful I was. That’s a statement.
Isabella… Okay.
Seth… The second you ask isn’t that nice…
Isabella… Oh.
Seth… is not correct. Because that implies you need approval from others for that. Do you understand, now?
Isabella… Yes.
Seth… Do you see where you have made your mistakes?
Isabella… I guess.
Seth… Correct them.
Isabella… I don’t remember per say every single one.
Seth… The exact ones are not the important issue here at all.
Isabella… It’s almost like I don’t want to talk about him at all.
Seth… That would be your choice but that would not solve your problem; you do understand that?
Isabella… Why wouldn’t it though if I keep it…
Seth… Because if you keep everything to yourself, what are you teaching yourself? Do we need the therapists here to help you with this one?
Isabella… If I keep everything to myself, what am I teaching myself?
Seth… Correct.
Isabella… That I don’t need anybody else?
Seth… No.
Isabella… Oh, I don’t know.
Seth… That you can keep a secret and that you do not have to share. Is that how you want your community to work?
Isabella… No, but I don’t want to…
Seth… Better you should make mistakes, and I correct you than not.
Isabella… Because I am so use to doing the negative that I thought, you know without doing the negative…
Seth… No one is saying that you are not trying.
Isabella… I know.
Seth… I’m just saying that you are not succeeding.
Isabella… Thank you that makes me feel a whole hell of a lot better.
Seth… It should because there is a very big difference between not trying, which means an inability to change, that’s exactly what that means, not succeeding is a very positive statement. When you have a student who cannot, for example, do long division until they practice it enough, they are not going to succeed the first time or the second time or the third time, but they will succeed should they practice. So not succeeding means there’s an effort being put out.
Isabella… I’ll tell you what I am really learning from this experience is that the less you harp on something so if I don’t constantly talk to a million people about something it doesn’t give it so much life.
Seth… And there is no weight behind it. In other words, you create a probable self with an incident because you give it tremendous weight, energy if you will.
Isabella… Yeah, and actually things have been better with him since I haven’t been discussing everything with everybody.
Seth… Let us move along.
Isabella… Okay then. It is a good exercise though and my therapist was very proud, she finally agreed with you. (Everyone laughed.)
Seth… Well, I believe that your therapist needs to come to these sessions so she may learn how to do therapy.
Isabella… She would be interested, I am sure. She said to me, she wanted me to explain the whole thing behind it and she made a comment that a lot of the things I say spiritually she really believes in, and she uses it with her other patients.
Seth… Tell her she should also learn to be a proper therapist and if she would like to come here, she can spend four or five years here and then maybe she won’t be as bad as she is. But that is between me and the therapist world.
Under our topic of Change, one of the difficulties that individuals have may simply be classified as an avoidance mentality if you will. You as individuals are all guilty of this difficulty.
Jasmine… The avoidance mentality?
Seth… Correct. You avoid individuals that you do not like. You shun difficulties where it becomes necessary to confront others. Unpleasant situations are made more difficult due to the fact that individuals choose not to become involved in or look at those situations where there is “pain”. (Jasmine asked to catch up with the notes.) The pain that individuals feel stems from fear and since fear is always a futuristic event then your constant worry about “what ifs” takes precedent over the actual reality of the event itself. Therefore, I ask each of you a simple question, why is it that you avoid these type of situations where by doing so you prevent change? Not only do you foster the status quo but you hinder yourself in your ability to create events that you would deem profitable. This is obviously a failure in terms of your ability to judge what the true nature of the event that is causing you difficulty or pain is!
Jasmine… I don’t understand that last sentence, the avoidance of the difficult situation with the pain is a failure in terms of your ability to judge what the true nature of the event that is causing you difficulty or pain?
Seth… If you avoid it, how can you judge it? If you will not look at something… if you will not look at something that causes you difficulty, do you not believe that the universe will provide you increasing opportunities to rectify that difficulty? A clear example of what defined difficulties may be seen in the person who attempts to lessen the effect of an unpleasant situation.
Isabella… Rectifying difficulties may be seen in the person who attempts?
Seth… to rectify an unpleasant situation.
Jasmine… to lessen the effect of an unpleasant…
Seth… situation. A clear example may be seen in my opening remarks to Isabella; things became less weighty.
Isabella… Because I was rectifying them?
Seth… Correct.
Isabella… Oh, well yeah but that is obvious though. Why wouldn’t rectifying an event or rectifying difficulties…
Seth… What may seem obvious to you now was not obvious to you until I gave you enough difficulty with what you were doing to cause you to change. You made the decision to change. I presented what you needed to do. You could have either have done it or not. When you decided to follow the advice that was given and of course that was your choice the situation became less severe.
Isabella… Yes.
Seth… Yet, it was in front of you all of the time.
Isabella… It just seemed so…
Seth… Obvious.
Isabella… Obvious. It seemed so easy and I…
Seth… Because you were not ready to do that.
Stephanie… Oh.
Seth… Does that not sound familiar Kaetorina?
Stephanie… Well, constantly.
Jasmine… It’s that same thing with thought, word, deed. You know when you have an issue and you think about it and obsess about it and obsess about it and then you actually talk to people about it, anybody, everybody who will listen to you. You actually give it life.
Seth… You give it more weight. You provide it with energy so that it has “a life of its own”.
Jasmine… And in some instances, you actually create matter in that way. You create…
Seth… You do, always.
Now, the idea here of not doing something…
Jasmine… Should I write this down?
Seth… Yes. The idea here of not doing something…
Jasmine… Of not trying…
Seth… Not doing something, whether you’re trying to rectify it, whether you are trying to speak about it or you avoid as I started in the beginning to do something.
Jasmine… The idea of not doing.
Seth… Doing something.
Stephanie… Meaning, avoiding.
Jasmine… Okay… Not doing the avoiding?
Isabella… Not doing anything. The idea of not doing anything at all.
Stephanie… Not doing something meaning avoiding.
Jasmine… Avoiding.
Seth… The idea of not doing something creates as many difficulties as the refusal to incorporate a change. An example here is seen clearly with Jasmine’s refusal to work by reading a book. You may make as many excuses and this is not just to you, this is for all, you may make as many excuses for not doing something as you care to but the problems will always exist. One of the great ideas may be seen in the idea that one must love what they hate. All of what I have previously stated may be found within that idea. An example here may be seen with the idea of an individual who routinely lies. They are lying to promote themselves or to avoid doing what they need to do to, to truly make themselves prosperous. They prefer being a victim of themselves. The solution to a liar is to foster the idea that every phrase or idea that they state will be researched preferably immediately and therefore challenged by other individuals. The parent whose child states, “I studied,” should be immediately challenged and tested of their supposed knowledge. The individual who tells tales and promotes themselves is challenged by others who will immediately call to find out if the statement is true or false. Individuals must learn to love themselves before they dislike anything else. If you love what you hate…
Isabella… Could you just repeat that last sentence? (Jasmine, Stephanie and Frank repeated the sentence.) When you learn to love what you hate?
Seth… When you learn to love what you hate there will be less individuals who are discontented, and you will not feel victimized by the outside world.
Isabella… Can I ask a question?
Seth… No. Gandhi stated that one should be the change that you want to see in the world. Individuals in your society and the idea is spreading have difficulty with the idea of quantity verses quality. Salesman routinely use the farcical notion that they don’t make things they way they use to therefore you should buy this. They create situations to entrap the unsophisticated and the uneducated consumer into buying expensive additions to their purchases since they don’t make things the way they use to…
Jasmine… To buy additions…
Seth… to their purchases. Since they don’t make things the way they use to you had better buy some protection for that item. When one looks for quality, one lessens the negativity that surrounds an event. Quality obviously does not mean expensive. What value is there for an individual who finds a true friend? What employer would go ahead and be willing to pay an honest hardworking employee knowing full well that that employee was not the fastest, but he was and is the most diligent? Quality itself promotes change since one must subscribe to the idea that you can always be better and improve upon that which you find unacceptable. When you love what you hate the negativity that you will see that affects you…
Jasmine… When you love…
Seth… what you hate…
Jasmine… what you hate…
Seth… you will see that the negativity that surrounds you is dramatically lessened because you are not allowing those situations to cause you to promote discord. I have stated that one must learn to love and to adore individuals where there is a lack of appreciation and or return of love. Each of you will find individuals that have caused you pain. Your object is to understand that you do not need to be victimized by these type of individuals. You must love them for what they are and not hate them for what they are. Go ahead.
Stephanie… I understand why you would not want to hate them for what they are but why must you love them for what they are?
Seth… What does the word love them mean to you?
Stephanie… Are you talking about the Natural Approach here?
Seth… Yes.
(Jerry’s phone rang to the Star Wars Theme as Betty was calling in and said that she was sorry to be late.)
Isabella… Can you explain what that means so those of us that don’t know what The Natural Approach means?
Seth… Explain that.
Stephanie… (Laughs.) It is an opening of yourself to a… when you are not in the Natural Approach, you’re dealing with… (Seth took the microphone away from Stephanie.) What??
Seth… When an individual… (Frank laughs)
Stephanie… You didn’t like what I was going to say.
Seth… No. When an individual uses their intellect…
Stephanie… I was just going to say that.
Seth… one has certain expectations about the way things should be. When one uses a natural order of things one tends to expand themselves.
Jasmine… When one uses the natural order of things?
Seth… Right, you, for example Jasmine, are very literal. You do not react to events in a casual or carefree way. Animals react to their environment, to the areas where they live by a different form of reasoning than you do. If one is literal, one must always have a precise order of things. The natural person…
Jasmine… Yeah, what is…
Seth… Please stop.
Jasmine… Yeah, but I can’t…
Seth… You will listen to the tape, please stop. The natural person has the ability to expand outward and choose information from a great many sources. You may take something; if I threw crumbs on a table the intellect will tell you to put them in a straight line. The natural person will pick a crumb here of information, a crumb there, some crumbs that are clumped in one area and others crumbs that are clumped in different areas. And in doing so the natural person gets far more out of things than proceeding like a ruler, one which goes to two which goes to three which goes to four. Your intellect itself betrays you for that is what you have taught it and that is what you have limited your thinking to be. Did that answer your question?
Isabella… Ah, yeah, I mean it’s just… a natural order is allowing things to happen without necessarily having a literal definition for it.
Seth… It is much more than that.
Isabella… I understand.
Seth… It is a great deal more than that.
Isabella… Okay.
Now, when you love what you hate you open yourself to the events that swirl about you. You reduce… You have a problem, Frank?
Frank… No, I am understanding, that’s why fear is so….
Seth… Limiting. Fear is limiting…
Frank… For me.
Seth… For all, this is not just for you.
Frank… Yeah, I know.
Seth… This is for all.
You reduce your ability to pick and choose solutions when you react in a linear manner. When you open yourself up you have an expanse of desired outcomes. Your outcomes become unlimited if you will. When your intellect tells you this is the way in which you should do things the chances are that you are leading yourself astray.
In the not doing of things, you prevent yourself from “seeing” that which could serve you well.
(Jasmine asked to repeat in order to take notes)
Seth… Now, if you become what you want to see in the world you will foster change within yourself as well as others.
I believe it is at this point that we will take a break.
(Session break at 9:15)
Seth… Let us continue. Obviously, the subject will require a great deal more study therefore we shall deal with this in different ways so we shall then use the idea of: are there any questions? You may feel free to ask them. Isabella, you may ask whatever question you’d like but you have to come in. (Isabella was in the kitchen.) Are there any questions?
Stephanie… Yes, okay, I wanted to ask about my patient Felicia. (This is a patient that I believe Isabella works with as a tutor as well.) Did you completely give me the answer here with all the lying and what I am to do with her?
Seth… How do you believe the answer was?
Stephanie… Okay but I’m thinking wow that’s so specific to her, but you just chose to use that example to explain it.
Seth… I just chose to use the example.
Stephanie… Okay now here is my next question then. She will hate my living breathing guts and how…
Seth… So what?
Stephanie… I’m not understanding the therapeutic value…
Seth… The therapeutic value of what a foolish therapist does is to allow an individual to constantly lie. What are you teaching this individual if they are constantly allowed to lie to you? What would a parent be teaching a child that is constantly allowed to lie to them? What would a boss be teaching an employee if they were constantly allowed to lie to them?
Stephanie… Now she thinks I have no other information so how does she know I know she is lying?
Seth… It’s very simple, what you are telling me does not sound reasonable, I am going to check it. Let us call this person, this person and this person, right now.
Stephanie… Uh huh.
Seth… And now she says don’t do that and you are going to say well why not? If what you told me is the truth I better confront them. That’s what I am here for, I am here to protect you but if you are not telling me the truth then what good am I to you?
Stephanie… And then when she is… then what is she going to say?
Seth… Then she is going to say, well fine I don’t care. Fine, let’s check it out to see if you are telling me the truth.
Stephanie… Right, she always says (I don’t care) it’s her favorite thing.
Seth… When somebody then says I don’t care it really means, I can’t face the issue.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… And then you are going to be able to work with that information: Well, this is what this person said; how come you said that if you didn’t really care?
Stephanie… Em hmm, okay. So then how, in what way is she going to want to use my assistance?
Seth… Because you are going to go ahead and say, remember I am on your side. I am doing this to help you, but I can’t help you if you lie because I don’t know what the truth is. It is the same idea as in your fable, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.
How do I know if the wolf is out there?
Frank… Isn’t she lying a lot more subtly though, like saying I don’t care?
Seth… Of course that’s a lie.
Frank… Of course, but it is much more subtle. It’s like you can’t call somebody a liar…
Seth… Show me how you don’t care, why would you lie about this story.
Frank… So, you call them out and say to them, prove to me you don’t care.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… Okay. Why also is she so driven to want to deny accomplishments and doing well?
Seth… Because if she is doing well that means she is capable of doing it. If you are capable of doing something won’t people expect you to do it?
Stephanie… Okay, why doesn’t she want to be capable?
Seth… Because she would rather have the toothpaste put on a brush, she’d rather have her clothes laid out, she would rather have people take care of her because, “I can’t, I’m a nothing.”
Stephanie… Why does she want to… is she aware… She’s not aware of being a nothing. Is she aware that she is giving herself messages that she is totally incapable
Seth… No, but it doesn’t matter.
Stephanie… She just wants to be catered to?
Seth… She wants, I am the Queen, I am the Goddess of this area therefore you will serve me. And when people don’t or take offense “Well I don’t care.”
Stephanie… Okay then…
Seth… Notice, I am a better therapist than she is. (Meaning Stephanie.) I point that out.
(Jasmine was talking from another room asking about her sense of entitlement… Isabella laughed.)
Seth… If you’d like to join in, please come in.
(Jasmine responded in some way saying she couldn’t.)
Seth… Then I would suggest that you just relax there and forget about it.
(Jasmine said something about just being curious about the girl but still did not choose to come in.)
Stephanie… She was given that.
Frank… Who’s entitled here? (Group Laughter.)
Stephanie… Her parents gave her those, Isabella. (It is unclear what Stephanie is referring to, but it seems to fit in with the girl’s tendency to feel entitled.)
So alright, she gets confronted, and she gets caught with her fingers in the cookie jar.
Seth… Right, and what is your next question.
Stephanie… Why would you lie?
Seth… Correct. “I don’t care.”
Stephanie… She’s going to say I don’t care because she is embarrassed.
Seth… Correct and then what are you then going to say?
Stephanie… Show me how you don’t care?
Seth… Correct… and why was it necessary for you to lie about this? What were you trying to prove?
Stephanie… So, we go along that road versus why is it that when I reflect something positive about you, you quickly turn it around and do negative or not own it?
Seth… Because she doesn’t own it because then that means she is expected to own it.
Stephanie… What would she say because I would have asked her that? How come when I say something that you’ve done well that right away you say, “No I didn’t!”
Seth… Because if she makes it unimportant, she doesn’t have to own it.
Stephanie… But I am just curious as to what would she say about why she wants to take that away and make her look not good.
Seth… Because if she looks not good you cannot expect anything of her.
Stephanie… Right but she wouldn’t say that.
Seth… But she knows that. It is not a question that you are going to get a simplistic answer. (Stephanie said something that was inaudible.) No not at all.
Stephanie… So, I am just going to use the whole lying idea and checking this stuff out.
Seth… Immediately. Something that doesn’t sound correct is to be checked immediately with any liar. For example, when your children tell a lie what do you do?
Stephanie… Well, I will confront them immediately.
Seth… You say, you didn’t do this, you didn’t say this because I know this is what happened.
Stephanie… Right, why would you lie?
Seth… And why would you lie?
Stephanie… Right, because again, I’ll know that for a fact. She’ll say these things and I’ll…
Seth… Such as?
Stephanie… You know these ridiculous things about school and a teacher and this, that and you know.
Seth… Fine, I am going to call your mother, and I am going to immediately call the school and find out if this is true.
Stephanie… Okay, that would of course be the next day because I see her at night. But okay I would say, in the morning I’m going to call your mother.
Seth… No, I am going to call your mother now! Right then, you are not going…
Stephanie… Right then, in session?
Seth… In the session. The longer you leave a space the more working room she has.
Stephanie… She literally speaks lie after lie after lie.
Seth… And if you make thirty calls, you are going to make thirty calls.
Stephanie… Right and…
Seth… And then what you will then do if necessary is to put the mother outside the therapy room in her car, excuse me, let’s bring your mother in and ask the question. And when she finds out that you are going to constantly check upon what she says the question is why are you constantly lying?
Stephanie… Right because she is going to get madder and madder.
Seth… At who? You think it is going to be you, you know it is going to be at herself because she is caught.
Stephanie… Yeah.
Seth… Someone who is caught gets angry. They get angry because they are caught. By your “therapeutic session” you allow her to victimize herself.
Stephanie… Em hmm, I can’t bridge the idea of you know how can a therapist be helpful if the patient hates them?
Seth… Who cares?
Stephanie… Well, I don’t understand that idea.
Seth… Do I, for example, care whether Jasmine gets angry at me on any particular session or not? Whether our friend Frank takes annoyance with what I have said?
Stephanie… Yes, but…
Frank… But you have built up a relationship over a long period of time.
Seth… And so has Kaetorina. There is a relationship here whether she knows it or not.
Stephanie… But Jasmine will still come to you and allow you to you know maybe asking questions, this, that, the other. This girl will I think just sit there and want to avoid and not talk…
Seth… Fine, then you will sit there for fifteen or twenty sessions without saying a word.
Stephanie… Em hmm and I should of course not let her have any phone in the session.
Seth… Absolutely not.
Stephanie… Right. And so, I will tell the mother…
Seth… Why tell the mother. By the way I want your cell phone shut off or you are to have your cell phone there the immediate time you have a question upon what she said or what was done that is an immediate phone call.
Stephanie… Em hmm, right. Oh, the second I’m going to start she is going to change her story right away. Because I have confronted her with things, and she starts to change her story.
Seth… Why do you change your story? Why did you lie to me? That’s the next question.
Stephanie… Em hmm, she is going to dread Wednesday nights.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Stephanie… Should I do this with the mother? I should tell the mother this as well.
Seth… So the mother can be prepared.
Stephanie… Well, this about me but I’m just saying what about when she is lying completely with the mother?
Seth… Everyone should check on her.
Stephanie… Everyone should be checking?
Seth… Why allow an individual to lie?
Stephanie… Right and the homework you gave the example as well. I did it so the mother is supposed to…
Seth… And then you see and if she says well, I didn’t want to, why don’t you want to if you know it?
Stephanie… Well, she is going to say you know you are up my you know what.
Seth… Yes, I am and I am up your you know what because you lie and I can’t trust you and the only way I can trust you is to see that you do and are what you say.
Stephanie… So, and that’s why she is not going to be treated as an adult.
Isabella… So, does that mean I have to call her out on her lies also?
Seth… Of course, immediately.
Isabella… Because I avoid that. I avoid calling her out, that’s why she doesn’t hate me. (Stephanie laughs.) Because I let it go.
Frank… That’s where the blackmail is. She is blackmailing you.
Seth… Right.
Isabella… Well, I…
Seth… She blackmails you as our friend Frank says because of the fact that she can and because you are allowing it.
Isabella… Well, I am just there for one purpose.
Seth… You are there to educate.
Isabella… Right.
Seth… But you can’t educate if the individual lies and won’t do their work.
Isabella… Right so what is the point of me being there?
Seth… The point of your being there is to give her an opportunity as a teacher.
Isabella… Well, aren’t I done?
Seth… No. (Stephanie laughed.)
Frank… So, on Monday I had a lot of free floating anxiety, I’m wondering what that was about. Did I scare myself with the material that I was reading? (This would have been some spiritual material, a book which I no longer remember what it was. F.N.)
Seth… Yes.
Frank… And it is okay to just continue but go slower, pay attention and just be kind to myself…
Seth… One should always be kind to themselves.
Frank… Yeah, but I might in the past have a reaction, okay now I’m going to read two chapters!
Seth… It is the same foolishness that a person does when they are trying to exercise. Remember, you exercise your mind, your being in the same way you exercise your muscles. If you find that your physical muscles become sore from exercising, do you give them a chance to rest or do you go ahead and force extra work on them?
Frank… No, you are supposed to rest.
Seth… So that the muscle may regroup itself, may grow, may expand. That is the natural order of things. Your mind must also rest, regroup itself and grow. For when your mind does not have an ability to rest, to regroup itself and to grow you are then avoiding the proper exercise that you need to change that which you seek!
Frank… I have a question about a patient that came up from a recent session. I’ve mentioned this patient before, her name is (Blank) and she literally has, she was abused quite a bit. There is part of herself that is abusive to her, and she has divorced herself from this part of herself so much so that she doesn’t recognize it as herself and when she looks in the mirror it’s like the self will talk to her. And I have gone in the direction… and it is very interesting the way she hates because she will pick groups to hate very strongly. And I have been trying to lead her, but I think and this is my question, I have been bridging slowly trying to slowly incorporate the concept that she should not be so unkind to this part of herself…
Seth… You have to go back to where it stems from, the abuse.
Frank… Well, so then the question would be what does this part of you remind you of?
Seth… Correct and let’s assume she hates Puerto Ricans.
Frank… Okay.
Seth… Obviously, you just stated you hate Puerto Ricans, my question to you is why? What have the Puerto Rican community done to offend you?
Frank… But it’s tougher than that Seth, because she’s Jewish and she hates Arabs. Everybody in the Gaza Strip should be wiped out and it kind of mirrors how she wants to wipe out part of herself.
Seth… We understand that. Did every Arab in the Gaza Strip hate you? Do they all or is there any one redeeming person there?
(Jasmine said something in jest indicating that the patient would think that all Arabs are bad.)
Frank… She might say something like that.
Seth… Please prove it to me. Show me how your belief system is valid.
Frank… It’s a big challenge to have someone who hates.
Seth… It’s a big challenge for you, I understand this.
Frank… The challenge to me is to lead her to those places is what you are saying. Alright.
Seth… Do you remember a very foolish picture that was recently shown in your theaters, and it was called “Don’t Mess with the Zohan”.
Frank… Yes. (Frank laughs.)
Seth… Wasn’t that about Jewish and Arab difficulties where they were being forced to hate each other by an outside influence?
Frank… Yes.
Seth… And you think I don’t know what is going on here. (Group giggles.)
It might be a very interesting discussion to have with her if she has seen the picture and if not, ask her to see it.
Frank… I thought while that picture was extremely foolish, I thought it was clever that he made it so foolish so that he could even put those disparate things together otherwise people might have hurt him. You know the creator (Adam Sandler) of that movie. (To date, January 2016, I have found Seth’s suggestion to use this movie which was a silly farce but did deal with serious issues as one of his more interesting uses of pop culture for therapeutic benefit. I did use his suggestion, resulting in the patient easing up on her tendency to hate others and herself. Not completely as at one point she complained that she did not want to watch “Don’t Mess with the Zohan” for a third or fourth time!)
Seth… You are going off on a tangent and bumping into trees. Try to listen to what I’ve stated.
Frank… Okay.
Seth… Yes Kaetorina.
Stephanie… I’m just curious about the whole adoption situation where, is there a special way to work with adopted children? I mean the idea of that there are so many difficulties emotionally whatever seemingly stems from the first rejection and all of that?
Seth… It depends upon how the adoptive parents present the idea or the necessity for the adoption. It could have been as simple as it’s not as if your birth mother and birth father didn’t love you, didn’t want you. It is because they could not provide a stable, healthful, proper environment for you to grow. And the hardest decision that they ever had to make, whether it is true or not matters not, this is in the formative years of a child, was they had to give you up. And if some of the research that “your scientists” are now finding that the openness of informing every child that they were adopted may not have been correct.
Stephanie… At a certain chronological age?
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… That holding it back is actually, they can handle the information and then understand it.
Seth… Correct.
Frank… That holding it back is more correct?
Seth… Yes
Stephanie… Interesting. Because many, many parents have presented adoption in exactly the way that you have stated it.
Seth… And the child at seven, eight or nine says Mommy and Daddy didn’t love me.
Stephanie… Right because they cannot process that yet.
Frank… They don’t have the capacity.
Seth… They don’t have the intellectual ability to understand that therefore I must be wrong, I must be bad, I must have done something. It is the same thing for example that a child will do where there is a death of another child in the family. The child often adopts the idea that they were responsible for the loss of that child.
Stephanie… Em hmm.
Seth… Whether they were or not matters not.
Stephanie… Right, you are speaking to their intellectual ability to understand.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… But I think some of the fear is that if they wait long what if they find out by accident because they were not told. Like, is there an age that you would state?
Seth… The age must be appropriate to each individual. You cannot put at twelve I am going to tell everyone.
Stephanie… Right but what cognitive state…
Seth… The cognitive state should be delayed as long as possible so that the intellectual capacity to understand that they weren’t just given away, they were better chosen than given away and that is an individualistic thing when a child can learn to reason that.
Stephanie… What would be the ages that might come into…
Seth… The ages that may come into that may be as early as six to as late as twenty-five.
Stephanie… How would one know that?
Seth… You have to look at, you are looking for a magical formula here which is not possible.
Frank… So obviously it has to be in the context of the situation.
Seth… Right.
Stephanie… So, you have to look at their ability and their emotional maturity, cognition taken into account.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… So, this would be something that a psychologist for example could evaluate a child and see what their capacity is and all of that.
Seth… And the best giver of that advice is the parents themselves.
Stephanie… Em hmm, to answer the psychologists’ questions.
Seth… Right, not the child it is the parents who have to be evaluated. What does the child do here, here, here, here, here and here.
Stephanie… But if the psychologist could evaluate the child’s capacity for it, no?
Seth… The capacity is questionable there.
Stephanie… Oh?
Seth… It is an understanding of the concept that you were not thrown out.
Stephanie… Right. So, it is hard, I don’t know how this would get to parents who, I don’t know, you have to catch them early.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… So now let’s say I have patients in my practice who are adopted and it’s a disaster then how… should that be in a sense one of the first topics covered and delved into and the whole nine yards with that?
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… Regardless of whatever else is going on.
Seth… With whatever else is…
Frank… The idea of when you were told and how you were told that you were adopted?
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… And for example, when would I even attempt this with this girl Melissa after I confront her with her four million lies, when would I then delve into that whole notion?
Seth… You may delve into it…
Stephanie… Whenever?
Seth… Whenever.
Stephanie… Em hmm, right but clearly this is critical for her and her brother is part of…
Seth… Of course.
Stephanie… This is why she is (Word is unclear.) she needs to join with him. It is in the only place that she feels she can relate as to being a nothing.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… There’s a nothing with her.
Seth… Don’t you understand, I don’t care because I am a nothing!
Stephanie… That’s what it really seems like though it’s just not worth it anyway.
Seth… I don’t have to work, do for me, prove to me that I am worth something.
Stephanie… And so is my brother and we are nothing together.
Seth… Correct.
Stephanie… So, my real work after this is to challenge the “I am a nothing idea.”
Seth… You may ask a simple question; do you believe you are nothing because you are adopted?
Stephanie… Right whenever I felt ready to go there. Okay, thank you.
Seth… Are there any other questions?
Arthur… Is there something I can read to explore more about the difference between forgiving versus loving what we hate.
Seth… (Took a deep breath.) I believe it is a process not just a reading of forgiving and understanding and learning to love what someone hates. It is more of an openness. Again, I would suggest to you, where your intellect is taking you is in a bad situation. Therefore, my tendency would be to give you the idea that one should read The Magical Approach. How much of my material have you read before this?
Arthur… I’ve read The Magical Approach.
Seth… Have you read other material?
Arthur… Yes.
Seth… Okay then you can certainly be advised to read that.
Arthur… And is there anything I am both in a state of avoiding, I go back and forth but it’s sort of a race between fear and lack of self esteem…
Seth… What is the difference between the two?
Arthur… I don’t know.
Seth… Nothing.
Arthur… Okay. So, working on one will help the other.
Seth… Correct.
Frank… I have a question about avoiding too. So, at dinner when I was discussing with the group about working on the family communication and Cyndi had so much difficulty with it, it was essentially just this very thing, the avoiding? She just wants to avoid things that are unpleasant.
Seth… That is correct.
Frank… Okay, um alright, that’s enough for now.
Seth… Let me leave you with this, you want to write this down Jasmine?
Jasmine… Sure.
Seth… I’m not “sure” you can choose to do it or not.
Jasmine… Sure, I said sure.
Seth… If you choose to be the change that you see in the world the question arises, what happens to your wants? Choose quality over quantity and the quality of your existence will give you enough “food” to feed you in whatever situation arises. A hardy good evening to all.
(Session ended at 9:54 P.M.)