Metaphysical Thoughts for EFTers: “You Are The Body of Your Beliefs”

by Jade Barbee
www.emotionalengine.com
Vermont, US

As an EFT practitioner, I am always on the lookout for exciting ideas that support the work I do – and wisdom can come from some pretty unlikely sources, indeed. Lately I have been learning the value of exploring thoughts and beliefs in new ways, and I’ve become more interested in revisiting the Seth Books – the authoritative, if seemingly esoteric, handbooks published by Jane Roberts and Robert Butts from roughly 1968-2004.

In case many of you are unfamiliar, these creative, thoughtful and provocative teachings, now archived at Yale University (and available in print almost everywhere), were on the leading-edge of thought during the 70s and greatly influenced the work of many modern authors, including Richard Bach, Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson. The Seth books also provided the impetus for the work of Abraham-Hicks. In contrast to the highly visible work of Esther and Jerry Hicks, Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts lived relatively quiet lives in Upstate New York, teaching classes to visiting students and writing books together up until Jane’s death in 1984.

In many respects, the creative relationship between Seth, Jane and Rob as well the ideas throughout the books were considered way ahead of their time. To say the least, many of Seth’s concepts and ideas still challenge conventional beliefs: His firm “You create your own reality,” doesn’t always go down easy when measured against the complexities of life experience, for example, and the unconventional method of delivery – Jane’s faithful and exhaustively documented “Seth” channeling sessions, recorded in shorthand and archived by her husband Rob, will always be a point of focus for many readers.

As an avid “explorer of consciousness,” I often run across a passage in the Seth books that helps validate something I’m doing in my EFT practice or reflects the positive changes I see with my clients. I trust the selected passages will at the very least bring a unique, powerful perspective to the core EFT principles and may very well strengthen your confidence in sharing EFT.

Ideas Related to Changing How the Past Affects Us and Inner Child Healing

Seth-Jane on the colors of our experience:

“Now: In certain terms, the past, present, future [of your present life] are all compressed in any given moment of your experience.

Any such moment is therefore a gateway into all of your existence… As I have mentioned before [in other books], you can indeed change the present to some extent by purposefully altering a memory event. That kind of synthesis can be used in many instances with many people.

Such an exercise is not some theoretical, esoteric, impractical method, but a very precise, volatile and dynamic way of helping the present self by calming the fears of a past self. The past self is not hypothetical, either, but still exists, capable of being reached and of changing it’s reactions. You do not need a time machine to alter the past or the future.

Such a technique is highly valuable. Not only are memories not “dead,” they are themselves ever-changing. Many alter themselves almost completely without your notice.”

- excerpted from The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Prentice-Hall Press, New York, 1981

Ideas Related to Self-Empowerment and Body/Mind Healing

Seth-Jane on cultivating beliefs in the the body’s reliability, resourcefulness, and powerful healing abilities:

“Each individual is a good person, an individualized portion of universal energy itself. Each person is meant to express his or her own characteristics and abilities. Life means energy, power and expression.

Those beliefs, if taught early enough, would form the most effective system of preventative medicine ever known.”

- excerpted from The Way Towards Health, Amber-Allen Publishing, San Rafael, 1997

Ideas Related to Understanding The Power of Our Personal Beliefs

Seth-Jane on living in the body of your beliefs:

Quite literally you live in the body of your beliefs. You perceive through the body of your beliefs. Your beliefs can increase your vision or diminish it. They can increase or diminish your hearing or any sense function.

If, for example, you believe that after a certain time of life hearing will fade, then so it will. You will begin to use the faculty less and less, unconsciously transfer your attention to the other senses to compensate, and rely less and less on your ears until the functions themselves do atrophy.

Functions in this particular regard are habits. You simply forget how to hear properly, following your belief. All of the minute manipulations necessary to hearing are unconsciously repressed. The actual physical deterioration then does indeed follow. The deterioration however does not occur first, but after.

The same kind of development can occur in almost any physical category. Usually more than one belief is involved. Parallel with the belief that vision will fail, you may have the before-mentioned belief that hearing will dim, and these two ideas may be reinforced by a belief that age automatically makes you less a person, turning you into an individual who can no longer relate in the daily pattern of environment. The belief, you see, would work to ensure the materialization of that state. (Pause.) On the other hand you may believe that wisdom grows with age, that self-understanding brings peace of mind not earlier known, that the keen mind is far better able to assess the environment, and that the physical senses are much more appreciative of all stimuli. And so those conditions will be physically met in your experience. The physical apparatus itself, following your beliefs, will continue in health.

You must understand, again, that your ideas and thoughts… are electromagnetic realities. They affect your physical being and are automatically translated by your nervous system into the stuff of your flesh and of your experience.”

- excerpted from The Nature of Personal Reality, Prentice-Hall Press, New York, 1974

There are literally hundreds of passages in the Seth Books that lend support to the empowering and life-changing strategies inherent in EFT. Jane, Rob and Seth’s authoritative work continues to be a huge influence in my personal EFT practice and always boosts confidence in my abilities – and beliefs – whenever I read it. The exquisite languaging – and the gentleness and humor – offered around “hard to grasp” concepts has been quite beneficial to my practice, as well.

I love helping people develop more nourishing beliefs about themselves and the world – beliefs that nurture and sustain – and feel good when we inhabit them. Nothing beats watching people awaken to themselves, their own thinking and the possibilities of exercising greater conscious control over their own lives. In Part 2, I’ll share how EFT can help us actively identify and transform self-limiting beliefs and how we can use our emotional guidance to step more confidently and naturally into change.