To Better See the Solution, Minimize the Problem

Seth: The Personal Sessions, Book 4, Session 08/14/78, pgs 332-334.

(Hat tip to Ric of Seth Practicing Idealists.)

Seth: Your whole civilization is immersed with the idea that the way to solve a problem --any problem, private or worldwide-- is to exaggerate it, see its worst projection; and this, then, is supposed to make you take proper action.

The approach unfortunately solves no problems, and only compounds them, whether the nation is trying to solve problems of energy, or social problems, or whether an individual is try to overcome a dilemma.

You are so immersed in that method of problem solving, however, that it comes back to haunt you. At least you can be aware of it and alert.

I will give you the answers to your questions, but they are not the way to solve your problem--and against all conventional knowledge, reviewing the mistakes of the past does not lead to wisdom.

When you become so worried, of course, you concentrate even further on the problem--how bad it is, and what will happen if it becomes worse in the future.

The problem is, therefore, compounded to whatever degree--and when I give you both such reasons, then sometimes you use them, the two of you, to ADD TO your private and joint self-disapproval.

(snip)

The belief is that if you frighten yourself badly enough through imagined projections and imagination, you will be frightened enough to change--but the nation or the individual following that method does not change for the better, but compounds the original condition, concentrates upon it until it looms larger than before.

Such methods cause panic, national or individual.

(snip)

To solve a problem you begin to minimize its characteristics, diminish its importance, rob it of your attention, refuse it your energy.

The method is the opposite, of course, of what you are taught.

That is why it seems to be so impractical. I have said this so many times--and I do realize it is difficult for you--but you cannot concentrate upon two things at once. So to the extent that you concentrate upon your pleasures, your accomplishments, and to the extent that you relate to the PSYCHIC AND BIOLOGICAL MOMENT, you are refreshing yourselves.

You are not projecting negatively, and you are allowing the problem to un-wrinkle, un-knot.

You are denying it the energy of your attention that keeps it going.

You do not spend time thinking that you have not used your abilities properly. You take it for granted that you ARE using them properly, and that allows them to fully develop.

© Laurel Butts