Coming into Direct Contact with Reality
Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 10-08-09
“A way of producing change is through relating in a group situation, in which you are out in the open about how you’re really responding to things, and then you find out whether your experience is in reality or not. People’s emotional defense systems are not fun for anybody else. In a group, people’s defense systems usually irritate other people — either someone may be talking on and on, or flooding the airwaves with excuses. People might be feeling bored when the person is talking, feeling it’s going nowhere. If you’re really honest about how you’re responding, generally something comes up in relation to the person’s defense system. And if people have the courage to reveal how they’re responding, then it intercepts the defense system. And you can have someone get really upset because someone has interrupted them, or someone has stopped them from doing this usual thing they do that makes them feel good about themselves or makes them feel accepted, or makes them feel whatever that is. Several people here have experienced that. And the defense systems cover over the limiting decisions*. And then the limiting decision* comes up, which is what you’re afraid is true. And so when the defense system is penetrated, and the limiting decision* comes up, then you are present in the here-and-now with the limiting decision*, which is what people spend their life trying to avoid, because they are sure that it is true. But when it gets brought up in the little community of the group, you find out that it’s not true. So it’s a way of coming into direct contact with reality, beyond your limiting decisions*.
The group is a different kind of social situation, in which instead of people going along with your defense systems or skirting around them, they are putting in the picture their own experience, which means the defense systems are no longer ruling. Out in the world people’s defense systems are ruling. They are basically creating cushions around themselves, where they are non-verbally saying ‘Don’t say this to me. Don’t look at me that way. Don’t talk about this subject.’ And people more or less go along with it because they don’t want conflict. Out in the world, it doesn’t often work well to butt up against someone’s defense system, because there’s no way to deal with it.”
* For an explanation of limiting decisions, click here.
