Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

This is Fellow Healer’s response to the previous Ask Jane: “Who is Hurting Who?” To read that Ask Jane, click here.

Fellow Healer: Sometimes all this “It’s all in the head of the hurting one” thing is missing something.   And that is people can do mean hurtful things, and it’s ok when you’re on the receiving end of this to hurt!  It’s human too.  Hurt tells us something.  It tells an abused spouse, that there is something wrong that needs addressing.  We don’t want to teach people not to feel!  It’s just feel, accept, and then shift to a higher state when you’re ready….  accept and create, yes?    Life is meant to work, and what do people do when it doesn’t, when real stuff is happening, and there is hurt?

Yes  pain, beliefs, limiting decisions etc. can skew our perception and attract what we don’t want.  On the other hand, God gave us a very good emotional system to discern quickly when someone is treating us poorly, to feel it, and adjust.  This is key. For there is only one of us here anyway, so how we treat each other is imperative…. peace, love, and kindness is so healing.

Jane: Yes our feelings do give us very important information, and feeling your pain lets you know something is wrong, and motivates you to do something about it.  But how you interpret the meaning of your feelings is vitally important, as it affects what you are motivated to do about it. The framework you are in determines whether you end up making the pain worse; or are just getting relief for the moment; or are removing yourself from the pain in one form, only to find yourself in the same kind of pain in another form; or whether you are actually getting to the root of the problem in order to really solve the issue.

Fellow Healer: If we are to connect, be real, and get along, there needs to be a better way.  For No one has to put up with anyone’s BS any more.  We need to feel and see when people are BS, and move on.  And feel when someone is genuine, wants to engage, and go with that.  This is my lesson, and probably due to my limiting decision of not being good enough, I tolerated peoples poor behavior toward me for a long time…  my EI awareness has helped me see it now and change.   Be the change I want to receive, be the change I want to give.

Jane: If you have tolerated people’s poor behavior toward you because of feeling not good enough, the solution is not about learning how to stand up to them or about judging their behavior; it is addressing your feelings of being not good enough.  That is an internal process, not an external process.  Their behavior becomes unimportant when you are dealing with what is being triggered in you.  But it is everything when you are not dealing with it.  When you are not dealing with your own issues, other people are defining your reality, and you are living in reaction to them, rather than from your own center.  If you were coming from your own center, of course you wouldn’t be putting yourself in harm’s way.  You would automatically be making different choices in your life, you would be relating to people differently, and you would be perceiving people differently.  Your world would cease to be defined by your limiting decisions*.

*For a definition of limiting decisions, click here.