We know this because life is set up so that what really benefits us is the way forward, and what harms us is the way backwards. There are certain kinds of behaviors people tend to go toward that lead to our lives working less and less well. They are behaviors or things we think benefit us, but really don’t. Examples are: one person giving up their power to another in a relationship, in order to be taken care of, leading to being increasingly more dependent; or eating foods that feel comforting, but clog your arteries and cause obesity; or excessively drinking alcohol to feel good in the moment, but that harms your liver and causes you to behave in ways you later regret; and so on. These are examples of what I call “substitute desires” that are not in your real self-interest, but substitutes for what you really desire, based on limiting decisions* that you can’t have what really matters to you. It’s pretty clear that they are harmful to us and lead us backwards.
But moving toward true or enlightened self-interest, such as moving toward love in relationships, eating foods that are actually good for you, and developing yourself in areas of your life that are truly fulfilling and important to you — these lead your life forward. This means that going toward what feels good to the higher part of you moves you forward. It leads you toward who you really are, it leads you to the Divine in you, it leads you toward your inherent contribution in life.
Whether a particular behavior feels good to you or not depends on what part of you you are relating from. And so if, instead of your higher self, you are letting the unhealed parts of you rule, then you believe your substitute desires are what you desire. And eventually, any negative system is by its nature doomed to self-destruct, because it’s going in the opposite direction of what really matters to you, and what really benefits you.
The purpose of the evolutionary process is to move increasingly more toward our enlightened self-interest, that which truly benefits us. The whole universe, every particle of All-That-Is, is set up to move us toward what truly benefits us.
If we observe the human evolutionary process we can see that it inherently is benevolent, moving us toward our greater well-being. For instance, in the earlier evolutionary stages, it appears primitive people were constantly in danger of not surviving as a part of their daily lives. And their lives were extremely physically arduous, taken up with just surviving. There were limited choices and limited opportunities.
As humanity has evolved it has moved from a limited physical perspective, to increasingly greater consciousness, which has opened up increasingly more knowledge and possibilities, including being able to focus on more than just survival. Humanity has also moved from a limited understand of what power is to a more expanded and evolved one. And therefore it has moved from abusing those with less physical power, such as children and women, to more empowered lives for more of us. Laws created by humanity have also moved increasingly more toward being based on understanding and compassion rather than revenge and punishment.
The fact that the human evolutionary process is moving toward greater intelligence and an increasing sense of who we really are, is evidenced when you observe the younger generations, who are generally much brighter and more conscious than preceding ones.
These are just a few examples of humanity’s evolution forward. Of course there is also a great deal that is unevolved in the world, and people tend to notice where life or the human experience appears unevolved, without taking into account the huge evolutionary steps humanity has already taken.
The whole point about life being meant to work is that life is set up in a way in which that is the natural outcome, if you come into the truth of what life is about. The process of evolution is a process of moving toward what is actually true, as opposed to the unevolved misconceptions we started out with or developed along the way — such as the belief that physical power is true power, that men are more valuable than women, that punishment is an effective way to teach children, that exploiting workers is good for business. These ideas were based on limiting decisions* and substitute desires, and therefore were not the direction of the future. When the truth was discovered that there are much more effective forms of power than the physical, and that women are an invaluable asset in the world, and so on, we discover that life works much better, because these are based on truth. Every time innovators push through new ideas propelled by inspired insights, we discover a deeper truth about how life works, which then brings us into alignment with what is true, thereby causing life to work increasingly better.
And so we can see that the evolutionary process is an intelligent and benign process. It causes the expansion of truth, intelligence, love and compassion. We discover as we evolve forward that love works better than hate in relationships, in business, and in teaching children, and that compassion works better than brute force. Even in warfare we discover that addressing populations’ needs is more effective in gaining allies than bombing them. Evolution is, in fact, leading us toward love itself.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions usually made before the ages of 6 or 7, that are some form of deciding that life doesn’t work and usually also that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as “I am bad,” “I’m not valuable,” “People can’t be trusted,” and so on.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
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 question was asked by a client of mine named Sue:
Sue told me she was feeling lonely and not happy in her relationship with her husband. She felt he spent too much time working or doing other activities he likes to do. And often when he was with her, he wasn’t really focused on her, although he was sometimes. She wanted him to spend more time with her, really focused on her, but didn’t want to stop him from doing the things he enjoys doing, and wondered what she should do.
My response: I think what you’re really wanting is intimacy. And the lack of intimacy in your life is what is resulting in you feeling lonely. The particular amount of time with your husband focusing his attention on you, is just a symbol of that for you. But you not receiving intimacy, has to do with you not having the channels open for receiving it, in other words, an inability to receive it. Intimacy can’t be gotten by controlling another person’s behavior.
This is actually an interlocking issue between you and your husband, because he also doesn’t have the channels for intimacy open. And so the solution is not to have him stop doing what he likes to do and focus his attention on you. Approaching this by trying to get him to focus more time on you is an attempt to control what can’t be controlled in reality, and it is a backwards approach to the problem. The problem is not about what each of you wants being in conflict, but it’s about your unhealed issues distorting each of your experience of reality in a way that proves your limiting decisions to be true. When people make a limiting decision, the unconscious mind gets invested in proving that it is true. That’s what causes people to keep repeating dysfunctional patterns in their lives, doing things over and over again that they know isn’t good for them, or getting into the same kind of dysfunctional type of relationship. In this case, the limiting decision, and what your unconscious is invested in proving, has to do with believing you are not lovable. And so the solution is to transform the unhealed issue.
When the limiting decisions in both of you that are closing the channels for you being able to have intimacy in relationships are cleared, than the issue of how much and in what way you spend time with each other will natural flow in a way that creates intimacy. The truth is that intimacy is something you both want, as it’s inherent in intimate relationships. When you get to the real issue, you find that what each of you wants is not actually in conflict with the other.
*Limiting decisions are decisions made usually before the age of 6 or 7 years old, that are some form of deciding that there is something inherently wrong with you, and/or some form of that life doesn’t work — Such as “I am bad,” “I am worthless,” “People can’t be trusted.”
From the “Life is Meant to Work: Prepare Yourself for a New Reality” tele-seminar.
The life of every living organism must be based on self-interest. Every moment of our lives is based on it. Breathing, eating, sleeping, loving, helping others. A plant turns toward the sun in order to get the nourishment it needs. And it’s flourishing gives us pleasure. If it were to deny itself what it needs to do well, would we think it was being virtuous? The very nature of life is based on self-interest. You are ALWAYS doing what you conceive of as self-interest, even if it’s denying your self-interest in order to be what you believe to be virtuous. The reason you would do this is because it makes you feel better about yourself. If doing what you believe to be virtuous ended up making you feel bad about yourself, you wouldn’t do it.
Following your own self-interest defines who you are. It is the expression of who you are. When you are allowing yourself to move toward your enlightened self-interest you are contributing who you are to the whole. You are revealing a piece of creation.
Even if you are not connected to your enlightened self-interest, you must start with the self-interest you can access in order to move toward more enlightened self-interest. Those who deny their self-interest are living in an artificial shell, a false persona, in a false world. They are not authentic. Life around them is devoid of anything real, and therefore anything of real nourishment or value.
Before you made limiting decisions, and before you started creating false personas and false worlds, you were living in a state of true self-interest, i.e. what really benefited you. Your focus was on life, truth, experience. You were led by what mattered to you. That is what guided your every moment — opening up your life, experience, and development. You were participating in living, flowing, experiential truth.
What makes suicide bombers so frightening and difficult to combat is their denial of the most basic self-interest of being alive. They, presumably, believe they are following the self-interest of doing what it takes to be virtuous, by doing God’s work. And they look forward to their reward in some version of heaven.
The people who are the most disconnected from their own most basic self-interest are the ones who act in ways that are the most distorted and dysfunctional. And it generally results in out of control behavior, under the radar of consciousness. For example people who are immersed in fundamental, repressive religious dogma, who can find no legitimate outlet for their human desires, can tend to act out sexually dysfunctional and destructive behavior in situations where they think it can remain hidden or not talked about, such as molesting children.
It is not possible to deny one’s own self-interest. It will be expressed in some form, either in its pure form or, as a result of being denied, in its distorted form. In its distorted form, it is likely to be destructive.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
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.
I addressed the below question in the previous “Ask Jane.” In this “Ask Jane” I’m addressing it from a different perspective in relation to how it actually came up.
Lita: “I’m in a really great relationship with a man now, and things are going really well. But I keep feeling afraid something will go wrong, and he will end up leaving. I’m concerned because of this fear I’ll try to control things with him, that will actually cause him to leave.”
This question originally came up in Lita’s TimeLine session. And the limiting decision at the core of this question turned out to be “I’m not good enough to have the relationship I want.” The originating event was many lifetimes ago, and she was a woman in her late 30′s and she wanted this big, strong, handsome man in her village, but he wouldn’t have her, because she wasn’t pretty enough, or young enough. And she wasn’t interested in any of the other men. It just seemed that there was no one for her.
Jane (in the context of teaching during the learning part of the process): “The issue here is what is it that you really want? What you’re really wanting is the Divine. What you’re really wanting is the essence of the Universe, that may be shining through this particular person. And so it’s never an attachment to the person himself that is what you’re really wanting. It’s the heart of intimacy, the heart of love. And you can get that in a lot of different places. You’re wanting love, and love is everywhere. You find it through many, different sources, when you are a conduit for it. When you are in that vibration, you’ll naturally attract it. It’s not about having to have that man in order to be happy. When you are in that vibration it’s an allowing of what’s true, which then allows the right person to come into your life, without the pressure or weight being on him.
But when you’re coming from the limiting decision that you can’t have what you want, you are needing to grab something that you believe you can’t have, which is controlling. And inherent in it is loss. It’s coming from a place where you don’t have it, so that then is the reality you are creating. From that place you can never get it. And then whatever you can get, you don’t want.”
After the limiting decision was cleared: The way Lita then experienced her situation in that life time was that she could see good qualities in many of the men in her community, and many men were attracted to her, and it no longer seemed like an impossible situation. And so then she was open to what was really there for her.
And in terms of her present reality situation, she no longer felt that fear that her boyfriend might leave.
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.
From Laura in Del Mar
Laura: I’m in a really great relationship with a man now, and things are going really well. But I keep feeling afraid something will go wrong, and he will end up leaving. I’m concerned that because of that I’ll try to control things and that will actually cause him to leave. Any advice?
Jane: Many people in relationships believe their happiness and well-being depend on having that special person to fulfill their lives. They have this internal image of what he or she will look like and be like. And they have this belief that everything will be alright when they have this person. But this is not where the source of well-being is, and any form of trying to make something outside of yourself the source of anything that really matters to you is eventually doomed to fail.
So let’s look at what it is you really want. Perhaps it is love, emotional nourishment, connection, security… The source of those things is not specific people. If you don’t have those in your life it is because you don’t have the emotional channels open to receive them. Limiting decisions, such as you are not loved, you are not safe, you need a man to take care of you, you are not valuable, and so on, will cause you to have the channels closed to receiving love, a sense of your value, feeling safe in the world, etc.
The universe is filled with resources, but they may not come in the form or direction you expect them to come in or from. When you are receiving what really matters to you, you are receiving it from the universe, through some vehicle, such as a particular person in your life. The source is the universe (or Life, the Divine, or however you conceive of it).
When you try to make it a specific person, you are putting huge weight and pressure on that person, and basically end up trying to control them. This may give you a sense of panic, because the truth is you can’t control that person. And you also can’t control the universe. What you can control is finding out what channels in you are closed that are causing you not to receive what really matters to you, and finding a way to open them up. This means clearing the limiting decisions that are closing the channels. One method for doing that is the NLP TimeLine process.
(Client’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)
Melanie was feeling very anxious because she was going to have surgery the next day, and she just found out that she won’t be able to do anything for herself afterwards and will need help from people.
The limiting decision Melanie cleared with the TimeLine Process: “Needing other people is weak.”
The first event in which she made that decision: 13 generations ago. She was a 6 year old boy and was raped by his father. The father used him for his own needs. So the boy decided that people’s needs make them weak and cause them to do horrible things.
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings during the TimeLine Process: “Your father in this past generation wasn’t functioning from his real needs. He must have had significant limiting decisions in the area of needs, so that he didn’t have the channels open to receiving them in the natural course of his life. What he was trying to get from you was not actually getting his needs met, but a dysfunctional substitute. What people do when they can’t get their needs met is they find some symbolic substitute that they feel they can control, which in this case had to do with dominating another person and grabbing what he needed. But it’s not possible to grab what you actually need. His real needs would have been more like the need for love or acceptance. And those can’t be grabbed or taken from someone else. There’s no way to impinge on or harm another person and get your real needs met, because what you need is something that can only be freely given, and would automatically happen if you have the channels open to receive them.
When you deny your real needs, that’s when things start getting distorted. And that’s when doing things that are outside of divine order start occurring. Denying what’s true and real is the problem because then it gets stuffed down into the unconscious mind where it becomes irrational and out of control, just the way your father was. So having needs is not the problem; denying them is the problem.”
(Participant’s names are changed to protect their privacy.)
To Rita: When people don’t receive what they need from their parents, they tend to make a limiting decision that they’re not going to get what they need. Now, the limiting decision can be in the form of ‘Oh, gosh, I can’t get what I need.’ Or it can become a power-struggle in which you dig in your heels and say, ‘If I don’t get it from them, I won’t get it from anyone else,’ which means ‘I’m not going to accept it from anyone except from those people, because they’re suppose to give it to me because they’re the parents.’ But your parents are just bumbling souls like everyone else. They don’t necessarily have the tools to be parents. They’re just in that position. And they’re not necessarily more advanced than you are. In fact they’re usually less advanced because that’s the way evolution works. The children are more evolved than the parents. The universe is filled with resources, with everything you could possibly need. But it may not come in the form you decided it should come in. So if you get into a power-struggle that it has to come from your parents or you’re not going to receive it, you are then holding that limiting decision in place with that power-struggle. Then you have the channels closed and the universe can’t give you what you need, because you won’t accept it from any place but that person. In this case it is your mother who has to give it to you. And if she doesn’t, you decide, ‘That means, I’m not loved.’ Or ‘That means, ‘I’m not cared for.’ No that’s not what it means. It means that, for whatever reason, your mother is on her own path, and just can’t do it, or won’t do it, or whatever. But you’re not dependent on her. You’re dependent on a larger reality than her. And the universe has exactly what you need, if you don’t get into a power-struggle and make a limiting decision. You’re a perfectly capable woman, and you’ve proven that to yourself. And it appears to me, that you may be causing yourself to be incapable in order to make her take care of you. And she’s not cooperating. You’re trying to get her to play a role that she cannot play. For whatever reason, whatever her unhealed issues are, she can’t do it. And when you try to get her to do it, she freaks out. So it’s not going to be solved through her. Perhaps you are focused on getting her to take care of you, rather than getting out there and getting a job. I don’t think you’re consciously doing this, but you may be undermining yourself. And we keep clearing stuff that is undermining your ability to function and so you’re functioning a lot better now. But you may be, on an unconscious level, undermining your efforts in order to get her to do what she’s ‘supposed to do.’ And we can get to what that is, because it should be cleared.”
(Ren said she’d just have to accept not having a mother.)
“It’s not that you have to accept not getting what you need. You don’t have to accept not having a mother. The bottom line is life is meant to work. That means you have everything you need. You don’t have to accept not having enough. But there’s a decision inside that you don’t have what you need, or a decision, in some form that boils down to that life is not meant to work. That’s what needs to be changed. It’s definitely not that you have to accept anything less than everything. But you won’t necessarily get it from your mother. You’re never dependent on another person to get what you need. The Universe is filled with resources. The source for what you need is not out there. The source for what you need is inside of you and your internal connection with the Divine. That means if you are in alignment, then whatever it is you need will show up in some form. It may come from this person or that person or that person. But you’re not dependent on the person through which it shows up. They are just the vehicle through which the Divine is giving you what you need. And if it doesn’t come from this person, it will come from someone else.
This is really important because this is what often happens when people who are more evolved get born into either a whole social context or to a family, who is less evolved. And sometimes the gap between the parent (or social context) and the child is really large. And the child often doesn’t realize that they’re more evolved. They think the parent is older so they’re supposed to know more, they’re supposed to be wiser. And ‘Why can’t they see what I see? It’s perfectly obvious. What’s wrong with you?’ So they are trying to lean on this less evolved person as if they should be able to support and help them. And they can’t, and the pressure that the child puts on them to support them is more than the parent can handle, because it’s like trying to expand something that’s really tiny, and they can’t do it. And some parents are really upset by this.”
Rita: That’s how my mom acts.
“You’re trying to force her to be bigger than she is. She’s too small to expand to where you’re coming from. On a soul level, she cannot be your parent. She is biologically your parent, and she fed you, etc. But on a soul, spiritual level, she cannot do it. She is too unevolved. You can’t get it from her. The child trying to make the parent expand to where they are is too much for the parent. So it’s not that she doesn’t love you. It’s not that she doesn’t care about you. She’s just not big enough. She’s not expanded enough.
And this goes back to the big shift that humanity is going through right now, which is that the source of what we need, the source of our safety and well-being is not out there. We think it’s got to be the parent, it has to be the government, it has to be the banks, it has to be all of those different sources of safety. That’s not where it comes from. The real source is larger than all of us. It’s the Universe, and we access it internally. The source in inside not outside. You can take comfort in the fact that this is the big shift that humanity is going through right now, so if you haven’t really gotten it, that’s because none of us have totally gotten it yet. This is a huge transformation. This is a really, really big deal.”
During Melanie NLP TimeLine Session 8-24-09 (Client’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)
The limiting decision Melanie cleared during TimeLine Therapy:“Other people’s needs are more important than hers.”
The first event in which she made the limiting decision: The second month in the womb. She felt her mother’s frustration, upset, and anger. She felt so sorry for her. Her life has been so hard. She feels her mother’s fear of having a child. So Melanie keeps trying to give to her, and is only focused on giving her what she needs, instead of her own needs. She feels her own needs would be too much for her mother.
Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during the TimeLine Process: “The real issue here is that you loved your mother, and love is what you had to give her. You couldn’t solve her problems. You couldn’t solve the fear, frustration, or pain, because that was of her own creating. That was her own path. That was what she needed to be working through in her lifetime. And trying to take it from her, or do it for her is a co-dependent process. But what’s fueling it is love. You were a loving, loving being and this was your idea of expressing love to her, giving her what you thought she needed. But what you could give her, which would benefit both you and her, is expressing love. Whether or not she had the channel open to receive your love is not your responsibility. You expressing love to her leaves you free to feel your own needs. Whatever needs you have is a part of your living organism. That is just truth. And because it is truth, it a part of Divine expression. And trying to block your own needs is blocking the Divine flow of things. It is moving you out of truth, and that causes a distortion in your experience, and it doesn’t help her. What your mother was expressing that she wanted was a substitute for what she really needed, and therefore a distortion of truth. It was a part of her dysfunctional structure of life, and so if you had been able to give it to her, you would just be contributing to feeding that dysfunctional reality she was locking herself into.
So the only thing that was there for you to do toward your mother was love her. The truth is, underneath most pain really is love, and this is a really good example of that. What’s underneath your sadness in relation to your mother was love and is still love.”
(To Aaron)“You took on your parents’ view that it was impossible for them to pay attention to all of their children, because there were too many children and too much to do.You thought in the light of that, your needs were not important, and would be a further burden on your parents.But the truth is there is something very dysfunctional, and out of reality, in that view of the situation.Your parents created an impossible scenario because of their unhealed issues, not because of anything inherent in the situation.
But you made the limiting decision that your needs are not important.And the way you’ve compensated for that decision is your defense system of having to be perfect.If you are a needy child, that means you are a burden.But if you are perfect, if you have a mask for an exterior, needing nothing — then you are not a burden.Eventually this turned into you trying to get something out of being perfect, as a substitute for getting your actual needs met.You developed a ‘perfect’ persona that would then get you something out in the world.But what you really want are your actual human needs fulfilled that you have given up on.Being connected to your own needs is necessary in order to be genuinely present in the world, to connect with others, and in order to be a true contribution.Your needs are not this horrible thing.Your parents created a situation in which everything outside of physical necessity was a burden.So they couldn’t pay attention to the thing that was most important, which has to do with the human aspect of things.”
