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.

Jonathan: There is so much turmoil in the world these days…emotional roller coasters. My sense is that all will work out (as it always does) because optimistic solutions eventually prevail in the world. Plenty of people disagree with me.  Do you have any thoughts on this?

Jane: The world is going through a major shift now.  It is a shift in consciousness.  Humanity has been becoming increasingly more conscious, as a part of the human evolutionary process.  What I mean by that is we are increasingly more able to access personal, direct experience of reality, as opposed to having to be told what reality is from outside ourselves.  At the same time, we have been building up a distorted idea of what progress is, which is an avoidance of consciousness.

In order to address this, it’s important to understand what limiting decisions are because they are what lead to the distortion of our perception of reality and the avoidance of truth, which is what cause our experiences in life to not work well.  Limiting decisions are unconscious decisions locked in place in early childhood.   They are a misinterpretation of pivotal life events that cause you to decide, for example, that you are not valuable, lovable, safe; or that people can’t be trusted; or that there isn’t enough to go around; or that you are bad, a failure, powerless and so on.  You therefore shut off the channels for knowing your value, receiving love, etc. in reality.  And so each time you made a limiting decision, from that point on, instead of being present and engaging in life in that area of your life and moving toward what really matters to you, your focus became diverted into focusing on, and compensating for, what you believed to be a deficit in the nature of reality, other people, and/or in yourself.

The majority of people in the world don’t realize that transforming these distortions is the way forward in life.  Instead they are just focused on compensating for them, as if that is what making progress in life is about.  By compensating I mean going toward symbols that symbolize what you want, but don’t actually give it to you.  For example, the choices of food people eat, the kind of cars they buy, the career path they choose, the type of person they are attracted to in business and personal relationships, their choices of entertainment, the products they buy, the way government is organized, how financial institutions are structured, the way education is set up — all of these to greater or lesser extents (depending on how conscious the person is or the people are) are often used to compensate for lacks in well-being, empowerment, a sense of stability and safety, and so on, rather than deal with the internal source of those lacks and thereby making progress in reality.

The world is structured, to a large extent, on this faulty foundation.  And this has worked, more or less, for a very long time, with some corrective shifts in consciousness along the way.  But there is a larger evolutionary timing, which is evolving our overall reality forward whether we are ready or not.  Now is the time for a very major shift, because the old, unconscious, distorted ways of what has been conceived of as human progress have reached the end of their course, and they are falling apart.  The house of cards is falling down.

But there is something much more stable and true that is underlying all of experience that has been camouflaged by the unevolved avoidance of truth the world has been based on.  And actually there is quite a lot that has been built in the world that is based on the truth of the real world.  And that will begin to come much more to the fore, as the old dysfunctional structures fall away.  This underlying building up of consciousness, based on the essence of real experience (Universal Truth, Love, Principle, Life and Spirit) is what has really been sustaining us, and is where real stability, safety and well-being reside.  We are in the process of shifting survival systems, and it’s difficult for people to let go of the old one until it is no longer working.  That is why it is falling apart.  So, yes, I see a very optimistic way forward.

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.

Julian: In the news recently there is focus upon ‘hacker victims’ in UK newspaper mess. Then there are people who express frustrations with life as if a victim of the world.  I’m wondering how you might characterize the difference between these two?

Jane: Regardless of the external circumstances, being a victim has to do with attitude and interpretation.  If your general attitude toward life is that it works well for you, then when something that seems to not go your way happens, you’re likely to interpret what happened from an empowered perspective.  If you’re general attitude is that life is hard or difficult or that it doesn’t work well for you, you’re likely to interpret what happened from a disempowered (or victim) perspective.

Whether you’re able to come from an empowered or disempowered place or not has to do with where you perceive the source of your well-being comes from.  If you see yourself as being dependent on what people outside yourself do toward you for your well-being, that puts you at the mercy of what other people do, which feels disempowering.  If you approach life from a larger perspective, knowing that there is a larger truth or guiding principle, that is inherently positive, that gives meaning to everything you experience in life — then you don’t feel at the mercy of whatever happens to occur in your life.  And as a result you approach whatever happens from a positive, empowered attitude, which then enables you to much more easily find solutions to whatever the challenge is and move in a positive direction.

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 a dialog with a client of mine, I’ll call Diana:

Diana: You mentioned that I have a limiting decision* regarding not trusting my own perception of reality. Does that mean I let myself be too influenced by others?

Jane: When a person makes a limiting decision* that they can’t trust their own perception of reality, it makes them overly dependent on how other people respond to them and define reality.  It often, also, makes them overly dependent on people they consider authority figures, likely resenting the input given by those they don’t consider to be authority figures. And the reason they feel resentful of them, is that the person finds themselves being overly influenced by just anyone, which feels humiliating.  And so they blame them for having that kind of affect on them, as if they were an authority.

Diana: You teach that limiting decisions* we have made cause us to have the wrong perception of reality. Wouldn’t I be right then not to trust my perception of reality in the present state I am in?

Jane: It is true that when a person makes a limiting decision*, in the area of their life that is affected by that limiting decision*, they are invested in avoiding present moment experience in order to avoid finding out what they are afraid is true (i.e. that they’re unlovable, not valuable, that people can’t be trusted, and so on).  This results in them having a distorted view of reality.  So the solution is to open yourself up to here-and-now experience in those areas.  Another way to put that is to “stand in the question.”  What I mean by that is you stand in the unknown, admitting you don’t know what is true, and basically open yourself up to finding out what is true, rather than reactively defending yourself or avoiding what you are afraid is true.

It’s not that you can’t actually trust your own perceptions of reality in general.  Often you have very clear perceptions.  It’s that you are generally not willing to reveal what your experience is, because you’re afraid of the results of revealing it.  But if you don’t, you won’t find out what is actually true.  Instead you hide behind non-verbal expressions, which comes across to other people as an attack.  When you actually reveal your perceptions, you can get reality feedback from others, which helps you to learn what is actually true and accurate.  You can find out how what you said affects other people, and who does and doesn’t resonate with it.  When you start engaging and relating to others, it brings you into here-and-now experience which is where you can get clarity about what is true.  But the challenge for you may be that when people do respond to you, you may find it difficult to distinguish if they are coming from a clear place or not, which is why the transformational group experience can be so helpful for you in that there’s the opportunity to sort this all out.

*Limiting Decision:  Unconscious decisions made in early childhood that are some form of deciding life doesn’t work and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as “I am unlovable,” “Other people can’t be trusted,” “I am bad,” and so on.

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 a continuation of a conversation with Stan in his TimeLine session about feeling trapped when he feels needed in his relationships.  (He has recently started a new relationship, the first since his separation from his wife.)  Stan said he is thinking about getting involved sexually with her.  To read the first part from the previous “Ask Jane,” click here.

Jane: We have to make the distinction of if what you don’t like is that she is actually being needy, or if what you don’t like is intimacy itself.

Getting involved sexually is not just a physical experience.  It’s a part of something that means more, and so the issue is whether the meaning more is a part of a fantasy or it’s connected to the real relationship.  Sex can be like a short cut, rather than dealing with the emotional reality that is actually there. It can get you out of standing in the question in order to discover what the relationship is.

Stan: In each of my relationships sex played a large part in the beginning and then as time went by sex becomes less and less interesting to me.

Jane: That’s because it wasn’t a deepening or expression of intimacy for you.  It wasn’t an expanding of intimacy.  It was just physical.  If it’s just a physical act, there are only so many different ways you can do the physical act.  If it doesn’t have any more meaning than that, then it’s not interesting, especially when you are past the hormonal stage in your life where sex is so biologically important.

The particular dynamic you tend to have with women makes intimacy not possible, and seems to have to do with a confusion about what needs are about or how one gets together.

What might be frightening to you about the pull of real intimacy is it has to do with being affected by each other.  The reason relationships can be so explosive is because of the limiting decisions* that often get brought up by them. You’re in this emotionally vulnerable place being affected by this other person, and if a dysfunctional pattern comes up, and if you don’t have your emotional defense system up, you can feel overwhelmed by it.  Intimacy requires letting go of your defense systems.  And that’s why working on oneself in the context of relationship is so vital, because everything is going to come up.  If you open yourself up to love and intimacy, then anything unhealed that is distorting it, is going to have a big impact.

True intimacy connects you to a larger frame-of-reference then just that person.  With neediness the other person is a symbol, in which case you are locked to that other person.  Your world has to be focused on them, because they are the object of your need.  They are the solution to your perceived problem.  But true intimacy is a connection to the real world.  It’s connected to a larger frame-of-reference than that person.  It has to do with an open channel, in which case you are connected to the essence of life through that person in some way. And so therefore you are not limited by that person.  You are not stuck or trapped.  With neediness, each person is trapped within the limitations of each other’s defense system.  With true love and intimacy it’s a part of the divine experience.  That’s what causes it to be an expanding experience.

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

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.

Stan (a client of mine), has been separated from his wife for quite a while.  He has recently started a new relationship.  This is the first relationship he’s even thought about getting into since his separation from his wife.  He is trying to figure out what a healthy relationship would be about, having realized the relationships he gets into don’t work.  The below dialog is a part of uncovering a central “limiting decision*” that is holding the dysfunctional pattern in place.  (The next stage in the work is to do an NLP TimeLine Process to clear the limiting decision.)

Stan:  This new relationship is making clear to me that I really don’t like to be needed, because I then start restricting myself based on the other person’s needs.

Jane: There is a difference between someone who is needy and trying to use you to make up for a lack in themselves — and someone who is coming from wholeness and love, and from really enjoying you.  When a person is needy, they don’t have the channels open to receive what it is they need.  You then become a symbol to them of what they need, rather than who you really are. This is the kind of relationship you’ve generally had in the past.

Stan: While I’m involved with this new woman, my wife’s crazy dynamics don’t get to me the way they were getting to me before, and I don’t feel a victim of her needs.

Jane: When you weren’t involved with someone else, you were leaning on your wife as your life.  But when you’ve got your own life, then it doesn’t matter to you what she does, because your life isn’t dependent upon her.

Sometimes in relationships the new relationship sort of counterbalances the old one.  Whatever dysfunctional dynamics in the old relationship that felt crippling to you, because you were leaning on them, are now offset by leaning on the new relationship.  And since you don’t yet have much investment in the new person, whatever happens in the relationship doesn’t matter so much to you, until you become invested in it — which is actually beginning to happen.  And then you’re right back in the dynamics you were trying to escape from in the first place, where you now feel victim of her needs.

It’s your neediness that is really what is trapping you.  You tend to make the woman the key focus of your life.  So you’re leaning on her for all of your needs, rather than being fully engaged in life itself.  Being fully engaged in life is a challenge for most people, because engaging with the larger reality as your focus, rather than a particular person, feels much more risky and difficult.  But if you don’t base your life on a larger reality, you end up losing your self, and therefore have nothing to base a real relationship on.

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

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.

Mitchell (a TimeLine client of mine) does not like being dependent on anyone.  And because he is extremely intelligent he has always been able to figure things out himself.  He’s now at a point in his life where he realizes he needs to expand his world beyond the limited home life he has created, but finds himself resistant to doing that.

Jane: Your life is confined to the limits of your intellect, and your personal experience from the perspective you’re standing on.  That is highly limiting.  You can’t expand your world if you can’t go beyond yourself.  To expand your world means there is something larger than you you’re dependent upon.

Mitchell: I don’t understand the concept of being dependent upon something greater than myself.

Jane: Most children start out viewing their parents basically as God, because they are physically and emotionally dependent on their parents for their well-being and survival.  But when children run into a conflict where something traumatic happens that shakes their perception of reality about themselves in relation to their parents, they then generally contract into making a generalized limiting decision* about those they are dependent on.

For example they might decide those they are dependent on can’t be trusted or that they are inadequate.  In this case they then build a defense system, such as relying on no one but themselves in life, which is what you have done.  This then limits your life to what you can personally conceive of and to what is in your control.

Or the child might make a limiting decision* that he can’t trust his own perception of reality because his perception caused him to be in conflict with his parents, or to get in trouble with them, or to be wrong.  This causes him to be dependent on authority figures and what other people think.

Or highly evolved souls, instead, basically shake the walls of heaven and demand to know what this experience means.  They then, instead of making a limiting decision*, expand to a more evolved perception of that situation, that expands their understanding.  They are then letting divine inspiration show them a greater truth than what they had understood before.  The child then is depending on a larger source.  As each person evolves he finds ways to tap into this larger source, whether he defines it in those terms or not.

People either rely on human authority, or their own defense systems, or a larger source, which then connects them with their own direct experience.

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

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.

Q & A: “What do I need in order to be happy?”

To read the previous Q & A’s about William and Terry, go to the “William & Terry” Category in the left bar.

We’ve been following the life drama between William and his wife, Terry, from the perspective of William, who is a client of mine.  The relationship had nosedived a number of months ago, when Terry went into a deep depression and started relating to William in an increasingly more controlling and infantile manner, becoming completely dependent on him and unable to function in life on her own.  This resulted in Terry (at the advice of her therapist) entering into a month-long residential program, which she just recently came back from.  From William’s perspective, the attributes in Terry that have always made the relationship difficult for him have taken over, leaving none of what attracted him to her in the first place.   He has been struggling with what his responsibilities are toward her and how to cope with this situation, which has brought up major emotional triggers in him, sometimes resulting in him losing his temper and being hateful toward her, and often resulting in him feeling deeply unhappy.  During this process William has been having weekly TimeLine sessions with me in which we have been clearing the limiting decisions* that have been brought up in him by this situation.

The implicit question from William has been: “How can I stand this situation?”

But the real question now emerging is: “What do I need in order to truly be happy?”

Jane: It’s impossible to tell how something is supposed to end up being.  It could have been (which is what you hoped for) that Terry is somehow going to get significantly better, and things will be alright, and life will go back to the way it was.  Or it could be you end up being so fed up with Terry, because life is so miserable living with her, that you end up leaving her.  But what’s actually happening is you are going through a major personal transformation, bringing yourself increasingly more into your enlightened self-interest*, which doesn’t match either of these obvious outcomes.  The form it’s currently taking is you realizing that you have been avoiding expanding your world beyond your immediate home life because of unhealed issues in you.  But in order to be happy you have to expand your world, so your life is not limited to your relationship with Terry. It is you limiting the scope of your life which is what has been causing you to feel trapped. So right now, you moving toward happiness doesn’t require you leaving Terry.  Following enlightened self-interest* is leading you down a path that we couldn’t have preconceive of.  This shows how irrelevant our preconceptions are about how things are supposed to end up looking.  The challenge is being willing to stand in the confusion and discomfort of the unknown until things become clear, rather than jumping into an immediate solution so you can stop dealing with it.

The solutions in life require staying in reality.  And in order to stay in reality you have to follow what your enlightened self-interest* is.  Limiting decisions* block you from accessing your enlightened self-interest*.  And so when you come up against a brick wall blocking your enlightened self-interest*, you heal the unhealed issue (i.e. clear the limiting decision*) in you, and then a way forward becomes clear.  And as we’ve seen, what is in your enlightened self-interest* generally doesn’t turn out to be what we thought it would be before the limiting decisions* were healed.  And so you then take the next step, and it’s adjusting and changing.  It’s allowing things to unfold as they do.  It’s really quite a marvelous process.

Limiting Decisions*:  Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

Enlightened Self-interest*: That which truly benefits you and connects you with reality, as opposed to selfishness, which is an emotional defense system and separates you from other people and reality. To read more about enlightened self-interest, go to: http://blog.janecohencounseling.com/2010/03/the-importance-of-self-interest/

or

http://blog.janecohencounseling.com/2010/06/how-do-we-know-life-is-actually-for-us-and-not-just-random/ .

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.

Aaron: We used to have a sense that we were important.  Our labor was necessary.  You worked your way up in a company, and you had value to the company.  There was a set way to get acknowledged for your value, as you advanced in your position.  Now with everything being done through computers, with so many potential resources out in the world, it’s hard to get a sense you have importance in the workplace.  You’re pretty much interchangeable.  Young people today don’t have a sense of how they can advance themselves in the world.  They don’t have a sense that they have importance or value out in the world.  What’s your perspective on this?

Jane: The issue here is who or what is defining your experience of reality.  Is it being defined from outside yourself or from inside yourself?  In the old paradigm it was your boss, and the structure of the company, that was defining what your value was, according to how well you fit into what serves the interests of the company and/or the people who control it. You knew you were of value to them if you got a raise or a promotion, and you climbed up the corporate ladder.  But this definition of value is limited by the particular perspectives of the people who control it.  It is therefore defined by a human construct, which is not necessarily aligned with what is inherently true.  Human constructs can’t define your actual value.

This hopeless feeling you have been describing is highlighting that people are mistaken or dysfunctional about how they are defining their feeling of importance.  When it’s coming from outside of yourself, it is based on the limitations and fallibilities of human beings. There’s no stability there.

Just because the old ways of doing things are no longer working, doesn’t mean things are going backwards.  What it means is that a step forward in the human evolutionary process is now being required.  We’re moving from the outside world defining our experience for us, to a more direct connect with reality.

In the evolutionary process, it seems life allows things to work at a less evolved level, until it’s time for humanity to evolve further.  When that occurs more is required of people for their lives to work.  This means the less evolved way of doing things becomes increasingly less workable, because it’s out of alignment with reality.

It’s now time for a major evolutionary shift, and the shift is occurring.  For people who aren’t participating in the changes that are needed for the shift, it’s a harder process.

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.

(Previous dialogs with William are under the
“William & Terry” category in the right side bar.)

Continuing the journey of William (an NLP TimeLine client of mine) and his wife: As you may recall, a number of months ago William’s wife of nearly 30 years went off the deep end emotionally, recently ending up in a residential program at her therapist’s recommendation.  From William’s point-of-view, it was no longer possible to be in relationship with her, as she was relating to him increasingly more as if she were literally his child.  The longer she was living with him, the worse she seemed to get, and the more impossible the situation was for William to tolerate.

His wife always liked being in charge, and was very vocal and insistent on things being her way, according to what pleased her.  Although she was so non-functional she was totally dependent on him, William was letting her make her own decisions about how she spent her time and how she conducted her life. The result was she kept getting worse, and the situation kept getting increasingly more painful for him.

His wife has now just gotten home from the 5 week residential program, and William is determined to not let the situation with her revert to the way it was previously.  He was feeling depressed about her coming home, basically in the same emotional state she was in before, until it crystallized for him what he should do.  And that was that he should just take charge of everything about her life, telling her what she should do and making all of the decisions for her, as it has become clear she is incapable of making decisions for her own benefit.

William feels he can’t really move on with his own life until he’s take care of his responsibilities for her.  He’s trying to sort out what she is and isn’t capable of, and let the responsibility for what she is capable of fall on her.

Jane: People are always doing the best they can, from the position of where they’re standing.  So that is why one of the cornerstones of the Life is Meant to Work thought system is that it’s never about what the other person is doing.  You can’t judge them, as you’re not in their shoes.  You can’t take on that responsibility.  There are too many factors.  All you can know is your own experience.  Your only guidance for what to do is your own enlightened self-interest.  That’s why it’s so crucially important.

Enlightened self-interest is what truly benefits you and connects you to what is true.  Enlightened self-interest is what really matters to you.  It is a fact, not something that can be manufactured or manipulated.  It is not necessarily the easy path, as it often requires personal transformation.  It is very different than selfishness, which avoids what is true, causes separation between people, and is a part of an emotional defense system.

That’s why you felt better when you took a stand on making all of the decisions for your wife’s life yourself, as it has become clear to you that leaving it in her hands makes life for both of you impossible.  Your decision to do that was based on your own enlightened self-interest.  It has been a breakthrough for you to do that because you didn’t trust yourself.

For any relationship to work, each person must be coming from what truly matters to them, or there is no solid foundation for it.  Ultimately the only relationship we are in is between ourselves and a larger or Universal Truth.  If you try to make up for each other’s limiting decisions* to try to make things between you work on the surface, you just get mired in deeper and deeper untruths, which ultimately creates impossible situations where there is no way out, which is what you have been finding out.

On a soul level, your wife has made a decision to put herself in the difficult position she is currently in.  All you can do is be in reality the best you can in relation to yourself and her.

* Limiting Decision:  An unconscious decision made in early childhood that is some form of that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you — such as “I am powerless,” “bad,” “without value;” or “The world is a dangerous place,” “People can’t be trusted,” and so on.

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.

(Previous dialogs with William are under the “William & Terry” category.)

As has been described previously, William’s wife went off the deep end emotionally several months ago, and has been relating extremely irrationally toward him.  Her therapist hasn’t been able to make any progress with her and she is currently in a residential program.

During this time William (an NLP TimeLine client of mine) has been working through the limiting decisions* in himself that have been triggered by his wife’s behavior toward him.  His pattern had been to at first endure it, and do things and respond in ways he really didn’t want to, in order to placate her.  Eventually when he got to his limit, he would end up exploding at her. He can now respond honestly to her without being in defensive mode — with compassion, but fully being truthful and staying in touch with what matters to him.

In working through his issues, it has become clear that this experience has been just as much for and about him as it has been about her.  He has also realized that he has not been in reality about what a relationship actually is about.  And so William asked me how I would describe what a real relationship would be like.

Jane: It has to do with finding love through coming into what is actually true.

Relationships are about relating.  And any form of real relating is participating in the human evolutionary process.  That is because when you do that, you are tapping into something you don’t control — something beyond where you have previously been.

In the ideal relationship, people reveal the truth of how they are responding to each other, which means not coming from a defended place.  We don’t control how we respond.  How we respond is just a fact.  We are so busy trying to control the results of our effects on each other, we never find out what the truth is between us, and how what is really true turns out to be what we really want of each other.

When you get to the bottom of what is true between people, it always is love.  That is what is underneath the separation, the fear, the anger, and the pain.  But most people are so daunted by the dragon at the gateway to coming together with the other, they never find that out.

When we are truly relating to each other, allowing things to be what they are and reveal them without trying to control, manipulate and distort them according to what we think will work — we find that life really does work and we find love.  But relating to each other is also likely to bring to the surface every limiting decision* you have that is in the way of love.  And so it can move you very rapidly along your own transformational, evolutionary path.

* Limiting Decision:  An unconscious decision made in early childhood that is some form of that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you — such as “I am powerless,” “bad,” “without value;” or “The world is a dangerous place,” “People can’t be trusted,” and so on.