Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

In an email update to Jane, Bennet said he’s been steadily working on projects that pay, while balancing it with the other things in his life. He said he’s been being pretty productive over-all.  He’s got three levels of projects he’s working on.  All of them are entrepreneurial.  The first one, which has to do with producing a product at home, and which is just about set up, will bring in money pretty immediately, and help to fund the next one, which will take a larger level of funding, and is a library project.  And then that one will help fund the third, which has to do with hotels and will take a lot of funding.  (I’m not being specific about the details because I don’t want to give his ideas away.)  He’s also been researching about grants for the second project.  Also, a friend said she’s planning to repay a debt she owes him.  And if she comes through, Bennet plans to invest it in getting a grant proposal written and circulated.

We haven’t been doing any NLP TimeLine Therapy Sessions for a while, because it appears we’ve cleared everything we need to clear that was in the way of Bennet being able to produce financial abundance for himself.  I’ll keep recording any significant updates.

Bennet’s Update:

Bennet emailed Jane that he was feeling very motivated about his projects, and was acting on his own behalf, for a change. He said he would send Jane more details later.

Highlights of Bennet’s NLP TimeLine Therapy Session with Jane 6-1-09

Overview: Bennet didn’t get started on his most immediate business project because he spent his time painting his house in order to get it done before his partner [Susan] got back from her trip, because she’s allergic to wet paint. He feels like he’s treading water rather than doing what is most important. Before when he was able to earn a lot of money, it was to prove to his mother he could do anything, because she kept trying to get him to follow accepted career paths, with the idea that that’s the only way to succeed. This gave him the idea that he has to do things within the rules authorities create in order to survive. The message was be a regular person, play it safe, play it by rules that he never agreed to or with. And the rules serve the business owners and the government, not him.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s teachings during the process of clarifying what the limiting decision is: “There is something larger than whether the symbolic mother accepts you or not. You are limiting yourself to a limited world that you think will be different enough so that it will finally accept the real you — with people who have also limited their lives to a large degree because they don’t feel that their selves are really acceptable either. You are limiting yourself to the fringes, which is why illegal things appeal to you, and things you have to keep hidden appeal to you, because anything that is connected to the whole, above-board picture that people are out in the open with, you are certain you won’t be acceptable in that arena. Because of this belief, you’re blocking a lot of your potential and a lot of possibilities in your life.

But it’s not that there’s an actual thing out there that you have to conform to. And it’s not as if these ‘people that don’t accept you’ are ruling the world. These are all social constructs. There is a larger framework that exists beyond any human construct, and beyond the limited construct that you have been trying to distort yourself around — which your true self totally fits into. And it has to do with what is inherently true about and between human beings, and is what humanity has been evolving toward.”

(Bennet is saying that approval from the world at large doesn’t have the same pull for him as approval from Susan.)

“That’s because the assumption that you’re coming from is you’d have to distort yourself to get approval from the world at large. Whereas the reason you’re with a person like Susan is because she doesn’t fit into the world either. Part of what draws you to her is your common being on the outsides. The reason approval is in the picture at all, is there’s got to be a limiting decision about you lacking approval or acceptance. And when that’s cleared, approval won’t be any issue at all. The small frame-of-reference you have been limiting yourself to is too small for you.

Perhaps your weight may be part of the construct you have created to identify yourself with the non-conformist world, basically by making yourself not fit in. You are doing a number of different things in your life for the purpose, on an unconscious level, of not fitting in, or rebelling against having to fit in — and instead forming, you could say, a click or group of non-conformists that clearly don’t fit into the world. But inherent in that frame-of-reference is a huge limitation, and it’s not a real acceptance of your real self. So you have been disempowering yourself, and probably a lot of the people that you associate with are disempowered in some basic ways as well. Maybe part of your work when you get on the other side of this, is to facilitate other people, similar to yourself, in coming into their power and really fully participating in the world.”

The limiting decision Bennet cleared through the TimeLine process: “If his real self shows it will be disapproved of.”

The first event in which Bennet made this decision: He was 6 years old. His father was giving him a hard time because he got a “B” on a paper instead of an “A.” His father told him he was an A student, not a B student, and he wouldn’t be bringing home any more B’s. Previous to this Bennet had enjoyed school and learning, and had naturally done well. Now he felt that he couldn’t just be directly in his experience because it might not fit into some unreasonable external expectation and who he really is would be rejected. He decided that he couldn’t let his father know who he really is any more or he might do something else stupid, and felt his survival would be threatened.

Benet’s NLP TimeLine Therapy Session 6-30-09

Overview: Bennet told Jane that he felt disappointed in himself because, although he’s making progress, he hasn’t gotten his first project off of the ground yet. He has in his mind a certain order in which he can do things. So before he can do what he really wants to do, there is a whole list of things that he has to do first, in a particular order, and it seems never ending. And he has the sense that the way he’s doping it is not very efficient, and there must be a better and more encompassing way to approach reaching his goals.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings in the process of getting to what the limiting decision to clear is: “We’re talking about a disconnection from your own experience, from your own impetus and goal to getting somewhere — as if there’s some external being or force taking over that is in charge of reality. It’s like you’re caught up in this treadmill, and you can’t ever get anywhere. You could say for a child, what frequently happens is the parent is invested in slowing the child down, limiting the child in order to keep them in the frame-of-reference the parents can handle, and away from what the parents experience as out of control. So the parents might try to control the child by saying, ‘You’ve got to do this. You can’t do this until you do that. You can’t do this until you do this.’ But the child can’t make sense of it himself, because the parent is not really relating to what the child wants to do. The parent has a different agenda. So the child’s focus becomes appeasing the parent before he can do what he wants to do, rather than relating to his goal directly. So if the parents insist on being in control, they are forcing the child to go through them, rather than allowing the child to be directly in experience.

Being directly in experience is very exciting. You just get into the thing, because you see what’s next and you see what’s in front of you. You see the whole thing and it’s all very alive. But if you are following some internal symbolic authority who is droning on, and saying, “OK, now you have to do this next logical thing. And you have to take this next physical step. This is the way you’re supposed to do it. This is the way I tell you you’re supposed to do it, and they just drone on and on and on, because that external authority is just trying to control things, rather than help you get to the goal.”

The limiting decision Bennet cleared during the TimeLine Process: “Those in authority have power over him.”

The first event in which Bennet made this decision: He was about 5 years old. He and his brother were poking a frog with a stick. Bennet was very curious about the frog and was not trying to hurt it. But their mother beat the boys for doing it.

Transcript excerpt of Jane’s teachings during the process: “It appears the reason your mother beat you is that she made an assumption about what you and your brother were trying to do, perhaps that you were being mean or trying to hurt the frog. But you were coming from a place of curiosity, of trying to understand something about the frog, which was apparently fascinating to you. So your objective wasn’t to hurt the frog. It was to find out about it.

So there is a continuum, when you really connect with the reality situation, which in this case, was your fascination with this creature. There is a reality continuum that if you follow, you can be supported by the universe, and therefore by the people around you. It’s not an against thing. It’s a positive thing. Now if, instead, you were functioning from an unhealed issue, if you were trying to torture the frog, for instance, then it goes against the flow of life, and you’d probably find resistance from different places, starting with inside yourself. So then you would find that there would be things blocking you. But if you are in the flow of life, following a true interest and passion, then the universe will support you. And it will come out in relation to people. But you made a limiting decision that those in authority have power over you, not understanding the true dynamics of what was actually happening and just thinking, ‘This is an unreasonable authority with her own agenda, and she’s taking over, she’s controlling me, and this is just the way it is in life.’ But no, it was a particular scenario, a scenario in which neither of you really understood where the other was coming from, on a human level — which takes it out of the authority power situation and brings it back to the human level. Your mother was a human being functioning from her own perspective (including apparently responding from a dysfunctional place), and responding from that; and you were a human being responding from your own perspective.

So, because of your limited understanding of what was happening, and your limited experience in life, you made the limiting decision about the nature of authorities in relationship to you — not realizing it was a misunderstanding, limited to this specific scenario, and not accurate about your relationship with authority in general.”

Highlights of Bennet’s NLP TimeLine Therapy Session

Overview: Bennet has recently been getting the flu quite often, and because of that he has changed his diet and other habits to move toward a healthier lifestyle. He is actively moving toward several money-making endeavors that he feels very motivated about — one that could bring in money in the short term; another that will take a little longer to get off the ground, that has to do with an internet library; and one that has to do with the hotel industry and will take some time to learn about and move into. This last one is an idea that he’s been working on for a while, that evolved from an earlier idea.

Ideas about him being a leader have been becoming clearer to him, that have to do with understanding what a real leader is. He has been finding himself making a large difference in various people’s lives, and saying things that cause major reframes for people. He has also been realizing that communities naturally coalesce around him, without him doing anything deliberately. It’s just him doing what is happy and natural for him to do. He is feeling very grateful and happy about that. He’s also realizing he has skills he didn’t realize he had.

He doesn’t feel motivated to canvass the neighborhood, looking for menial things to do to find some way to bring in a bit of money immediately. But is happy and motivated to work on the ideas he has that really interest him. Bennet doesn’t have any survival necessities pressuring him, because he is being supported by his partner, and is, in exchange, doing the household kinds of work. He does, however, want to get into a more equal power and financial position.

Since it appeared there weren’t any limiting decisions blocking Bennet successfully pursuing his money making ideas, Jane and Bennet decided to clear something else that was going on in Bennet’s life that is extremely annoying to him, which comes up about a close friend of his who lives with him. He sees this person as using his influence to distort truth and drag down the people around him.

This issue ended up being extremely significant for Bennet’s progress toward financial abundance, because it has caused Bennet to not want to be a person who has influence.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching: “Evidently you are a person who inherently has the potential for being very powerful and having a huge influence, which is beginning to surface now. So we want to get rid of anything in the way of that potential. Because doing diddly little things just don’t interest you, you have to be out there doing something big. And so if you are inhibiting your power, or have anything against being fully in your power, you can’t do what you are here to do. We need to work on anything that is getting in the way of you fully being in your power.”

The limiting decision Bennet cleared in the TimeLine process: “People with influence can control other people.”

The first event in which Bennet made this decision: Bennet was 5 years old. The preacher, who lived across the street, was talking to him and his mom. Bennet’s dog had just been hit by a car and killed. The preacher said the dog wouldn’t go to heaven. Bennet got extremely angry at the preacher and from then on wanted to avoid him at all costs. Bennet thought the preacher had the power to keep the dog from heaven, through his influence, as if he had made an edict.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching during the TimeLine Process: “Just because the preacher said his idea of truth, that didn’t cause it to happen. There is something larger than the preacher. There’s a larger frame-of-reference than him. He was just an individual bumbling soul, just like everyone else, even though he was posturing and pretending to be more than that.”

Bennet said he has been doing really well, and although he hasn’t yet achieved earning “big money” yet, he has been incredibly happy and productive. He has a meeting with a spa developer, which changed his thinking about his condo project a great deal. The developer had a lot of reasons why Bennet would lose control of the condo project immediately. He suggested a different direction for Bennet to go in, which Bennet is looking into.

In the short run Bennet is negotiating with an old associate to do some of the business he used to do, which he doesn’t know yet if it will work out.

2/20/09 Highlights from Bennet’s TimeLine Therapy Session with Jane

For a Definition of “TimeLine Therapy” click here.
For a definition of “Limiting Decisions,” click here.)

Overview:

He has been getting a number of ideas about how to earn money immediately (while he is working on his condominium project), and is feeling very motivated about it.

The limiting decision coming up is that there is no larger power beyond himself that is taking care of things. Bennet was concerned that clearing this would cause him to believe something he doesn’t believe. He thinks no one could be smart enough or know enough to know if there is or isn’t a God.

Excerpt of Response from Jane: “TimeLine doesn’t add a belief, it simply brings you to the place where you made a mistaken decision about an experience you had, and where you closed a channel, you closed a possibility. I’m not going to add a belief or create a different religious frame-of-reference.”

Limiting Decision Bennet cleared during TimeLine Process: “There is no larger power beyond himself that is taking care of things.”

The first event in which this decision was made: When he was 5 years old, and his two younger brothers were banging their heads on the wall at the same time. He decided that no God would cause his mother to have two mentally retarded sons.

Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching during the TimeLine process: “Each of these people (your mother, two brothers and you) in this scenario are on their own particular path, for their own particular learning. Your mother had two mentally disabled sons and one who is brilliant, giving her a whole range, for some particular reason, and opportunities for her to learn. And that might not fit her idea of how things should be that would feel in control for her. But being in control evidently was not what she really needed. You were evaluating this from your mother’s response. But there’s a larger frame-of-reference here that is for the benefit of all concerned, which you couldn’t see, being right in the midst of it. And your two mentally challenged brothers — evidently that’s part of their path to be experiencing this. So whether something is detrimental or beneficial is very subjective and very relative, depending on where you’re coming from. Just because something is difficult or is causing challenges, doesn’t make it bad. When you made the limiting decision that “there is no larger power that is taking care of things,” that resulted in you deciding that you were responsible for everything. But at 5 years old it was beyond you to take care of most things — but yet they were taken care of. You can see that somehow these boys did survive. And somehow your mother survived. And so something must have been keeping life moving forward for them and for you. And it wasn’t you. (Bennet: “And it certainly wasn’t my mother.”) So there is something beyond you and them that was keeping life going. Something was keeping you breathing, something is keeping some kind of order in the universe. There is something beyond you. So this decision, you can see was not accurate.”

2/24/09 Highlights from Bennet’s TimeLine Therapy Session with Jane:

(For a definition of “TimeLine Therapy,” click here.
For a definition of “limiting decisions,” click here.)

Overview:

For one of his possible ideas, Bennet knew that there was a person who might object, and Bennet had an idea about how to approach that person, which is a pretty straightforward and intelligent way to negotiate about it. This is a major change from what he would have done in the past, which was basically to sneak around that person. Before he would have been coming from a divisive place, and now he is not. Big change! He is also enthusiastically working on many possible money making ideas. And he feels close to getting exactly what he really wants in terms of how he earns money.

He also sees that there are huge opportunities available in this economy for earning money. A friend of his was complaining about the economy and how it is making things so hard for him. Bennet just mutter, “Yeh,” although he didn’t agree, and was really thinking that that’s not his experience, feeling as though there would be no point in saying that.

Excerpt from Jane’s Response: “It’s really quite a gift if you say, “Well that really is not my experience,” because right now what people want and need is someone to uphold a different paradigm, a different view of reality. It’s desperately needed right now.”

Bennet said the last thing that is stopping him from doing things is a fear that he’ll be ridiculed or humiliated. He has felt ridiculed for having big idea, for having ideas about new things that haven’t been done before, for being different, for going against the consensus.

The limiting decision Bennet cleared in the TimeLine Therapy process: “He is inherently limited,” which changed to “He can’t explore new things.”

The first event in which he made this decision: When he was 2-3 years old, and was crawling toward something mysterious, colorful, shinny, and suddenly was picked up by his clothes and pulled back, and held onto until he gave up.

2/4 Highlights from Bennet’s NLP TimeLine Counseling Session with Jane
(For a description of “TimeLine Therapy,” click here.
For a description of “limiting decisions,” click here.)

Progress Bennet reported since last session:

He has been much more open about what he wants and enthusiastic about earning money. He keeps actively evaluating where he is and where he wants to go. He is no longer feeling drawn to earning his living by illegal possibilities.

Beginning Overview:

Bennet said he got the idea of being a probation officer because he’s interested in helping paroled people find hope and help in their lives. But since he doesn’t actually have the qualifications to be one, he would have to lie about his background. A friend called to his attention that’s probably against the law, and since Bennet would probably also undermine the rules he’s supposed to uphold in this kind of job, he would be putting himself in jeopardy. He agreed with that and dropped the idea. He was still thinking of something like interviewing prisoners and somehow giving them hope, and videoing the interviews to give to their families.

Bennet said he read the book “Tribes” by Seth Godin that Jane recommended. Jane had said she doesn’t think he will be happy unless he is being a leader, in the true sense. Bennet said he sees leaders as putting their heads in a noose, or a guillotine. He has a fear that if he puts himself out there he will be killed. He has avoided taking the lead all of his life. He would rather be infamous than famous. He trusts the underground world, not the aboveground world. He believes that those in power destroy everyone that doesn’t agree with them, and therefore being visible to those in power is dangerous. He believes those in power stay in power by controlling those who are not.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings:

About True Leadership

“A leader is a person who is accessing reality from their own experience and expressing that. He or she has a fix on reality in a way that others don’t. They have a very strong knowing that something is very important and must be said and is really true. And the truth of it causes people to recognize it. When someone speaks truth you know it, whether or not you’re willing to listen to it, or have a trigger against it. But truth rings true. It has a big effect. And the fact that leaders are connected to truth, makes them leaders.

Wherever a person has the gift of contacting truth, that is amazingly exciting. It’s accessing the material of life. When you’re in contact with truth, you’re in contact with the Divine, you’re in contact with the evolutionary process, you’re in contact with the real living stuff.”

The Limiting Decision Bennet cleared during the TimeLine process: “Being visible to those in power is dangerous.”

The first event in which this decision was made: He was 2-3 years old, in relation to his father.

Afterwards Bennet thought of and described situations that he could have saved or turned around had he taken a leadership role. At those times he strongly knew what should happen, but he didn’t take a stand and just gave way to others. In hindsight he can see that had he taken a stand things would have turned out much better.

2/11 Highlights from Bennet’s TimeLine Session with Jane

Beginning Overview:

Bennet reported that he has been the most productive he’s been in the past 5 years.

He said he has a resistance to contacting real estate people (which he needs to do for his condominium project), because he is afraid of being gulled into paying too much, not looking for the right things, buying the wrong property. He believes people are untrustworthy when money is involved and when they’re trying to make money from him. He particularly mistrust people who have expertise he doesn’t have.

He also believes that his enthusiasm blinds him to truth, and when he’s very enthusiastic he can’t distinguish who to trust and who not to.

The Limiting Decision Bennet cleared during the TimeLine process: “When he’s very enthusiastic, he can be fooled or manipulated.

The first event in which this decision was made: When he was 17 years old. (highly unusual as limiting decisions are usually made before the age of 6 or 7 years old.)

Bennet said the most important thing to him is if he could communicate that the human trajectory is away from causing suffering and moving toward pleasure. He wants to get across to prison wardens that causing suffering is not OK.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings:

Evolving the Old Concepts of Judgment, Punishment and Suffering

“It’s not about people wanting to inflict suffering. The rule of thumb is people only attack when they think they are being attacked. And they only do things against their conscience when they think there is no other way to get what they need. For some people power is extremely important, and there’s nothing wrong with power. It’s just that people have misconceptions about how you get real power. It’s not just that people are benighted and they think causing suffering is good, but it has to do with limiting decisions distorting their experience of reality.

The concepts of judgment and punishment are outdated, unevolved concepts. They come from the misconception — and this is part of the confusion, perhaps still for you — that something outside of you can do anything to you, that other people can control you. That perspective then means that for your own well-being you then have to control them. And the whole world dynamic is based on this concept that people need to control other people, which relates to the concept that people do bad things and those that do should be punished, and imprisoned, etc. It’s interesting that somehow you’ve put the “criminals” in the victim position and the wardens in the criminal position — but it amounts to the same thing anyway. The whole concept justifies putting someone in the wrong, and who is in the wrong depends on your perspective — as you are clearly demonstrating.

Those people you see as causing suffering to other people, they’re not causing suffering to other people. Those who are the victims will find a way for someone to do it to them, because that is a part of their internal structure. A woman who is battered is in that position because of limiting decisions that form what is possible in her internal, unconscious world. And changing that requires changing the limiting decisions, or she’ll just find someone else to do it to her.”

Possible New Direction for what Bennet Really Wants to Do

“There must be a reason you have had the experiences with law and the police that you’ve had, and to such an extreme, where you felt so humiliated. You had the idea of being a parole officer, which is astounding considering how you have felt about people in that field. But evidently, there is something about being involved with this population that really calls to you.”

Bennet seems to keep coming back to working with prisoners or those in charge of prisoners to turn around the paradigm of punishment and causing others suffering. (As a young man Jered had a very painful encounter with the police in which he felt extremely humiliated by them. He has also had close friends who were brutalized by police.) Jane told Bennet it appears his life’s work is in this field, since it keeps being an area of great interest to him. She suggested him finding out about programs already in place helping prisoners rehabilitate, gain skills, become emotionally healthy, etc., and see where he might find a niche for himself. He might find a way to create some kind of a program that is inspiring to people in this arena. Another possibility is motivational speaking.

Material that came up for the next session:

Jane Insight Excerpt:

“There is something you are trying to change in the world by your own being. It came up with something else we cleared as well, about you feeling responsible for stopping wrong things from happening; and by the way, there may be people that become policemen for that same reason, which I think is very interesting since you have thought all policemen are dangerous jerks. Maybe what you don’t trust is Life or the Universe, or the larger order of things. You don’t realize that evolution happens by itself. You don’t have to carry it on your back. You don’t have to absorb the wrong in yourself. It’s like, for example, you trying to change a whole dysfunctional way people relate to money, by not accepting payment for something you deserve to get paid for, as if that’s going to right some larger wrong.”