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.

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.

Part Two of a Three Part Dialog

To read Part One, click here.

Question from Manny from Rancho Santa Fe:

Manny: What causes an evolved person to be caught up in a physically violent situation? 

Jane: We are complex beings, made up of many aspects, some representing who we are in our essence, and some representing unhealed or unevolved aspects of ourselves.  Each aspect has a particular vibrational energy that we radiate.  When an aspect of ourselves resonates with an aspect of someone or something else, it gets amplified.  And then we feel affected by that aspect of the person.  Other people who resonate with different aspects of that same person may have a completely different kind of relationship with him.

Negative vibrations, such as fear and hatred are extremely common in people, even if they don’t tend to initiation relating in that way.  When someone does something very hateful toward a person, in most cases, it elicits that same kind of response in that person in response.  People generally feel justified in attacking if they feel attacked.  Someone who has done some horrendous crime generally elicits the response of hatred from others, even from people who consider themselves to be good, loving people.  The people who do these kinds of hateful acts, are like lightening-rods.  They serve as an outlet for the kinds of emotions that people don’t generally find acceptable in themselves.

As long as there is that kind of vibration in you, it can be elicited in you by someone who lives in that vibration, and you can be drawn into that world.

Whatever vibrations you have in yourself has to do with the perception of reality you are holding in place.  And whatever that is, has influence in the world around you.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings during a
Shifting into Your New Consciousness Group 4-2-09

(Jocelyn had just explained to the group that an old friend of hers just had a stroke, and was not being taken care of adequately in his nursing home. She was saying how difficult the situation was, and how much work she had to do to go see him and find a way for him to be taken care of. And that she really should be working on her business right now, which she is already overwhelmed by. She was speaking with a depressed heavy voice as she was explaining the difficulty of the situation to the group.)

(To Jocelyn) “You are now adding another weight to the already tons of weight that you have already put onto yourself because of the way you experience the challenges in your life — your boyfriend, and his mother, and his daughter, and your business, and your employees, etc. This huge burden is what you are focusing on, and is what the group is having to carry with you, as we listen to you. And this is the way you have structured your world. But this is not what reality is about. This situation with your friend is a perfect temptation for you to experience another thing in terms of carrying a huge burden. We’ve seen you do this over and over again in past groups. You always create your circumstances as more and more impossible, with more and more things piled on you, until you are about to collapse. The truth, from what you described, is that you actually have a soul love for this man, and you should be focusing on expressing that. And let the rest of it unwind as it is meant to unwind. Don’t focus on the rest of that, because that’s a dysfunctional relationship that you are imposing on your relationship with him, that adds another heavy burden to your life. And what you are doing right now is emotionally spreading this heavy burden on the whole group. So stop doing that.”

(Andrea asked, “How can she change this?”) “Sometimes things are happening on an unconscious level, even though you consciously know better. It appears that Jocelyn is not even seeing this on a conscious level, because I pointed this out to her at the beginning of this interaction, but she kept on going, doing the same thing anyway, as if she hadn’t heard me, and was not recognizing that that’s what she was doing. I’ve found with Jocelyn, that once her conscious mind wraps itself around an idea, it already is making a change for her. That’s not so true with most people, but if Jocelyn really gets something, that starts things transforming. She also knows that she can always come in for an individual NLP TimeLine Therapy session and clear the limiting decision that’s underneath the pattern that she’s acting out of. But right now, I’m just trying to get her to see, on a conscious level, what she is doing.”

(Back to Jocelyn) “Feeling and expressing feelings is how you have the connection with your friend, not by carrying this heavy burden. (Jocelyn started crying and said she is afraid to love people, because she is afraid if she does, she will lose them.) If you cut off your feelings for him, you’ve already lost him; he’s already gone. By disengaging you’ve been getting rid of people in your life in anticipation of and before they actually go away. But if you connect with your heart and soul, you’ll still be connected to your friend when he dies. If you don’t connect with your heart and soul, it’s going to be much harder when he dies, because you haven’t made that connection. You are thinking about the situation in, what to you, is a “logical” way: You have to spend so and so amount of time, you have to get such and such done, you have to spend so much time talking with him, as he talks about his cat over and over again … But you don’t have to spend hours with him, talking about the cat. You just connect with your heart and soul to the heart and soul of this man. You don’t have to be there physically for a long period of time. You just have to be connected, and somehow he’ll feel it. But if you make it be this big burden, this big heavy thing added to the rest of the things you make burdens in your life; and keep yourself from emotionally connecting with him, it will have been a huge waste. That would be the loss.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching during a
Shifting into Your New Consciousness Group 3-26-09

(To Jocelyn) (The discussion is about Jocelyn being invested in being independent.) “So here’s where you need to draw the distinction between what part of this is a defense system, and what part of this is not. If there is a defense system involved, it causes life to not work. If there is not a defense system involved, then being independent would not be a problem. It would not be blocking things. So right now, the independence that you talk about is pushing people away because it’s protecting a limiting decision. Your version of being independent is to pull yourself out of the picture. Maybe that’s what you’re saying is a passive way of doing it, because people don’t notice it. You are disengaging so you appear to not be there. But this then means you are not taking up space. And then you wonder why you don’t get things your way, or why you feel pushed around. Apparently in order for you to feel free, and feel as though no one can control you or tell you what to do (which to you is independence), you have to be disengaged, because if you are engaged, people know where you are at, and then you feel in danger of being controlled. But the downside of this is by removing yourself from the picture, you end up disempowering yourself. It seems that rather than engaging and revealing where you are really at — you appear to go along, while actually saying f-u, and not really doing anything effective. And this is what you view as being independent. But it’s really being totally dependent on the other person who you see as having the power. The solution is to start revealing where you really are.”