From the Life is Meant to Work Prepare yourself for a New Reality
teleseminar
A pivotal question at the bottom of how civilization has organized itself is “Is humanity inherently good, or is it bad, or is it simply weak and corruptible?” The bottom line way we define the answer to that has to do with what we believe people would do if they weren’t controlled. And that has to do with the issue of self-interest. If people are not controlled, or if they don’t control themselves, they will go toward their own self-interest. And so the issue then becomes how we perceive what self-interest is.
The idea that self-interest is bad, is based on the idea of original sin. In other words it is based on the idea that if people pursue what they desire, what really matters to them, including human desires, they will break Divine laws and will cause harm to others. But the problem here is not inherent in the nature of self-interest, but in how we conceive of what self-interest is.
When many religious perspectives or spiritual philosophies define human self-interest, they are actually defining human emotional defense systems, which get built up as a result of having made limiting decisions. And when they are advocating letting go of desires, this is also the framework they are referring to. People’s emotional defense systems result in them going toward substitutes for what they desire rather than the real thing. And these substitutes are generally harmful to oneself and others.
But humanity doesn’t live solely in their emotional defense systems, and we are in an evolutionary process through them. Desiring these symbolic substitutes is not the nature of humanity or human desire. People going toward these kinds of desires (that can often be addictive, and that we associate with shallowness, perversion or lacking in self-discipline) does not have to do with the inherent corruptibility or weakness of human beings, or the nature of human desires. Self-interest is inherent in any living creature. It’s not the self-interest that is the problem, it is the substitutes for it that are the problem. And the substitutes are created because of the denial of the real thing. The way to enlightenment is not a denial of our self-interest, or of our human experience, it is the recognition and embracing of the truth of what it is. It is coming into experience, not avoiding it — which means the difference between realizing that the nature of reality is positive, that if we come into what is true, it leads us to the highest good of all concerned.
On the one hand most of humanity doesn’t have any concept of the depth of the distortion of our perception of reality, and how much we are living and forming our perception of reality from an upside-down and insane perspective. But on the other hand, there is little concept of the inherent goodness of the human soul, that what the truth is about who we inherently are is total goodness, not in spite of our self-interest, but because of it. This is because what we really desire leads us to love, truth, connection, meaning, everything true and real. What it is human beings truly desire is a part of the truth of the universe. It is beyond any false persona or egoic self. It is what can bring us out of the perception of the limited physical world we were born into, in which we forgot who we are beyond the physical experience.
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.
Question from Fiona in Oceanside
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.
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.
Question from Jered in Mission Valley
Jered: It occurs to me that the failure of big companies — such as General Motors that received bailouts — are not so much an example of limiting decision, as they are of “broken” organizations. GM had to break before old methods were discarded for new. It makes me think of change with people. Clearing decisions are baby steps. But traumatic events have outsized consequences – huge steps.
Jane: This is a complex subject that can’t be explained, so that it’s easily understood, in a few paragraphs. I will be going into this more fully in my upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” webinar as part of explaining how our experience of reality gets out of alignment with Universal Truths. But here is a brief explanation that I hope is helpful.
The failure of big companies, such as General Motors, is most likely based on perspectives of self-interest that are out of alignment with reality. Whenever there are perceptions that are out of alignment with reality, there are limiting decisions* at the root of it.
People with similar limiting decisions* come together and hold in place a collective perspective on reality. People are very invested in the particular way they perceive what reality is, which represents their source of stability, survival and well-being. It is the ground they are standing on. That perception of reality is often greatly distorted by limiting decisions* they have made. In general people are not willing to give up that ground unless forced to. That’s why it sometimes takes a major crisis before individuals — and especially a group of people, such as a major organization or company — are willing to restructure their perception of reality. They have to perceive that it is in their self-interest to make a change. The process of evolution occurs as what people perceive of as self-interest becomes increasingly more in alignment with what actually benefits them.
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 was from Fellow Healer in New York who made this comment in the context of his description of an ex-girlfriend’s treatment of him, and also the way he observes people, including new age-type people, acting toward others.)
Fellow Healer: “… ACIM says the only sane response to our brother, even when they act out, is to love him. No holy book says lecture, scold, and runaway. No heart would say that either…. True self needs love too. It’s all one. When we love all in the trinity, then all flows. Now is the time to return to love. Love. Just love. Love is the secret!!!”
Jane: Yes, of course, the answer always comes down to love. It’s certainly an important place to focus our attention, and it would be great if everyone could just decide on love and be there. But getting to love is an evolutionary process (both on a personal, individual level, as well as on a human evolutionary level). The path to love isn’t always obvious or straightforward. Many things people think they do out of love are not really about love.
For instance, in your earlier email about you being “loyal” to the first girlfriend, therefore staying with that relationship (even though you knew it wasn’t right for you), and saying “no” to the second girlfriend (who you really wanted to be with) — it appears you felt you were doing this out of love or kindness to the first girlfriend. But since it was not in truth, it was not in Divine order. And it was not following enlightened self-interest. And enlightened self-interest is an extremely necessary ingredient in order to be moving toward love. (But that’s another whole subject altogether.) So it’s not necessarily that obvious or straightforward. There are a lot of elements potentially involved.
The way to solve human hurt is to move toward clarity about what is really happening in reality. Therefore there’s no getting around the fact that in order to eliminate your emotional pain, your personal transformation is required. There is no short cut that will have a lasting result.
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during Melanie’s NLP TimeLine Therapy session 8-7-09 (Name is changed to protect client’s privacy.)
“The role of rules in human life is an evolving process. People, in their less evolved stages, have a greater need for rules than they do as they become more evolved. This is because they’re not present enough in the here-and-now to be in alignment with Divine order. They need an external structure, because they don’t have the connection internally. And so they need a parent, basically, whether it’s in the form of the church or policeman or a physical parent, or some outside authority that tells you ‘You may not do this. You may not do that.’ The evolving of this process is slowed down by limiting decisions* (made on a broad cultural scale and passed down through the generations) that people can’t trust their actual experience or desires. So then it becomes a question of — do we need the structure because we really can’t trust ourselves, or because of limiting decisions causing us to believe we can’t.
Related to this is the idea of original sin, which leads to the limiting decision, something along the lines, that who you inherently are is bad, so you have to be controlled. It is the belief that if you do what you want to do you’re going to do something bad. This dysfunctional concept gets in the way of people trusting that what really matters to them is beneficial, and therefore they must control themselves and lean on external authorities and concepts to determine the way to structure or run their lives. And so this ends up with old unevolved and dysfunctional patterns being handed down generation after generation.
(Melanie is saying her mother used to say, “I have to control you. That’s what parents have to do.”)
“Your mother thought this because she saw how she herself was, and she thought that’s the nature of people. She couldn’t control her temper, she couldn’t control herself sexually, and she was an alcoholic. Now, when a person is out of control like she was, there is some way that she’s blocking herself from going toward what really matters to her. Instead, she’s going for substitutes.
Any kind of addiction, including sexual addiction, or any of the addictive things your mother did were substitutes for what really did matter to her. And you are now blocking what really matters to you. The reason you can’t trust yourself, is because you’re not giving yourself what you really need and want, and therefore you are addicted to substitutes. Addictions are a substitute for what you really want emotionally, such as love or acceptance. So if you have made a limiting decision, for example that you are not lovable or worthy of love, you give up on getting the real thing and try to get it through symbolic substitutes that you can control. But when you try to get love or acceptance or some form of emotional nourishment by eating or drinking or smoking, or any other kind of addiction, you’re not satisfied because it doesn’t give you what it is that you’re really wanting. And so you keep trying to get more and more of it, because in the moment it gives you a temporary feeling of satisfaction. You can love and be loved infinitely, because emotions are not physical and therefore are limitless. Whereas food or alcohol are physical and there’s a limit to what you can physically put in your body, and so eventually physical addictions take their toll on the body.”
* For an in-depth description of “limiting decisions,” click here.
(Participants’ names are changed to protect their privacy.)
(To Chas) “The way it works is after you made the limiting decision that who you are is unacceptable, you then built up a false persona that is what you considered to be acceptable to the people you wanted to be acceptable to. These will be people similar to the original significant people in your life you made the liming decision in relation to. Those are then the kind of people who you will attract. You will attract people who are attracted to the false persona, not who you really are. And then if you try to relate to those people with your real self, they’re probably not going to have a positive response to you, because they fit a whole scenario in which the real you is not acceptable, so that’s how they’re going to respond to you. You’re selecting people who will respond positively, perhaps, to the substitute persona that you set up, depending upon what the structure is that the limiting decision is formed around. So as you start changing, and becoming more of who you are, you are very likely to find that the people you attracted with the false persona don’t fit you any more. But you’re also more likely to be open to people who actually like you. I think everybody in this group really likes you.”
… “It’s similar to what I have said to Janet many times before, because both of you are very emotionally vulnerable. Your real strength probably has to do with you coming into your vulnerable emotions and accepting them, stepping into them. And this is a foundation from which to build whatever you want to build, whether it’s your law practice, or your relationships with you family, or whatever it is. It’s where your gifts and strengths are. You probably don’t realize the power of your vulnerable emotions.
(To Janet) To you, if it comes from male logic, you think that’s the only way you’ll have the right to make waves, or the only way you’ll be taken seriously. Then you have the right to have an influence in the world. But that’s not the way you’re going to make waves. You are going to make waves with the power of your emotions, because that’s where your strength is. Emotions are very powerful, and you may be afraid of that. And it will have an influence, and you may be afraid of that. What you just said is you’ll be held to a higher level of conduct, and I think that’s what you could be afraid of. You have said before that once you start getting into your passion, what it is that you want, you’re afraid you going to be like a dictator, and make things all the way you want. And this perhaps relates in some indirect way, to a higher standard of conduct. There’s some misconception that’s in the mix of this, that’s confusing the matter for you.
What is also the mix, which it might also be important to you, Chas, is enlightened self-interest. It’s a very important concept. When we’re talking about power and we’re talking about what matters to you. When we’re taking about your passion, and about really getting out there in your power — then the issue of self-interest comes into the picture. It’s important to understand the distinction between self-interest as a defense system, which is what selfishness is — and enlightened self-interest, which is what really matters to you, and which is in alignment with life, the universe. If it really matters to you, then that is the truth. It either matters to you, or it doesn’t matter to you. That’s just a fact. So that makes it a part of larger truth. If you make the limiting decision that you can’t have what matters to you, whether it’s love, or acceptance, or being valuable, that’s where things get confused. Generally before you make the limiting decision having these things are not an issue. You just go toward what makes you happy, what matters to you. But after you make the limiting decision, for instance, that you’re not valuable, then being valuable becomes an issue. Since you then don’t think you’re valuable, then you do symbolic things that make you feel you are valuable, such as buy an expensive house or car, whether or not you can really afford it. So people go for these symbolic things. But these symbolic things are not what really matters to you. People think, ‘Oh I want this, I want that, I want that, and that’s self-interest.’ But that’s not what enlightened self-interest is. Enlightened self-interest is the real thing, not the symbol. If you’re going for the real thing, then it can only have a positive influence on everyone and every thing, because it’s in Divine order. It is truth. It is the way things really are. But when you’re going for something that is a symbolic substitute, and not what you really want, then it comes from a blocked and distorted perspective, and that puts you out of alignment with truth. And then somewhere down the line, it’s going to not turn out well, because it’s not in alignment with truth.”
(Participants’ names are changed to protect their privacy.)
(To Chas) … “What happens in interactions in which you are triggered is you generally take action without the other person being involved. It’s either they have all of the control, or you have all of the control, so one or the other of you doesn’t have a say in what happens. So either your self is not involved and you feel pulled along, or you just say, ‘Enough is enough. I’m just going to do it my way,’ and not have them in the picture. What you’re missing is the interaction. You’re missing the actual potential that happens when two people come together, open to each other, both of them having their needs and their desires, and their full self is there. And it’s sort of a dance. You stay connected to your center. You stay connected with who you are. And you communicate, and then you find out what the potential in that moment is, which then brings into the picture something larger than either of you, what that present moment holds. And then something magical can happen, something that’s even better. It’s the synergy, it’s what happens when you’re open to allowing that moment to speak to you, or whatever the potential is in that moment.
But you’ve got the channels for this kind of interaction closed. So therefore, the egoic self is in control, and is blocking life from working, because it’s coming from a very, very narrow perspective of what’s actually happening. And because of that you’re closing off a larger perspective that is all inclusive, and which makes things work. The channel is closed because of a limiting decision. It’s that you believe, for instance, and I’m just guessing, that what is in your best interest, your needs, is somehow against someone else’s needs. That could be the limiting decision that’s in there. So therefore, you either give up your needs or you do something regardless of the other person’s needs. It feels to you like a conflict between your needs. But when you really are in your experience and you’re doing what really benefits you, and you don’t have the wall up – all of a sudden your vision opens up and you see that this is actually good for everyone, that you can be undefended, you can be vulnerable, and you can be open. And that’s where love is, when you recognize that.
To understand this, it’s important to understanding that what’s truly important to you, and what’s truly in your best interest turns out to be in the best interest of all concerned. That’s the bottom line truth, which is why enlightened self-interest is so important. There is a big distinction between selfishness and enlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest is what is truly of benefit to you. What’s really of benefit to you is very different than what people in general think is of benefit to them, and which ends up being against other people. And that’s what the false self develops and thinks that it wants, because it believes that what really matters to it is not possible. So then you go toward things that don’t really benefit you.
For instance, when I was talking to Melanie about some of the structures that she has formed, and that she was really invested in holding in place — such as that people are actually harming her — she was really fighting to prove this. But what she’s holding in place is pain. She’s fighting for something that doesn’t benefit her. Or some of these things that have symbolic meaning for you (Nancy), that feel like you’re being catered to. They’re not really benefiting you. These are substitutes for what you want, and you don’t even know what that is. It could be love or honoring, or whatever is underneath that. And so what people go for are symbols when they don’t have the channels open to receiving the real thing. But if you were to receive the real thing, it couldn’t, by definition, be against anyone else. It has to be in the highest good, because there aren’t any channels closed. So it has to work for the whole. But when you’re trying to get something that’s a substitute, you’ve got the channels closed and therefore, it has to be harmful because truth is being distorted. It can’t be beneficial to you or anyone else, in the long run, although it sometimes may appear to work for the moment.”
(Participants’ names are change to protect their privacy.)
(Fiona was saying she keeps trying to get her husband to change, even though it’s clear he’s not going to.)
“The relationship with the primary person in your life as a child, represents how you conceive of intimacy with significant others now. After you make a limiting decisions in relation to that original person, it’s like you start having blinders on, so that you think there are very limited possibilities for possible people to have intimate relationships with, because of the limiting decision. This would cause you to filter out every one, out in the world, that doesn’t fit that description, and filter in everyone who does.And because it’s dysfunctional, and it doesn’t work, then you try to make that person change, as if they’re the only possibility.Anybody that would actually be possible to have a healthy relationship with, is not in your radar at all, because of the limiting decision.So you keep on trying to save your marriage as if this kind of person is the only possibility.”
(Participants’ names are change to protect their privacy.)
(Fiona was saying she has been staying in the relationship because she made a commitment, and she doesn’t want to break the commitment.In the marriage vow she promised to love, honor and cherish him until “death do us part.” Her husband was kind and loving before they were married, and became emotionally abusive, immediately after they got married.)
“If you’re having to go against yourself to honor this ‘commitment,’ you’re not committed to truth.If you were committed to being truthful — true to yourself, true to your emotions, true to your feelings, true to love — you wouldn’t be committing yourself to things that don’t make sense.You’re committing yourself to love him forever, when love cannot be regulated, and what you thought you loved, was not who he turned out to be.”
(Fiona is saying that’s what everyone out in the world does.They flit from one relationship to another, never making any kind of commitment.)
“If a person tends to be in and out of relationships and flit from one person to another person, this is not what I’m talking about. That’s not being true to oneself. It means that person can’t really come into the present moment and really be intimate with anyone. We’re talking about really being true to yourself, which means you honor your real emotions, which is the only way a relationship could possibly work in the first place.Otherwise it’s against the laws of reality. It’s against the laws of truth.And the process of evolution is to get closer and closer to what those real laws or principles are.The rules that are developed by humanity, and the structures humanity forms around the rules, are just human constructs, and they keep evolving.For example, the traditional marriage vows used to be ‘to love, honor and obey.’And they no longer include ‘obey,’ because humanity has evolved past that idea.
Humanity keeps on evolving to get more in alignment with what’s really true, with the nature of love, with the nature of truly being who you are.If your enlightened self-interest is not central in the picture — you can’t be truthful, you can’t be genuine, you can’t be honoring, you can’t be any of the things that really matter, because you have violated a basic truth.Your idea of honor seems to be to take some vow or something you’ve agreed upon and stick to it come hell or high waters.If you make a commitment to commit suicide after being married for two hours, does that mean you ought to do it, just because you made that commitment?No. There’s nothing holy about commitment in itself, if it’s not a commitment your soul is actually committed to.Commitment is about being true to what your real self is actually committed to.It’s a recognition, and acknowledgement of what is true for you. It’s coming into truth, not making it up, and then committing yourself to what you made up.It’s not sticking to a commitment when you find out it is not actually in alignment with what is true for you.
You’re not relating to the real person your husband is. You’re relating to the dysfunctional structure that he’s presenting, his dysfunctional defense system.And that is what you’re trying to reform. We’re talking about symbols and structures.You related to him because of his dysfunctional structure, whether you consciously realized that or not.It doesn’t appear that he’s in a place in this lifetime where he’s going to be connected to his real self, and that’s not your problem, and it’s not your issue.You’re together with him for your own learning.And he’s together with you for his own learning.And he’s on his own path.And it’s not the same path that you’re on. And you’re not responsible for his path. And you can’t give him the learning that he needs.He can only get his learning from his own path. And you’re on your path for your own learning.It’s a whole separate thing. And it doesn’t appear that these paths are going to come together, at least in this lifetime.But both of you can get great learning — not by accommodating each other — but by being closer and closer to who you are, and doing what you need to do for yourself.It’s the best gift you can give him.
What you’re doing right now by trying to make things be what they are not, is not honoring him.The most honoring thing you can do in relation to another person is to relate to them from a place of truth. If you are staying in a marriage because you promised to love, honor and cherish him for the rest of your life, but you find that that’s not the truth any longer — to hold in place something that is not true, is not honoring or helping that person, particularly on a soul level, because it’s living a lie. And living a lie in relation to someone else — there’s no possible way it could possibly do them any good.It’s holding in place a dysfunctional relationship that isn’t moving anywhere, and so it’s not in the best interest for either of you.
It’s crucial to understand the importance of enlightened self-interest, in order to sort this out.And in order to understand the importance of enlightened self-interest, it is necessary to understand the bottommost goodness of each soul.This means that whatever it is that you truly want, what matters most to you, what would really be of benefit to you — is always of benefit to the rest of the universe, and is a part of divine truth.It can never be against anyone else.This doesn’t mean that it might not make you and others uncomfortable at times, or cause you or them to stretch, or be a challenge in whatever ways.The divine truth of what is in your enlightened self-interest is not something that can be manipulated or controlled.It just is.And the closer you come to living in enlightened self-interest, the closer you come to being in an enlightened state.The process of human evolution has to do with coming increasingly closer to living from what truly benefits you, as opposed to what people generally do that they think benefits them, but is actually harmful to them.Limiting decisions are what cause people to go toward what is harmful to them, as a substitute for what would really benefit them, but that they have given up on as impossible.”
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching
during Janine’s NLP TimeLine Session 5-19-09
(Client’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.)
“When it comes to taking an action, enlightened self-interest is vitally important.It’s how you know what to do.It’s the guidance forward.It’s the connection with here-and-now reality.”
