Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during Janine’s NLP TimeLine Therapy session 8-7-09
(Name is changed to protect client’s privacy.)

(Janine has been feeling depressed because she isn’t doing what really matters to her.  The conflict seems to be something about losing contact with her essential self when she engages with people.  She used to be passionate about being a storyteller, which was a way of bringing her soul’s connection with the divine together with her connection with people.  But the fear was so great when she was doing it in front of people that she eventually had to quit.  Also, all of her life she has identified with the story of Joan of Arc.)

“Joan of Arc was following God’s guidance, she was winning the battles, she was in the flow, she was being supported by the people — so at first it felt as though her connection with God and her connection with people were congruent, and it was all great.  But eventually she found out that the people in power didn’t really care about her divine guidance.  They were coming from a much less evolved place, and the minute she was no longer serving their interests they went against her.

So then she felt a separation between her connection with her higher self or God, and her connection with the people out there.  So in order for her to continue to follow her inner guidance, she was now at odds with them.  If she dressed in the way she was guided to dress, they were against her for that.  She wouldn’t say she didn’t hear voices. So they were against her for that.  People wanted to control her to accommodate their belief system.

Joan of Arc played an important part in the evolutionary process. She took it as far as she, as a soul, could take it. She stuck with her guidance, causing her to lose her connection with people, and then they killed her.  All of these things happened as a part of an evolutionary process.  And now you are here as a part of taking it the rest of the way, because for you, the connection with people is vitally important.  You have been willing to give up your connection with people to hold onto your connection with God, but that’s not what you are meant to do.  You have isolated yourself, gone out into nature, etc. to get your connection with God.  But it’s essential that you also have the connection with people, for your particular path.

This is about being in your divine power, and connecting with people from within your divine power.  Stars (movie stars, Olympic champions, etc.) are out there expressing their divine talent, which is what makes them a star.  This can make them a target of tabloids and paparazzi and assassins.  This is because people are very affected by people who are stars, and they separate themselves from them by worshiping them, because people generally don’t have a sense of their own divinity.  Being in your divine power separates you from other people to the degree other people are separated from their own divinity.”

The limiting decision Joan cleared through the TimeLine Therapy Process: “If she is in her Divine power, it separates her from people.”

The first event in which Joan made this limiting decision: She is Adam, and has been alone in the Garden of Eden for a long time.  Eve has just been created and she is standing in front of him and he deeply loves her and is so happy to no longer be alone.  He feels he has to eat the apple she is offering him or he will lose her.  But he also feels that if he does eat the apple, he is giving up his divine power, because it will separate him from God.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teaching during the TimeLine Process: “You could say that what Adam was doing when he ate the apple was the step that he, as a human being, needed to take in order to participate in the human evolutionary process.  Adam may have felt as though he gave up his divine power by eating the apple, but he, actually, was beginning his journey in the evolutionary process, which is also a part of the divine process.  So he wasn’t really leaving the Divine.  He was entering into a different stage of things. There is not an inherent separation between divine power and human desire.  In the beginning of that process, it appeared there was a separation, because the human consciousness hadn’t evolved yet.  Humanity has evolved a huge amount since Adam and Eve.  Here we are now, at a much more evolved state, where it is now perfectly possible to join human experience with the Divine.

Eating the apple was not against the Divine.  Adam just thought it was.  Separation has to do with human consciousness.  It does not have to do with the Divine.  From the Divine’s position, there is no separation.  The Divine was still connected with Adam.  He can eat the apple and the Divine is still connected with him.  But when he ate the apple he entered into his human experience.  It’s like being born, where you forget where you came from.  That doesn’t mean that you no longer came from Spirit, or that you’re no longer a part of the Divine body. You are, but you may not know it.  It’s a part of the soul’s journey to expand its consciousness to recognize your connection with the Divine, while you’re in the human experience.  A number of sources say that a major purpose of the earth experience is bringing the spiritual into the physical. The evolutionary process is not about getting rid of the physical; it’s transforming it through the spiritual.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during the
“Shifting into Your New Consciousness group experience 5-14-09

(Participants’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.)

To Anita: … “I think you often think when you blurt something it’s a mistake, whereas what you’re really doing is revealing something about yourself, which you probably try not to do. Sometimes you are trying to reveal something about yourself, but other times you are trying to cover your tracks, as if you haven’t done it the right way. This thing you have about doing it right is a big issue for you, and it’s a big misunderstanding of what this process is. It’s come up before. It has to do with you thinking that who you are is not OK. But whatever you do is fine, because the transformational process is about revealing deeper levels of where you are at. What really makes this group work at a top level is when people are revealing on deeper and deeper levels what’s really going on inside of themselves. It’s not about being appropriate, because being appropriate isn’t revealing where you really are. If you wait until you can do it ‘right,’ then nothing real happens, and there’s is no possibility for transformation.

This is similar to the process we’ve been having with Janet, who has this idea about a persona that will make other people respect her, and not get too close to where she’s really at, so she doesn’t have to engage too much about where she really is because her real self may show. And then people may have judgments about it. But what keeps coming up for Janet is when she’s out there with that real her, that she can’t hide, that real self is full of life. That real self contains the nugget of the gold that is her. And you can see “the essence of Janet,” and we feel deprived when we don’t get it. And when we get, instead, her very clipped, logical, factual information-tank persona, we feel deprived of her, because the real her, that she’s been trying to skirt around, is amazing.”

(Anita said something about an interaction she had had, and Janet asked her a question about it. Anita rebuffed it.)

(To Anita) “My take on this is that what Janet said to you was an invitation to you to go deeper, to what was underneath that initial interaction. But your first response when people approach you is someone is criticizing and judging you. You think, “OK she’s judging me. We’re done.” And the group isn’t about that. It’s about transformation. It’s about going deeper. And if someone does get offended, then we go deeper into that because there is something underneath that. What’s underneath the defense systems, and the judgments, and the criticisms, and whatever happens to come up — it is all glorious because it is all living material. And underneath it is always something positive. But you don’t yet know that.”

…

“Renee is saying that she feels very triggered by something you said, fully knowing that she is not leaving. She is saying it, but she is still engaged. And there really is no danger in reality. The only danger is if you jump off of the merry-go-round, which is live interaction. But if you stick in there and you stay communicating and interacting and you go deeper, then you get beyond the defense system, which is not about reality. Then you can find out the positive truth underneath the surface of what’s going on. But if you disconnect yourself because of your fears, then you end up being stuck wherever you’re stuck. You don’t go deeper into getting to the positive territory. So the issue is really understanding that there is a bottommost positive truth. When you explore things underneath the defense systems, that’s what you find. Most people do not believe that. That’s the problem. Most people don’t believe that life is meant to work. They don’t believe that what’s really true between people, underneath their defense systems, is love. But the fact that this is true makes it safe to go deeper and deeper, because that’s what you’ll end up finding. And in the more than 13 years of doing this work, I’ve always found that to be true.

What I’m seeing right now is that you won’t let anyone love you. You won’t let anybody near to where you really are at, so that they can find out who you are and love you. That’s the result of this defense system. As soon as anyone shows any interest in seeing who you really are, where you’re really at — anytime someone shows curiosity or interest toward you, which would then allow them the chance to know you, and then to love you — you take it as a negative thing and push them away.”

(Anita said she doesn’t know where Janet is coming from.)

“It’s true you don’t know where she is coming from. You don’t know where any person who is being truthful is going to be coming from. And where they’re going to be coming from may trigger you. So the issue of safety is not about real safety, it’s about whether you get triggered or not. That’s what you’re concerned about, and the trigger for you is that you’re not safe. But it has nothing to do with actual safety. It has to do with your fears being brought up. What you’re afraid of has to do with you being seen where you are at. And there is a limiting decision there, and if you would allow yourself to be seen, eventually you would get to a place where you will discover that the truth about you is not what you are afraid that it is. People do accept the real you and they are not going to crucify it. But it takes some going into this deeper place and allowing the process to happen, so that you, for one second, stop defending the real you so you can find out that people love you.”

(Janet asked how does her blocking the real connection between her and other people relate to her needing to be liked.)

“If you were really allowing a connection to occur, you probably wouldn’t need to have that symbolism of people liking you. That’s what you do instead, because when you do that it’s a substitute for a real connection. I think this thing that came up between you and Renee is extremely important for you. And you keep on blocking out what the actual issue is. The actual issue means the difference between whether you actually will connect with someone or you won’t. And that’s where the bottom line is, that’s where the defense system is. That’s where you’re blocking the connection, right at that point. And that’s what I saw happening between you and Renee. This was very symbolic for you. Right at this point of you having forgotten something, and emotionally you couldn’t be present with Renee to admit that you forgot, and just stand in that and apologize. If you had said, ‘I’m really sorry. I forgot. I feel really terrible,’ that would have been connecting with her, being affected on a heart level. But you just skipped out and made an excuse — and you were gone. And it was hard and impersonal, and it was breaking the connection. So there’s a potential for a real heart connection there that you were breaking off because you weren’t appearing perfect. But the being imperfect — as people are — and revealing it, and relating in relation to that, actually builds deeper connection. If you mixed it up and allowed your emotions to come out and admitted that you messed up and that you felt bad, then you’d be emotionally available and there would be actual contact. And that would be much better, ultimately, than if you had remembered, and everything had gone smoothly, in the first place.

We’re talking about the mechanism that keeps people separated from each other, keeps real emotional bonds from happen. Now we’re down to the nitty gritty. That’s what people want — to be able to really connect with other people. And that’s the major human defense system — to keep oneself separated. That is just it. That’s where it is at. Are you going to be able to really heart-connect, really be together with other people? Or can’t you — or won’t you?”