Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

Below is a response from RL to my invitation for dialog about the direction humanity is going in and the challenge in front of us.  Underneath that is my response to RL.  If you can a response to these you can send it to me using this blog’s contact form.

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RL: “GM foods are a fantastic idea, initially, produce mass quantity of food to feed people more quality food…  Of course there are people who want to monopolize on this instantly, such as Monsato, maximizing profits by contracting deals that cannot be withdrawn. This is done without being cautious to the effects, and giving time for science to perfect the process. Hydrogenated oil… when created at first, great idea! Food shall not spoil so quick… yet 30 years down the line we find its ill effects, but to completely ban it from use is impossible, as to the multi million dollar agreements of companies like crisco and mcdonalds. But 30 years down the line we find Hydrogenation of food is useful on sugar starches, to create an indigestible sugar that is great for diabetics, and does not cause insulin spikes.   Every discovery has an application, we just need to find the correct one, and the key requirement is patience. Money is the root of all evil….”

Jane: “To me, what you are saying boils down to: Because of greed, some people take advantage of, and have huge power over, other people.  This perspective is that we are victims of the greed of other people.

When we look at these kinds of issues, the focus is generally on those who take advantage of other people, as if they are the problem. This is not recognizing that those other people are just as powerful as those who “take advantage of them.”   The problem isn’t those who take advantage of other people; it is what causes those other people to give their power away and let themselves be manipulated.  And it is not others they are being manipulated by.

What people really desire are, for example, being powerful, valuable, successful, loved, safe and so on.  And having those is the true nature of people.  But people make limiting decisions* as children, which cause them to believe that can’t have those things, in whatever area it is that they make limiting decisions* in.  Because this feels deeply unacceptable to them, they develop emotional defense systems that cushion them against, or compensate for, not being able to access those.  People then get invested in symbolic substitutes for these that they feel they can control — such as buying expensive things they don’t need; drinking excessive alcohol; and eating unhealthy comfort foods that give them a false, but  immediate, sense of well-being.  These kinds of symbolic substitutes give them the feeling that they are powerful, valuable, successful, lovable, safe and so on.  People tend to buy into symbols of what gives them a sense of well-being.

When we go toward symbolic substitutes, we are believing that the source of our well-being is outside of ourselves.  This is what addictions are all about.  They are something physical that we believe we have control over that will give us a sense of having something we truly desire, but feel unable to access, such as love, emotional nourishment, power, success, significance and so on.  But in reality, an addiction is something that becomes out of our control, and ends up having control over us.

And so these symbolic symbols ultimately have harmful effects on us, as well as often on other people and our common environment.  This is because they not in alignment with reality.  They result in excessive consumption of resources and pollution in one form or another.  And they bring us into an increasingly deeper sense of hopelessness, because we’re looking in the wrong direction for solutions.  They cause us to rely on those who provide these symbolic substitutes believing they are the source of our well-being.  Those we believe have huge power over us, such as Monsato in your example, only have that power because we are giving it to them, believing them to be the source of what we need, as if that source could come from something outside of ourselves.”

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7.  They are always some form of life doesn’t work and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as: “I am bad, not valuable, a failure…” “People can’t be trusted.”  And so on.

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

As I mentioned in my newsletter last week, these are challenging times for many people.  And the question of whether humanity is moving forward or backward is not necessarily obvious.  We have clearly made huge advances in many areas of human experience, but are also facing potentially disastrous outcomes from directions humanity has gone in, and continues to go in.

A couple of people responded to the invitation I gave last week for dialog.  And their responses are in the previous blog post.  My own perspective on this actually requires far more space than I can use in a newsletter article, and is in fact a major focus of my 12-week “Life is Meant to Work” tele-seminar.  And so, in my below article, I’ll give you an overview of some of where I’m coming from, which as always is based on the principle that life is meant to work.

I invite you to participate in further dialog about this or any other topic that seems important to you, by going to my contact form — click here.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Jane Ilene Cohen
Intuitive & Transformational Counselor
(760) 753-0733

The Challenge in Front of Us

An Overview by Jane Ilene Cohen

Up until now, in the human evolutionary process, we have been making progress toward increasingly more consciousness, intelligence, truth and love.  And now we are being faced with a shift that is a quantum leap beyond where we have been before.  It seems clear to me we are in the midst of a transition period, in which there is increasingly more pressure to make this shift.  And eventually the shift is going to just happen, ready or not.  For those who have not prepared themselves for it, it will probably be a much rougher transition.

Up until a certain point, humanity’s idea of progress was more or less working, as we hadn’t yet reached a tilting point.  But it has been based on some fundamentally false premises.  These are that the physical world is the basis of actual reality and is the source of real power, and that the source of our well-being and survival therefore is the physical world and people outside of ourselves.  And therefore we believe that they are also the sources of our individual and collective problems.  And so this is where we are focusing our efforts for solutions.  We have been using our considerable resources to gain increasingly more control of the world around us, and to amass more and more power and resources based on this.  Our goal becomes having more and controlling more, as if that will give us what really matters to us.  But the result is actually the opposite.

It appears to me that it takes us having pushed this old paradigm to its limits (so that there is nowhere further to go with it), and getting to the point where the disastrous outcomes of doing so are so apparent that we can no longer ignore them — before we are willing to make this shift that feels to us like jumping off of a cliff.  It’s giving up the idea that our safety lies in our human control, and instead relying on something we have no control over, based on the recognition of the totally benevolent nature of reality (the Universe, Life….).

It is making the shift into a new survival system, as radically different as shifting from breathing water, to breathing air.  Rather than, from within a limited human perspective, relying on controlling the world and people external to ourselves for our safety and well-being — it’s coming into a co-creative relationship with a larger non-physical source, which can only be accessed from inside of each individual soul.  It is a recognition that the nature of reality works wonderfully well, when it isn’t distorted by human control.

The bottom line is that none of us is at the mercy of what others of us do or don’t do.  We can’t rely on other people to do what is good for them, or for us, or for our ecosystem; and we also can’t force them.  Putting our energy and focus in that direction is not moving toward actual solutions, but in the opposite direction.  It is standing on the ground that caused the problem in the first place. The basis of greed and corruption is believing the physical is the source, which is inherently a framework of limits, leading to power-struggles or sacrifice.

Where I believe the solutions lie is in each of us moving toward recognizing how we are using our own individual, non-physical power.  (By non-physical I mean what motivates or gives life to the physical, such as love, truth, spirit, intelligence, consciousness — or the unhealed, unevolved aspect of it, such as manipulation, lies, fear, avoidance, and so on.) And it takes recognizing where the source of our well-being and survival really comes from, and moving toward a co-creative process with that larger source.  This requires letting go of the control.

What is in the way of this is a fundamental power-struggle that humanity is engaged in.  And it has to do with us focusing on substitutes for what really matters to us, and building up substitute worlds as a part of this power-struggle.  It also keeps us from accessing our real power. (This last paragraph, in particular, is a large subject that I only have just touched on.)

To learn more about the “Life is Meant to Work: Prepare Yourself for a New Reality” 12-week Tele-seminar, click here.

Original Invitation for Dialog:

“Do you believe that we, as humanity, are moving forward?  Or do you believe we are going backwards.  What makes you believe what you believe about this?

As we are approaching 2012 and as we keep getting ecologically more out of whack, and the weather gets more freaky, and as the global economy keeps being on shaky ground, and as unemployment is still high, and as terrorists seem to get increasingly more sophisticated and hard to control — many people believe we are going backwards, and feel increasingly more hopeless.  Now is the time to get conscious about how we are feeling about all of this.  It is time to take a good look at what this all means and where we are heading.”

Response from Scott Grace: “My answer is we are moving forward, and there is a reaction to progress that is extremely fearful by many who want things to stay in the dark. The more many of us expand, the more some folks contract.

And with the internet and all the ways people exchange information, the darkness and greed that has always been there is getting exposed, reported about, brought to the light. So it only seems that things are getting worse. The truth is, the bad stuff is getting exposed and revealed so it can be healed. We are evolving! Yes there is hope.”

Response from Mark Moran: “It seems the moral decline in my opinion  is in the hands of the current media and dishonest politicians.  The apathetic consumers that don’t boycott bad books, film, etc. are equally to blame.  A positive higher ground is the path to pursue tempered with reason.  Are we going backward?  I have asked myself that same question over and over… “

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

Do you believe that we, as humanity, are moving forward?  Or do you believe we are going backwards.  What makes you believe what you believe about this?

As we are approaching 2012 and as we keep getting ecologically more out of whack, and the weather gets more freaky, and as the global economy keeps being on shaky ground, and as unemployment is still high, and as terrorists seem to get increasingly more sophisticated and hard to control — many people believe we are going backwards, and feel increasingly more hopeless.  Now is the time to get conscious about how we are feeling about all of this.  It is time to take a good look at what this all means and where we are heading.

Starting in my next newsletter (Wednesday (Sept. 15th) I’ll begin a dialog about this subject.  I am inviting you to participate by emailing me what your thoughts are about this, and anything you feel moved to say about it.

As those of you who have been following my work must know by now, the foundation of my work is based on the principle “Life is Meant to Work.”  And so from my end I’ll be addressing this subject from what I know because of standing on that ground.

You can respond by commenting on this post, or by sending me in a message on my contact form.  Just click here.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you,

Jane