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.
Below is a response Fellow Healer in New York had to a previous “Ask Jane” Q & A. For the original Ask Jane Q & A with Sally that this response is about, click here.
Fellow Healer in New York: YES.. and integrity means wholeness with self …watching the game may just be more in Integrity for this man, then following a promise he in retrospect will prob. not make again!
Jane: Being in integrity with himself is not about the action Sally’s husband (I’m calling Jake) decides to take one way or the other. It’s the process by which he gets there. People often take a stand on one particular action in order to feel in integrity with themselves, in order to hold some kind of boundary. But they only need to do that if there is an unhealed issue that results, for example, in them tending to give up their needs for the sake of the other person’s needs, if they don’t rigidly take this kind of stand. And so doing it that way is a part of an emotional defense system that ends up causing a separation with the other person in order to feel you can have your own needs met. This is the kind of dynamic that often occurs in relationships in which people believe it’s not possible to both be in integrity with yourself, and also be vulnerably and intimately connected to the other person.
The only way around that is to engage in dialog and be willing to explore your own unhealed issues (limiting decisions*), which requires letting go of control, rather than taking control, and results in transformation.
Jake had agreed to go to the event with Sally. But when he realized there was a crucial football game on TV that was really important to him that conflicted with him going to this event, his knee jerk emotional response was feeling forced to go to the event with Sally or she would probably get really upset. And so he emotionally rebelled by blurting out that he wasn’t going, before he could get his conscious mind around what he was doing. So basically his knee jerk response causes a separation, believing this to be the only way he could get to do what he really wanted to do. This is based on the very common belief that if we stay connected in reality with each other when there appears to be conflicting desires, there won’t be a solution. In other words that it’s not possible for life to work out well for all concerned. So Jake caused a separation because he believed that there inherently was a separation between his desires and Sally’s. It feels far less painful to cause a separation from an invulnerable, defended place, then to feel at the mercy of there inherently being a separation between himself and the person he loves, when he’s coming from a vulnerable place. And that is because if that would turn out to be true, it would be evidence that life doesn’t work.
But the truth is — the only thing that could create this situation not to work out well for all concerned are the limiting decisions* each person brings to the table, that causes each to respond from a defended place, rather than being open to a solution.
As it turned out, after they discussed the situation, a friend of Sally’s came to town and Sally asked her to go with her, which worked out well. What was keeping Sally stuck in having bad feelings toward Jake was a limiting decision* in her.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7, such as “I am bad,” “I am not good enough.” “People can’t be trusted.” They are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you.
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.
From Sally in Solana Beach: My husband agreed to go to an event with me that was important to me. But a few days before the event he realized that an important football game was playing that night, which he hadn’t known about and he blurted out that he wasn’t going to the event because he wanted to stay home and watch the game. I told him that I had thought he was a person of integrity, but because of how he acted I realized that he really isn’t, if he could just blow off his commitment to me like that. He did realize shortly after his response that he hadn’t behaved very well, and suggested we discuss possible solutions. But I am still seeing him as a person without integrity because of how he acted. He obviously didn’t see me as a very high priority. Don’t you think this shows a lack of integrity?
Jane: I’d say, clearly your husband was coming from an emotionally triggered place — at least in his initial response. But it doesn’t mean to me that this shows he is a person basically lacking in integrity.
I think this brings up something important for you to look at in yourself. Leaning on ridged rules, as you seem to be doing, is a way to avoid relating in the moment, where you reveal where you are at, and engage back and forth about what’s really happening, such as “I’m triggered,” “This is how I’m feeling”, “This is really important to me.” If you avoid relating in the moment, you don’t have to be vulnerable, you don’t have to reveal anything, and you don’t have to engage. It’s just, “This is the rule; you follow it or you’re bad.”
And that’s a place that people often fall into in areas in which they have limiting decisions*, because they don’t trust life to work the way it really is. And I’m guessing a significant limiting decision* was triggered in you by this situation, bringing up emotional responses beyond what the situation really called for. For example, the limiting decision* could have to do with you not feeling valued or that there isn’t anyone you can count on. And you’re projecting the pain of the limiting decision* onto your husband, which is why you are being ridged about it, and why you’re drawing a broad generalization about him.
Since — after his initial knee jerk response — your husband was open to discussing this with you to find a solution, it appears to me that he’s not creating an impossibility. But if you take a ridged stand on a judgment about what this means about his character, you have shut the door to a way forward. When you’re really being present — engaging, revealing, and being vulnerable, you don’t need to have ridged rules, because you are interacting in life, and life does work when you’re really participating in it.
So — you recognize that your husband had a dysfunctional response, you look at the limiting decisions being triggered in yourself and in him, and you work through it. A way forward will become clear, when you are really able to be present with each other.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7, such as “I am bad,” “I am not good enough.” “People can’t be trusted.” They are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you.
Jane Ilene Cohen will be interviewed by
Kalon Women Community’s Founder, Sandra Levitin
August 4th at 6:30pm Eastern Time / 3:30pm Pacific Time
Suppose you could… Change your perspective of reality in a way that would deeply empower you to take charge of your life no matter what is going on in your outside world and no longer struggle at trying to make life work.
Intuitive & Transformational Counselor, Teacher and Author, Jane Ilene Cohen, will share the personal journey that brought her to a totally positive new thought system, based on the principle “Life is Meant to Work.” This thought system, combined with her NLP training, is what has enabled her to facilitate profound life-changing results for her clients for the past 14 years.
Other Topics include:
“Limiting Decisions: How Your Perception of Reality Gets Distorted”
“Is Life Meant to Work or Is It Not?”
“Self-Interest vs. Enlightened Self-Interest”
To hear the show and/or ask any questions call (347-884-8656)
The preview call audio for my upcoming
“Life is Meant to Work” 12-week Tele-seminar — is now here.
In this preview I share the personal journey that brought me to a totally positive new thought system, based on the principle “Life is Meant to Work.” This thought system, combined with my NLP training, is what has enabled me to facilitate profound life-changing results for my clients for the past 14 years.
I also describe some of the basic ideas from this thought system, addressing these 3 topics:
“Limiting Decisions: How Your Perception of Reality Gets Distorted”
“Is Life Meant to Work, or Is It Not?”
“Self-interest vs. Enlightened Self-Interest”
In addition you’ll get the main details of what is included in the “Life is Meant to Work” program.
I hope you enjoy the audio, and I welcome any comments, responses or questions you might have.
Warmly,
Jane Ilene Cohen
(760) 753-0733
Excerpts from the Preview Call
“When I took a stand on life is meant to work, it’s like I walked through a portal or a gateway in which a whole other landscape was now visible or available to me.And I started tapping into a whole body of knowledge that I had no idea of before.”
____________
“The reason ‘The Secret’ and the Law of Attraction has become so popular is it is about being able to manifest into our lives what we desire, rather than feeling at the mercy of forces outside of ourselves. But many people have difficulty in making this work for themselves, or have success with it only in specific and limited areas of their lives. Really understanding how to effectively use the Law of Attraction requires much more than what is generally taught, and represents a step forward in the human evolutionary process. The meaning of this goes way beyond being able to manifest a certain number of dollars per month, or buying the fancy new sports car. It is a shift in where we understand our source of safety and well-being comes from.”
____________
“From the very individual perspective to the larger global perspective, many people experience life as not working. But they don’t understand how we are participating in creating this, just believing it to be the nature of how life is. And therefore we are looking in the wrong direction for solutions.”
________
“We experience reality as something objective that is external to us, and that imposes itself on us. But our perception of reality is, in fact, very subjective and changeable, because we are never experiencing reality directly. We are only experiencing a model of reality. There are thousands of bits of information that are bombarding our senses every moment, and it would be impossible to take all of it in. So we filter in a very small percentage of it, and filter out most of it. What we decide to filter in or out is very subjective and changeable. This means, to a large degree, we are choosing our experience of reality, as opposed to reality imposing itself on us.”
______
“Our internal state is caused by our interpretation of what is happening out in the world, rather than something objective that is happening to us. And we don’t realize that our interpretations are very often a result of projecting our limiting decisions onto something or someone outside of ourselves.”
“It’s crucial to understand how subjective, changeable and effectible our experience or perception of reality is, in order to have a choice about what to do about it. Most people believe this instability has to do the nature of reality, and don’t realize that it’s actually internal to themselves. And since the internal process causing it is generally very unconscious, what we end up doing about it is also an unconscious process, which often doesn’t end up serving us.”
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 question is from Jered in San Diego, CA (Real names are never used.)
Jered: As we all know, the head of BP Oil is being crucified in the press. From my perspective, his personal comments to the public and Congress are the sincere truth. His people are working around the clock to solve the problem. He goes home to the UK for personal family time and to get a few hours of fresh air. Certainly, his mind is preoccupied. Yet no matter what he does or says that is truthful – the public is unsatisfied. How does one handle these situations? It’s as though the truth is insufficient as compared to a carefully postured response.
Jane: We don’t really know the character of Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, or really what responsibility he does or doesn’t hold for what occurred. But I agree that he may very well be saying the sincere truth, but that many people want a scapegoat. They want someone to emotionally pay for their suffering, as if that would make them feel better.
The whole idea of sharing the suffering seems to be very strong in people. If I am suffering, then you ought to be suffering also — or you don’t care, you are selfish, you are a bad person. But this has nothing to do with any real solutions, or any easing of human pain.
This is a triggered kind of emotional response, and not reality-based. Whether Mr. Hayward is outwardly suffering or not, has no actual benefit to anyone who is suffering because of the oil spill. It won’t have any effect on solutions being found any faster, or people getting compensated any faster.
People who are invested in finding scapegoats for their suffering are looking in the wrong direction for any real solutions, and are invested in holding in place vibrations of misery, hatred and pain. As a result, I would guess, this is only one of many sources of misery in their lives, as this is what they would attract.
To answer your question more directly, about how to handle this kind of situation: Rather than the focus being on how other people might respond to us, as if that is the source of our well-being, and trying to cater to them, the real dialog is between oneself and a larger perspective, beyond the limited human scope of things. In other words, specifically in relation to Mr. Hayward, I’m sure there are lessons for him to learn, or he wouldn’t have found himself in this kind of situation in the first place. For example it is possible that he might have an emotional defense system of keeping himself at a distance from getting emotionally or personally involved in general, believing that that will keep him safe. This experience could rock that defense system, and be a huge wake-up call for him. Perhaps if he had been more personally involved, he may have prevented what happened.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7, such as “I am bad,” “I am not good enough.” “People can’t be trusted.” They are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you.
Life is Meant to Work
Prepare Yourself for a New Reality
Tele-Seminar
Underneath everything in human experience — the pain, the tragedy, the heartache, the perceived unfairness — the bottom line always turns out to reveal love.
This is because the only thing that really exists between people, underneath their emotional defense systems, is love. Our defense systems are a way to shield us from the pain of believing we don’t have it. Think about the last time you got angry at someone. Perhaps you felt they were inconsiderate of you, or were disrespectful of you, or took something that mattered to you away from you. If you really knew, in that moment, that you are fully loved and cared about, wouldn’t that change that angry feeling? And if, because of knowing that you are fully loved and cared for, you began relating to your friend or significant other out of love and compassion, instead of anger, do you think that would change either their behavior toward you, or your perception of their behavior?
Underneath pain is love. When you are grieving because someone you love has died, what is underneath the grieving is love for them. When people rose up as a community after 9-11 occurred, what they were feeling was love for all of the people who died. The strange thing about that is why does it take a catastrophe for us to feel love for each other? Often we don’t really acknowledge how much we love someone until they are seriously ill and/or die. Why is that?
The feeling of love is very intense, when we really acknowledge the fullness of how we feel. Being able to feel the intensity of how much we actually love is an evolving process, as it seems to be too much for us to feel its full impact in our present vibrational state. It is generally in direct opposition to aspects of our defended self. In fact, it can split it open. The full intensity of our love can feel like an expansion of the self that goes further out than we have the ability to stretch. And so mostly we divert that feeling into our defenses, rather than admit what it really is.
It can also feel like a breaking open, when the vulnerable emotions break through the defenses, dissolving us into tears. You could say that is the meaning of a broken heart. The heart breaks open, so that the emotions that have been trapped by the rigidity of the defenses can rush out. When a loved one dies, we cry for the pain and loss, rather than embrace the intense love we feel for them, right now, even with their passing. The depth and intensity of our feelings are often more easily diverted to hate or pain than to opening ourselves up to the intense vulnerability of love, which cuts through all of our defenses, false personas and worlds.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
Question from Manny from Rancho Santa Fe (real names are never used):
Manny: What does the evolved person think about in a situation in which they are being physically attacked, besides trying to physical ward off one’s attacker or escape without harm?
Jane: That depends on where you are in your personal journey, what you have the capability of doing. The main challenge is to get yourself out of an emotionally triggered state (caused by limiting decisions*), which most people would be very much in. You want to get yourself, instead, in a resourceful state, in which you are relating to the actual reality of the situation, rather than the distorted one the attacker is representing. So in other words, instead of entering into the attacker’s distorted world, you connect with what is actually true in reality. So it’s just a question of how much your internal world resonates with the attacker’s distorted world, and how much you are able to bring yourself out of his world and into a positive and resourceful one. That determines how well you’re likely do in that situation, and what resources you’re likely to be able to tap into. The objective is to get so strong in orienting your reality around a larger truth that you don’t get pulled into this kind of distorted illusion of reality.
Being a victim is a state of mind, not a physical circumstance, and is not determined by how physically strong you are or aren’t. It is not about whatever you might experience physically, but the state of mind you get into, in whatever the circumstances you find yourself in.
The illusion being created by the attacker it is not about the actual possible physical harm that could be imposed. It is about the hateful, fearful, separating, substitute world that he is representing. This world is holding in place the illusion that hate and negativity are more powerful than love. It is about the distorted meaning that is attached to whatever physical action is happening. And that distorted meaning is really what the attacker is invested in. If you are not buying into that distortion, it is less likely you’ll end up being physically harmed. And if you are physically harmed, it will not be so traumatic to you emotionally. And there will be some learning in there for you that will move you forward on your evolutionary path.
What the evolved person does in his or her mind is ask for inner or Divine guidance, in all situations, especially including ones in which there appears to be no solutions, such as what you are describing. They call upon the larger truth, universal wisdom, a perspective beyond their own limited human perception, and beyond their limiting decisions.
The totally enlightened person is always in contact with their Guidance, which guides every moment in their lives. And so they are always being guided to the best place for them to be in for their highest good. They are so much in their power that everything that happens to them is in alignment with the larger truth.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7, such as “I am bad,” “I am not good enough.” “People can’t be trusted.” They are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you.
We know this because life is set up so that what really benefits us is the way forward, and what harms us is the way backwards. There are certain kinds of behaviors people tend to go toward that lead to our lives working less and less well. They are behaviors or things we think benefit us, but really don’t. Examples are: one person giving up their power to another in a relationship, in order to be taken care of, leading to being increasingly more dependent; or eating foods that feel comforting, but clog your arteries and cause obesity; or excessively drinking alcohol to feel good in the moment, but that harms your liver and causes you to behave in ways you later regret; and so on. These are examples of what I call “substitute desires” that are not in your real self-interest, but substitutes for what you really desire, based on limiting decisions* that you can’t have what really matters to you. It’s pretty clear that they are harmful to us and lead us backwards.
But moving toward true or enlightened self-interest, such as moving toward love in relationships, eating foods that are actually good for you, and developing yourself in areas of your life that are truly fulfilling and important to you — these lead your life forward. This means that going toward what feels good to the higher part of you moves you forward. It leads you toward who you really are, it leads you to the Divine in you, it leads you toward your inherent contribution in life.
Whether a particular behavior feels good to you or not depends on what part of you you are relating from. And so if, instead of your higher self, you are letting the unhealed parts of you rule, then you believe your substitute desires are what you desire. And eventually, any negative system is by its nature doomed to self-destruct, because it’s going in the opposite direction of what really matters to you, and what really benefits you.
The purpose of the evolutionary process is to move increasingly more toward our enlightened self-interest, that which truly benefits us. The whole universe, every particle of All-That-Is, is set up to move us toward what truly benefits us.
If we observe the human evolutionary process we can see that it inherently is benevolent, moving us toward our greater well-being. For instance, in the earlier evolutionary stages, it appears primitive people were constantly in danger of not surviving as a part of their daily lives. And their lives were extremely physically arduous, taken up with just surviving. There were limited choices and limited opportunities.
As humanity has evolved it has moved from a limited physical perspective, to increasingly greater consciousness, which has opened up increasingly more knowledge and possibilities, including being able to focus on more than just survival. Humanity has also moved from a limited understand of what power is to a more expanded and evolved one. And therefore it has moved from abusing those with less physical power, such as children and women, to more empowered lives for more of us. Laws created by humanity have also moved increasingly more toward being based on understanding and compassion rather than revenge and punishment.
The fact that the human evolutionary process is moving toward greater intelligence and an increasing sense of who we really are, is evidenced when you observe the younger generations, who are generally much brighter and more conscious than preceding ones.
These are just a few examples of humanity’s evolution forward. Of course there is also a great deal that is unevolved in the world, and people tend to notice where life or the human experience appears unevolved, without taking into account the huge evolutionary steps humanity has already taken.
The whole point about life being meant to work is that life is set up in a way in which that is the natural outcome, if you come into the truth of what life is about. The process of evolution is a process of moving toward what is actually true, as opposed to the unevolved misconceptions we started out with or developed along the way — such as the belief that physical power is true power, that men are more valuable than women, that punishment is an effective way to teach children, that exploiting workers is good for business. These ideas were based on limiting decisions* and substitute desires, and therefore were not the direction of the future. When the truth was discovered that there are much more effective forms of power than the physical, and that women are an invaluable asset in the world, and so on, we discover that life works much better, because these are based on truth. Every time innovators push through new ideas propelled by inspired insights, we discover a deeper truth about how life works, which then brings us into alignment with what is true, thereby causing life to work increasingly better.
And so we can see that the evolutionary process is an intelligent and benign process. It causes the expansion of truth, intelligence, love and compassion. We discover as we evolve forward that love works better than hate in relationships, in business, and in teaching children, and that compassion works better than brute force. Even in warfare we discover that addressing populations’ needs is more effective in gaining allies than bombing them. Evolution is, in fact, leading us toward love itself.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions usually made before the ages of 6 or 7, that are some form of deciding that life doesn’t work and usually also that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as “I am bad,” “I’m not valuable,” “People can’t be trusted,” and so on.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
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.
Truth is a fundamental element in real experience. It connects our common reality, and is the foundation of it. It is what gives us real stability. And yet people often feel they have to avoid it, in order to keep the stability of the substitute worlds they are holding in place. At the same time, we assume mutual understanding between each other about what is actually true. We all have had the experience of knowing when the truth is obvious, such as when the indication of truth becomes so massive there is no way to avoid seeing it, or knowing it.
Truth is transparency. It’s seeing what is really there. Being truthful means conforming to actuality, to reality. It’s as though we’re usually living in an opaque atmosphere, which is masking what is actually true. And some people can see through it more than others can. And there are also times or certain conditions that happen in common human experience where that atmosphere thins out, and becomes for the moment, transparent, when something is so apparently true that no one can miss it.
People try to hide many pieces of truth, because of what seems to be either in their own self-interest or the self-interest of someone else, feeling as though they know what the repercussions would be if they didn’t. And sometimes it seems to work, and sometimes it doesn’t. In interpersonal relationships, in which the relationship really matters to you, if you don’t open it up to truth everywhere possible, it limits the potential of the relationship. But truth means engaging and getting involved, because it often takes you down a path you hadn’t anticipated, outside of your control. It has a life of its own. It is connected to a reality beyond what you could possibly conceive of, beyond the perspective and scope of limited human perception.
When we speak “the truth” we are revealing something that is objective. It is something we don’t control. It’s not about giving an opinion or advice, or making a judgment. Those can often be done without consciousness. Truth is more conscious than that. It has to do with revealing where you are. There is a difference between giving an opinion or advice — and being aware that we gave it. Our opinion, advice or judgment may or may not reflect truth, but it is true that we had those thoughts and ideas, and gave them. Our responses and ideas can come from many sources, some connected to inspiration and some connected to limited human perception. When they are connected to limited human perception, then the value of having expressed the idea is not about the content of it, but is about having revealed something true about you. And the truth that is revealed is the fact that you had this idea. That is what is true. The content of the idea, itself, could be described as a reflection of your limited perception, which didn’t make it past the walls of your defended self. You can either embrace the truth revealed by that or go in the opposite direction. If you embrace it, it can lead to your transformation, and therefore, evolution.
If, your thought comes from inspiration instead of coming from limited human perception, then you are tapping into Divine Source, and the content, itself, then reflects what is true. You have reached beyond your defended self where you are just reflecting back on yourself, and have broken through to a larger and real Source. And so in this scenario you are coming to truth from two directions: The content of the thought itself, as well as the fact that you had that thought.
Everyone inherently knows that truth is extremely powerful. But what they don’t know is if truth is for them, against them, or just arbitrary? And so people tend to feel afraid of its power and therefore often control it from being revealed. And so whether truth is for or against us, or is arbitrary, is the real issue. Everything hinges on the answer. Whichever we decide, and whichever the truth of it is, determines the world and reality we are living in.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
