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 is a continuation of a conversation with Stan in his TimeLine session about feeling trapped when he feels needed in his relationships. (He has recently started a new relationship, the first since his separation from his wife.) Stan said he is thinking about getting involved sexually with her. To read the first part from the previous “Ask Jane,” click here.
Jane: We have to make the distinction of if what you don’t like is that she is actually being needy, or if what you don’t like is intimacy itself.
Getting involved sexually is not just a physical experience. It’s a part of something that means more, and so the issue is whether the meaning more is a part of a fantasy or it’s connected to the real relationship. Sex can be like a short cut, rather than dealing with the emotional reality that is actually there. It can get you out of standing in the question in order to discover what the relationship is.
Stan: In each of my relationships sex played a large part in the beginning and then as time went by sex becomes less and less interesting to me.
Jane: That’s because it wasn’t a deepening or expression of intimacy for you. It wasn’t an expanding of intimacy. It was just physical. If it’s just a physical act, there are only so many different ways you can do the physical act. If it doesn’t have any more meaning than that, then it’s not interesting, especially when you are past the hormonal stage in your life where sex is so biologically important.
The particular dynamic you tend to have with women makes intimacy not possible, and seems to have to do with a confusion about what needs are about or how one gets together.
What might be frightening to you about the pull of real intimacy is it has to do with being affected by each other. The reason relationships can be so explosive is because of the limiting decisions* that often get brought up by them. You’re in this emotionally vulnerable place being affected by this other person, and if a dysfunctional pattern comes up, and if you don’t have your emotional defense system up, you can feel overwhelmed by it. Intimacy requires letting go of your defense systems. And that’s why working on oneself in the context of relationship is so vital, because everything is going to come up. If you open yourself up to love and intimacy, then anything unhealed that is distorting it, is going to have a big impact.
True intimacy connects you to a larger frame-of-reference then just that person. With neediness the other person is a symbol, in which case you are locked to that other person. Your world has to be focused on them, because they are the object of your need. They are the solution to your perceived problem. But true intimacy is a connection to the real world. It’s connected to a larger frame-of-reference than that person. It has to do with an open channel, in which case you are connected to the essence of life through that person in some way. And so therefore you are not limited by that person. You are not stuck or trapped. With neediness, each person is trapped within the limitations of each other’s defense system. With true love and intimacy it’s a part of the divine experience. That’s what causes it to be an expanding experience.
Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”
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 “Ask Jane” came up during a TimeLine session, with a client I’ll call Sarah. Click here to see past “Ask Jane” Q & A’s.
Sarah said her boyfriend usually gets home from work before she does. The other night he had told her he was going to make dinner for her, but when she got home from work it wasn’t even started, and he was involved in doing something else. And so she got upset about it, feeling as though it means he doesn’t value her. And then the next night she came home and he had dinner all ready for her, and he teased her, “I learned that if I don’t have dinner ready for Sarah, it’s really a big thing. And she said to him, “Well did you do it because you wanted to do it, or because you felt pressured to do it.”
Jane: This is the big trap that many people in relationships fall into. There are certain symbolic things that you (like many people) require that mean to you that you are valued or loved or respected, or whatever the symbol represents. And you feel your boyfriend doesn’t value you, love you, and so on if he doesn’t do them. And not only do you expect him to do the specific symbolic thing, but you expect him to think of it himself and do it because he wants to.
But this is an impossibility right from the start. Your boyfriend is thinking in terms of what you want. He can’t possibly want to do it originating from himself, because he’s catering to your particular symbolism. So he has to focus on what you tell him you want, rather than what’s really true for him. And what you’re asking for isn’t the real thing that matters to you any way. It can’t really give you the knowing you are valued.
Everyone inherently starts out knowing they are valuable, loveable, worthy of respect and so on. And they have experiences in life in which they feel loved, valued, and so on, because they’re open to receiving it. And it doesn’t have to come in a particular form. But when they make limiting decisions* that they aren’t valuable and so on, they close the channels for truly receiving these. Therefore they then require certain symbolic things from other people in order to feel that they are valued, loved, and so on. And when they don’t get those symbolic things, they think that other person is withholding it from them, as in your relationship with your boyfriend.
Sarah: Then how does it work with a couple? You have to compromise and push and pull to know what the other person wants. I thought in intimate relationships you just do things for each other.
Jane: It’s not about what the person wants that’s the issue, but what is motivating him wanting it. If it’s substituting for some emotional need that he doesn’t have access to receiving, because he doesn’t have the channels open, it won’t work and will conflict with you. It won’t work in terms of happiness or things really working well for both of your highest interest or joy. The only way to accommodate someone’s substitute desires is squelching and limiting yourself, and making yourself smaller, because it doesn’t leave you free to be true to yourself. It doesn’t lead forward. It contracts the relationship.
If the relationship is based on catering to each other’s substitute desires, you can get into your own little world of each other’s symbolic things. In order to do that, you have to make each other the center of your world. And if you go down that path, it doesn’t really expand the relationship. It insulates you from having to grow. You get more and more comfortable in a locked-in position, cut off from here-and-now experience. You become co-dependent on each other. Doing that insulates you from life, rather than opening up to it and growing — which I know you and your boyfriend really want. But with some couples that kind of compromise is the best they can do, because they’re not really into transformation. And they’re willing to compromise what really matters to them, because they’re more invested in feeling stable and secure, which really means stuck. And they can do that — unless or until there is something in their soul that can’t stand it. And then they end up physically or emotionally hurting each other, and/or leaving.
The part of you that is invested in the security and co-dependency is the part of you where there are limiting decisions*, resulting in you sacrificing being the divine you — as big, and as free, and as empowered, and as creative as you really are.
But you can have it all, all of it — the freedom to be true to yourself, as well as an intimate, committed relationship. This is a process. You go to where there is a conflict, where something is not working. And that alerts you. “Look over here. This is getting in the way of life working.” Compromise over something that really matters to you is never something that has to happen. When you’re in a relationship where there is a deep loving connection, and where you are connected to the divine love and truth, then certain things that used to be important to you no longer are, because they were substitute desires. And if there is a desire that either of you feels invested in that is causing a conflict between you, then one or both of you are invested in a substitute desire, resulting from an unhealed issue. And so you get to what it is and work through it, which then allows you to get more in contact with what really does matter to you.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions usually made before 6 or 7, and sometimes in adolescence. 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, worthless, unlovable …. People can’t be trusted …”
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.
William: “My wife has gone off the deep end. She’s become very anxious, and is not willing to do the things that would help her. She has become completely reliant on me for everything, and needs constant reassurance. She is upset if I do anything without her. I am reaching the end of my rope. What should I do? I’m afraid she might harm herself if I don’t do whatever she wants me to do that she feels reassured by. I only see two choices: Either go along with her — or don’t and feel responsible for the state she gets into as a result, including that she might harm herself.”
Jane: “The bottom-line is if your life is appearing to not work, there are one or more limiting decisions you have that are distorting your experience of reality. And when they are cleared, the way you are looking at things will shift and a way forward will become apparent. The reason you see only those two choices is because the ground you are standing on is limited and structured by limiting decisions that filter in only the information that supports the limiting decisions, and not anything that doesn’t.”
When we discussed it further it turned out that how William was experiencing his wife was virtually identical with how he felt with his mother when he was a child. His mother was very anxious about life and felt to him to be very unstable. He felt responsible for her emotional state, and that what he did or didn’t do determined whether she felt OK or not. He thought he had married someone who was strong and the opposite of her, but now it turns out that underneath that apparent strength was someone who was actually very weak, and now he is right in the middle of the very thing he thought he had escaped.
After we cleared the limiting decision “he is responsible for the existence of the woman he’s dependent on,” William said he felt a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
He was standing on the new ground of realizing that he really didn’t have the power to determine his mother’s well-being and stability, no matter what he did or didn’t do; and so he was also now realizing that about his wife as well. He realized that he doesn’t have the power to personally solve the problem for his wife, and that nothing he can do will make any difference about it, as the source of it is only in her; and that he’s been enabling her to not find a real solution. And therefore he is no longer feeling hostage to her, or that her life depends on what he does or doesn’t do.
And so, because of this, he realized that there were, in fact, other options than the unacceptable ones he had felt locked in by. He can now relate compassionately to her, from standing on this new ground, making clear to her what he can and can’t do, and therefore no longer being co-dependent with her. He had felt imprisoned by his wife’s dysfunction, but what he had really been imprisoned by was his own.
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.
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 Laura in Encinitas, in the process of her TimeLine Session with Jane:
Laura: What if in 5 years, my boyfriend decides he’s done with me? Then I’ll be single and 47. My fear is that then that will happen again, and again, and again with all of my relationships with men after that. I’ll be good enough for a while until they get sick of me.
It is similar to how my father treated my mother. My mother always put a lot of energy into looking good for him, but he never noticed her. When the family went to a restaurant together, he wouldn’t pay attention to her or to me, but his attention was, instead, on blatantly flirting with the waitress. And the message was, “he’s a man, so he can do whatever he wants to.”
Jane: The way you interpreted this, then as a child and now, has to the with limiting decisions you made, which had to do with your father having all of the power and value; and you and your mother having none and being valueless. But how you interpreted it wasn’t in reality.
Since your father was making such a big effort to make himself appear to be so important and have the power, no doubt he was compensating for a limiting decision in himself, something along the lines that he doesn’t have power and value. And so he was behaving the way he was, not for the thing itself, but for the symbolism of it. He’s trying to feel like a man, basically. And the only reason a person has to do something like that to feel like a man is when they don’t really feel like a man. He’s trying to compensate for an unhealed issue.
So it’s not about the girl that he’s flirting with. It’s not about any of it. It’s really about that there are unhealed issues in him that he’s not dealing with or doesn’t know how to. And in truth what he is doing is as painful for him on a soul level, as it is for his wife and children, because he’s essentially betraying himself. When a person does something like that, he is reinforcing the limiting decision, even though it feels to him that he’s compensating for it.
The reason it’s such a big issue for you, is because when you have a limiting decision such as men can’t be trusted, to you that’s the way men are, and you then believe you have no choice about men. And so then you’re a part of the problem, and when you clear it you’ll be a part of the solution. By the fact that you made this limiting decision, you’re holding in place that reality just as much as the man who is in the heart of the dynamics of it. Both are holding in place an untruth.
There’s a really big difference between interpreting this as this is just the nature of men, all they care about is their genitals — and realizing that that’s not what feeds this. The source of it, for those who have this unhealed issue, is a deep pain that they’re not powerful, or they’re not good enough as a man. But, instead, you saw them as having the power, which is the illusion they’re trying to present in order to compensate for feeling powerless. As soon as you realize that it’s not that they have power when they do whatever the behavior is, it’s that they feel powerless, then it puts you out of the position of feeling powerless in relation to them.
*Limiting decision: A decision made in early childhood that is some form of that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you — such as “I am powerless,” “bad,” “without value;” or “The world is a dangerous place,” “People can’t be trusted,” and so on.
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 was asked by a client of mine named Sue:
Sue told me she was feeling lonely and not happy in her relationship with her husband. She felt he spent too much time working or doing other activities he likes to do. And often when he was with her, he wasn’t really focused on her, although he was sometimes. She wanted him to spend more time with her, really focused on her, but didn’t want to stop him from doing the things he enjoys doing, and wondered what she should do.
My response: I think what you’re really wanting is intimacy. And the lack of intimacy in your life is what is resulting in you feeling lonely. The particular amount of time with your husband focusing his attention on you, is just a symbol of that for you. But you not receiving intimacy, has to do with you not having the channels open for receiving it, in other words, an inability to receive it. Intimacy can’t be gotten by controlling another person’s behavior.
This is actually an interlocking issue between you and your husband, because he also doesn’t have the channels for intimacy open. And so the solution is not to have him stop doing what he likes to do and focus his attention on you. Approaching this by trying to get him to focus more time on you is an attempt to control what can’t be controlled in reality, and it is a backwards approach to the problem. The problem is not about what each of you wants being in conflict, but it’s about your unhealed issues distorting each of your experience of reality in a way that proves your limiting decisions to be true. When people make a limiting decision, the unconscious mind gets invested in proving that it is true. That’s what causes people to keep repeating dysfunctional patterns in their lives, doing things over and over again that they know isn’t good for them, or getting into the same kind of dysfunctional type of relationship. In this case, the limiting decision, and what your unconscious is invested in proving, has to do with believing you are not lovable. And so the solution is to transform the unhealed issue.
When the limiting decisions in both of you that are closing the channels for you being able to have intimacy in relationships are cleared, than the issue of how much and in what way you spend time with each other will natural flow in a way that creates intimacy. The truth is that intimacy is something you both want, as it’s inherent in intimate relationships. When you get to the real issue, you find that what each of you wants is not actually in conflict with the other.
*Limiting decisions are decisions made usually before the age of 6 or 7 years old, that are some form of deciding that there is something inherently wrong with you, and/or some form of that life doesn’t work — Such as “I am bad,” “I am worthless,” “People can’t be trusted.”
(Participant’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)
(To Laura) “You have a distorted idea of what women’s relationship with men are, or women’s value in relation to men, or just the nature of how men are. It’s an old paradigm that has been pretty widespread, but it seems to be stronger in certain cultures. There is probably some impossibility that you see in relation to relationships with men, based on what your father was like, on what the whole male-female culture was like in your culture, the way your mother related to your father — the whole macho thing, the whole man is to be worshiped kind of thing. But it’s not something that’s really tolerable, especially to a woman who has outgrown it. You have outgrown that old paradigm. You can’t go backwards. You’re too much in your power. If you have limiting decisions holding that structure in place, then you wouldn’t have a concept that it’s possible to have a relationship with a man that’s different. There are men who don’t fall in that category that aren’t like that. There are men who are emotionally available. There are men that don’t demand to be treated like they’re the center of the universe. This is not inherent in the nature of men. This is the nature of your limiting decisions based on cultural limiting decisions. And so until you clear those, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. You know that it doesn’t work for you, but you don’t really know, on an unconscious level, that there’s an alternative.
This old paradigm is actually just as hard on men as it is on women, because it’s a huge burden the men have to carry. In this paradigm the man has to be the one in power, and has to be the strong one, and has to support everybody, and bring in the money, etc. I had a client who was from Italy and he told me, in the Italian culture, the father has to buy a house for each of his children. It’s just a huge burden. And if the man doesn’t do those things a man is supposed to do, he’s not considered a man, and he doesn’t feel good about himself. And the women think he’s not a man if he’s not this macho guy. So that puts you in a bind, because you think that men who act like this, you don’t really want to be with them on the one hand; but if they don’t act like this, you don’t have respect for them.
The whole paradigm is not in relation to truth. It’s not in relation to the way people really are. It’s not in relation to how men really are. It’s not in relation to how women really are. It’s not in relation to the real dynamics between them, so it doesn’t really work. It only works when people force themselves into a mold, which means they have to repress and disempower themselves. And eventually when people evolve past that, where they can’t stand it any more, that whole form of relationship starts falling apart. And you’re right in the midst of that, so you have to heal those issues in order for you to be able to be in a relationship with a man that will work for you, because you can’t force yourself into the old mold any more. You’ve gone too far.
If you have to be a lesser power in relation to men, that means you can’t be fully in your power. But you’re a powerful woman, and if you really stood where you are, that would be obvious. And you keep giving your power away, by trying to be something you think men will want. But when I look at you, I see so much value just in who you are, without you doing any of that stuff. And if you were to function out of that, you would be in your strength and you would be directly relating to life and to people from that direct experience. So there’s some switch in there that needs to happen, allowing yourself to be fully in your power.
Giving your power away is the same thing as giving yourself away. It means rather than you being there in your experience, defining your reality, you are forfeiting it to the other person. It’s you letting them define reality. So instead of you being out there seeing this, doing this, whatever — you now are looking at them as if they’re supposed to define reality for you, and they’re supposed to tell you whether you’re valuable or not. So rather than directly engaging in life, you let go of your perceptions. You let go of what’s important to you. You let go of what you value. And instead you’re valuing what they think of you, rather than valuing life, or whatever you’re engaged in.”
(Client’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)
(The limiting decision* Lita is clearing is “Men have all of the power.” The first event in which she made this decision was in a past lifetime, in which men having all of the power was assumed by everyone in that culture at that time. Lita was saying that at that time when she made the limiting decision*, that’s just how it was.)
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings “When the general experience in a particular social environment holds in place the same dysfunctional idea, that means that virtually every person at that time had that as a limiting decision*. The men and the women had the limiting decision* that men have all of the power. So everyone was holding that paradigm in place. That gave you the impression that that’s how it is. But that doesn’t make it true. It just means, in that limited human perspective, that’s what was being held in place.
So the first stage is everyone accepts it. They don’t consider there is any problem. That’s just the way it is. The next stage is someone like you who is more advanced, is saying, ‘Hey, I don’t like this.’ And you start getting an inkling that there is something wrong with things being that way. That is the first step toward shifting it. Even getting a sense that there is another possibility is a miracle, because it’s an evolutionary leap. And then the next stage is to actually clear the limiting decision*, which requires you to really get that the physical form of power, that men’s power superiority was based on, is not the only form of power there is. It’s the most primitive. It’s not true that those with the most physical power are the most powerful, because if it were true, the big woolly mammoth would be in control. Therefore it becomes obvious that intelligence is far more powerful than brute physical strength. There is emotional strength, intellectual strength and spiritual strength, which also relates to the power to heal, which is extraordinarily powerful. So spiritual power is the most powerful of all, which is the reason why the whole idea of witch burning came up. That’s the fear of emotional-spiritual power. If it wasn’t so powerful, they wouldn’t be burning women for having it. So clearly there are much more powerful forms of power than brute physical force. And the only reason people don’t realize it is because of the limiting decision. And now at this time in history, both men and women are beginning to recognize that holding in place the old paradigm is not beneficial to either women or men. It’s extremely hard on men.”
(Lita was saying if she were a man she’d feel so ashamed of what men have created through the ages.)
“Men having controlled a large aspect of life in the past is fully as much women’s responsibility as men’s, because men and women have both held in place that paradigm. In that past life time, you were holding in place that men have all of the power, which means that you were just as responsible for them having all of the power, and therefore for things being out of balance.”
* For a definition of limiting decisions, click here.
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.
Fellow Healer in New York is questioning Jane’s response to Linda, in which Jane said it appears that Linda gets attracted to men who are unavailable. Fellow Healer’s question is in response to the last “Ask Jane” Q & A about Linda in San Diego’s Question “Why do I Keep Contacting my Ex-boyfriend?”
For the original Ask Jane Q & A from Linda, click here.
Fellow Healer: I know many people who are available in some situations and with some people and not others. Boundaries, likes, dislikes, who knows? Is someone 100% one or the other? I have been told by people in my life that they see me as unavailable and others see me as quite available. Maybe I was unavailable to just that person and for good reason!
Fellow Healer then relayed (in the context of an article he wrote) an experience where a woman (he’s calling Katie) contacted him from a dating service, but he had already started dating another woman (Lea). He went out with Katie just as friends, and felt more drawn to her than with Lea, the woman he was dating. But out of loyalty, he stayed with Lea. The relationship eventually didn’t work out. He kept up his friendship with Katie and when he wanted it to go deeper, and became open, vulnerable and available to her, she dropped out of the relationship.
Jane: The issue of whether you are or you aren’t really available is only significant in the context of whether or not your relationships are working well for you. If they aren’t, this could be a part of what’s not working well. Limiting decisions*, and the patterns resulting from them, can be very particular to the individual person; and what is apparent on the surface, may not ultimately be what the pivotal limiting decision* turns out to be. The limiting decisions* are generally covered over by an emotional defense system, meant to avoid the pain of the limiting decision*. The emotional defense system is the dysfunctional pattern that people get into. The pattern for you could, for instance, be that you are available when the woman is not, and you are not available when they are. And the underlying limiting decision* holding that in place could be something about fear of abandonment, resulting in avoiding relationships in which both of you are actually available for a committed intimate relationship, so that you never have to feel the pain of being left. (This is strictly a guess.) There always is a pattern in there if something isn’t working well, but it’s not always so easy to ferret out what it is.
Fellow Healer: I did consequently try some email exchange with Katie to understand her side. In response, I got an email lecture on my diet and the need to go within to heal. It was an intense preaching with angry undertones that I had no idea where it was coming from. No matter how you put a nice new age twist on it, or try turning the responsibility on me, her behavior toward me is plain ole strange. No matter how enlightened we get, our behavior can and will hurt others.”
Jane: From what you described, Katie is clearly functioning from an emotionally defended place, no matter what terminology it is couched in. But if there wasn’t an unhealed pattern in you in relation to her, and limiting decisions* holding that pattern in place, you would not have been in the pain you ended up being in, and the whole scenario with her wouldn’t have unfolded in the way it did. The pain you are feeling is the pain of the limiting decisions in you. All Katie did was trigger the pain that was already there, that comes to the surface when someone triggers it.
* For a description of “limiting decisions,” click here.
