Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

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 Ginger in San Marcos. (I never use people’s real names.)

Ginger: In your newsletter, you brought up self-interest and how people immersed in fundamental, repressive religious dogma, with no legitimate outlet for human desires, may act out inappropriately. I have a dear friend, who recently became very active in a church. I sent her an invitation for a new thought series and received the following preachy email. I would love to hear your perspective on how to best handle this.

“Please do not send me this kind of information.  There isn’t anyone or anything that has the power to ‘connect with your soul’ other than Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  The New Age has really gotten a hold of many.  And sadly, they are deceived about the truth.  I pray you would flee from these sorts of things, and find your true worth and purpose in life is for the ONE who made us. I encourage you (because I care and you are my friend) to read your bible, begin with the book of John.  Only there you will hear the truth, the word of God.”

I feel attacked, judged and hurt, although I love her and want the best for her. I am feeling that this friend may have moved into a new vibration that doesn’t support the energy I want around me. It seems a shame to throw this friendship away if some clear communication can resolve it.

Jane:  The energy behind your friend’s email seems to be coming from fear and anger — both in relation to what you might be representing to her that has the potential of influencing her, and also coming from limiting decisions in her that are causing her to take such a blind stand on concepts that don’t appear to be something she is really coming into her own experience with.  The issue is not the content of what she is saying, but the invulnerable and separating way she is saying it.  When a person is taking a ridged stand on concepts around which to orient reality that are based on a fixed source outside of themselves (usually some written document or some central charismatic leader), rather than being grounded in their own experience, there is no way to relate to them about it. Instead there is a separating wall, based on fear.

Fundamentalism is about not trusting your own experience of reality. One of the reasons people gravitate toward fundamentalism is it gives them the sense that if they join it, they can be identified with a powerful authority — in this case the word of God. So a person, for example, that has made the limiting decision that they are powerless, or they can’t trust their perception of reality, or they are inherently bad, could gravitate toward some external symbol of authority and righteousness that can’t be questioned because it is seen as the word of God.  And that way they don’t have to deal with their own limiting decisions, and they don’t have to build up their own strength and personal empowerment.  But instead they are building up a separation between themselves, reality, and other people.  Separation leads to mistrust, and mistrust leads to fear.  The unspoken demand is you have to give up your own perception of reality to their control, as an agent of the only source of truth.

There are three choices I see that you have in relation to how to respond to your friend.  One is to join her in her separated place, which is inherently against anyone who doesn’t agree with her stance — which clearly is not a choice you wish to make.  Another is to be at odds with her.  You would only make this choice if you are not secure in your own perception of reality, because you would see her as a threat, which is how she appears to be viewing you.  Or, you can relate to her beyond her defenses to where and who she really is, which she may or may not be open to.

It appears to me that your friend is in a major power-struggle to hold her perspective on reality in place.  And the question is whether you are going to let that define your reality or not.  She is reflecting a fearful, separating, and conflicting perception of reality, in which there is a power-struggle going on.  Are you going to step into the fear and separation and power-struggle, where you and your friend are at odds with each other — or are you going to stay in a heart-connected place, and relate from there to who your friend really is?

You may be right that she has stepped out of a vibration you can relate to, but it won’t hurt to practice relating to her from your own defining of reality and see what happens.

I also suggest you upfront acknowledge that you are both coming from perspectives that are different from each other’s, to just make clear where you are.  And make an agreement to not try to convince each other of your points-of-view on religion.

Highlights of Jered NLP TimeLine Therapy Session 5-4-09

(Client’s name is changed to protect his privacy.)

Overview: Jered is saying he thinks his difficulty in doing things like meet deadlines and due dates has to do with him being an “in-time” person. He thinks this causes these things to not take on the significance they should, and causes him to not make his obligations important enough to meet the terms of his agreements. He thinks part of the problem he has functioning in business is because these kinds of things are just not natural for him to do.

(“In-time” and “through-time” are NLP definitions of the two main ways people inherently organize time. “In-time” people go with the flow, don’t like closure because they want to keep their options open, don’t like planners, calendars and watches, and often have a hard time being on time. “Through-time” people decide how they want their life to be and make it that way. They feel anxious if they don’t have closure, and love planners, calendars and watches. They feel insulted if people are late.)

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings: “The rule of thumb is life is meant to work. And even though logically it looks like that kind of functioning would be more difficult for an in-time person, it’s just a shift in approach. It’s perfectly possible for you to be able to flow in the way that you need to flow for your business and have it work, if there are no unhealed issue in there. You may not see or be able to figure out, from the current ground you are standing on, how that would work, but it’s never about the nature of who you are, or the way time inherently is, or the way life is that’s causing the problem. I’m half in-time and half through-time, so I can understand both sides of it. And when I’m in my in-time mode, and things are flowing right, it all works. When things are not flowing right, it doesn’t work. And there’s a reason why it is or it is not flowing right. And that has to do with whether there are unhealed issues or not, which cause you to be in the flow or not in the flow. In-time people need to be in the flow. Whatever way of relating to time is natural to you, there’s a way for it to work in relation to other people and the world around you. Whether it’s one kind of timeline or another kind of timeline doesn’t not inherently cause a problem.”

(Jered was saying that he feels fears and doubt, related to functioning in the world, but he doesn’t know exactly what about.)

“There seems to be a separation for you between where you are, and where the world is — a lack of alignment. The challenge for you is to have your internal experience come into alignment with that which is outside of yourself, whether it’s people or deadlines or whatever it is. It is necessary to intersect your internal world with the world outside of yourself in order to meet obligations, to do what you need to do to survive, to stay within the law, etc. You’re afraid that you can’t do it because your internal world is not hooking up easily with the external world. For some reason, intersecting your reality with the reality outside of yourself, is a struggle for you. And that can be really frightening, because you might not do what you need to do to survive. Or you may not do what you need to do to follow the law so you don’t get arrested. Or you may not do what you need to do to make a friend, or to be on time to something that really matters to you. It could be frightening if you don’t feel confident that you can intersect with the world outside of yourself to make things work. I promise you that it’s not about the nature of life. There’s an unhealed issue in there. And we can get to it. And we can clear it.”

(Jered is saying he is unconvinced that unhealed issues are the basis for all of these problems.)

“Because I’m documenting this on my blog, when we clear things, and you shift, and you see that things work that you thought could not possibly work, it’s going to be down in black and white. This whole work is a demonstration that life is meant to work, and that’s one of the things that excites me so much about it. The only thing that keeps life from working are the unhealed issues. Clearing limiting decisions is an evolutionary process, it’s an expansion, it’s a straightening out, it’s an aligning.”

(Jered was saying he can’t see how it could work.)

“You’re looking at the problem from within the frame-of-reference of the ground you’re standing on. And the ground you’re standing on is distorted by the limiting decision, which makes it appear impossible. You can’t solve the problem from the distorted ground that you’re standing on. So I have to figure out what the distortion is that you’re standing on that is making life not work for you. Whatever the outside obligations, deadlines and things along those lines are, they represent authority to you, which causes you to disconnected from them. Your internal experience is not in alignment with the external authority making demands on you.

The parent’s job is to help the child relate to the external world, so that eventually they can function in relation to the external world. There’s some really significant way that your parents didn’t do that. They were actually preventing you from relating to the external world. They had a very limited way they wanted you to function, within their limited perspective that felt really stultifying to you. The way your father set it up, if you functioned from your own understanding and experience of reality, you wouldn’t be following the rules, so he’d punish you. So you have to do things in a way that doesn’t make sense to you, by understanding what he wants you to do from his point-of-view. And if you do it just the way he wants you to do it, from his point-of-view, which makes no sense to you, then you won’t get punished. But if you do it in a way in which you’re really engaged in it, using your intelligence and creativity in making it better, he’d punish you. So there’s no alignment between you and the authority, in terms of meeting an outside obligation. This would make you rebel and avoid getting into the territory where you’re connecting with a deadline or an obligation. Because to you it’s painful and it’s against yourself. You don’t see it as something that you can work with, that is a positive experience, in which you can bring your real self into the picture, and connect with the external obligation or deadline. No wonder you avoid it.”

The limiting decision Jered cleared: “Authority restricts him from being himself.”

The first event in which he made the limiting decision: He was 5 or 6 years old. It was early morning and time to wake up, but he’s still asleep. Father came and said it was time to wake up, but he didn’t want to. So his father poured a glass of cold water on him, which was a shock to him. Jered then made the decision that his nature rhythm or cycle was being disrupted by the outside world, and he was out of sync with it. Just a few minutes more of sleeping would have put him in sync with everything. But being pulled into it was very unpleasant. The reason he had to get up was the bus was coming. Sleeping a few minutes more would not have made him late for the bus.

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during the TimeLine Process: “You interpreted your father as the outside world because he’s the one that woke you up. But in this situation the real outside world was the bus, that was coming at a certain time, and that was the actual reality requirement. And you would have had time to sleep a few minutes longer, and still made the bus. Your father was just the intermediary, misinterpreting the situation for the purposes of his own unhealed issues.

To you, your father represented authority, which is a person who is an intermediary between you and the outside world. Now, just because your father was in the position of having control and power, and he was acting like the authority, doesn’t make him the authority. Authority is a concept, beyond any individual person. Authority is supposed to represent truth. That’s why you give them the power. And your father, in this moment, was not doing that. He wasn’t representing truth. But because you made this limiting decision, from that point on, you have attributed everybody who appears to be in the position of authority, as being unreasonable and out of alignment with you. But the real authority is truth and life and the divine; the real and larger power, which defines reality. And in this event, you were perfectly well in alignment with reality and truth. And your father was out of alignment with reality and authority. He was functioning from his own unhealed issues from a dysfunctional place. The decision you made is that the authority restricts you from being yourself. And then you confused the authority with the outside world.

This is very similar to Bennet. He has also avoided authority, probably for similar reasons. He’s a very one-of-a-kind person like you are. And both of you have restricted, to a very large degree, the possibilities you could do in life because of this. You’re had to reinvent the wheel over and over again. You create the whole life that you live in, completely different and completely done by you, and you haven’t gotten to use all of the wonderful things that have been developed by other people, that fall under the category of authority to you. So you have been separately and stubbornly only doing the things that you’ve devised in order to keep your independence from authority, which has totally restricted you, probably especially in business. It’s caused you to be limited to what you already know. I’m sure it’s restricted you in every area of your life, personal and business.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings during a
Shifting into Your New Consciousness Group 4-2-09

(Janet said she told her husband and two children, before she left for the group, that she needed them to do three chores, because she wouldn’t have time — wash and put away the dishes, walk the dog and take out the trash. She had said it in a much more empowered way than she has before. And she feels certain they will do it, because she heard them negotiating about who would do what, as she was leaving. [The last NLP TimeLine Therapy process Janet cleared was meant to deal with her being taken seriously when she asks something of her family, and apparently it worked.] Then Randy asked Janet how she would feel if she came home and they hadn’t actually done the chores. And Janet started to cry, saying then she would feel that nothing she does ever makes a difference, and she hadn’t made progress after all.)

“No matter what happens, you asked in a different, more self-respecting way, from a place of power. It’s similar with Randy speaking to Donna. It’s not so much what actually happens, it’s the fact that you’re in a different place, which is good for you.

I’m wondering why you haven’t set things up yet, so you don’t have to ask them each time, and don’t have to spring it on them at the last moment, but instead, have it as established responsibilities. The problem is you still haven’t set up a larger frame-of-reference, in which you get clear what you should be asking of your family and work it out with them, and establish it as their responsibility. They would then know that this is expected of them, and it wouldn’t have to be negotiated each time, and they could work it into their schedules. It seems for you there’s some reality basis that’s still not in place for you to be able to figure out what is right to ask of your family, and what is not. It has to become something established in reality, rather than a power-struggle between you and them.

Your whole take on reality is based on their response to you. The question is whose frame-of-reference are you going to be in. Are you going to let their response to you dictate what is true? What you’ve done so far is that if they do what you asked them to do, then you’re fine; if they don’t, then you’re not fine. If they do it, then you’ve had an effect; if they don’t do it, then you’ve not had an effect. The issue for you and several others in the group is — who is defining reality for you.

(NOTE: When Janet got home she found that all of the chores had been done!)

Transcript excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during a
Shifting into Your New Consciousness group experience 3/5/09

(The name is changed to protect participant’s privacy.)

Soul Essence Versus False Persona

(To Janet, about her giving advice right and left) “This is a false persona you have created in order to feel powerful, or respected as someone who should be taken seriously. You use a very matter-of-fact, very clipped professional way of speaking, so that nobody can fault you. But to me, it feels devoid of you. It feels like there’s no life there, no meaning there. There’s no real juice that you, yourself bring to the table. It’s like you’re wiping yourself out, a false persona is taking over, and there’s no space for the real you.

In every moment, there’s some divine essence, some truth, or a whole bunch of them, that if you can get a grasp of it in any way, it gives meaning to the moment. But if you’re skirting on top, and just being a false persona, to me it’s soul dead. It kills the soul. And the more you listen to it, the more you die listening to it. But when you hear something that is soul essence, in which the Divine is speaking, what is really real — then it makes everything worthwhile. And the thing is that you, in particular, so inherently have soul essence that it becomes really stark when you’re doing this other thing. It’s like, ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ Because you have, inherent in you, a beautiful soul essence. And when you’re hiding it with the false persona, we feel cheated.

(Janet was saying she’s really sad about this giving advice, logical way of relating being punctured.) I think your sadness is grieving a lost fantasy. But it’s not about losing a real true thing. It’s what you’ve aspired to in some way, but it doesn’t have to do with what is really you. This is not about you losing your ability to be logical. It isn’t about that at all. This is the way you have felt you could get a certain amount of respect from people. And there’s something really, really mistaken in there. And it’s leaving a very important part of yourself behind in order to do it. This is one of these times when the quote from A Course in Miracles is helpful. ‘I don’t know what this means, and therefore I don’t know how to respond.’ Stand in the question, because the way you’re interpreting this is wrong. Be happy it’s wrong, because there’s no solution the way you’re looking at it.”

The Old Business Paradigm

(Janet said her husband tells her he has to play a manipulation game with clients and business associates, and not give them too much information. And then he tells her she could never succeed in business.) “That is an old paradigm. Business, like everything else, is evolving. What your husband was describing is going backward. It’s not the business of the future. It’s not what’s going to work in the future. Right now this is his paradigm of reality in business, that’s all he sees as possibilities, and that’s what he’s creating around him. But as he evolves, his relationship to business will evolve as well. And you may have an important role in that evolution.”

Male-Female Power Balance / Being a Role Model as a Mother
(To Janet) (About Janet feeling not taken seriously at home, and her husband and son’s dismissive attitudes.) Men tend to easily see themselves as the center of the universe, and women tend to see the men as the center of the universe, and there is a lot of conflict that happens because of that. But both men and women are evolving and bringing more balance to this. And even though that is still entrenched in your family structure — inside of that, is a very, very interesting dynamic of you struggling with these issues — to some degree openly — with your family. Sometimes you’ll try something. Sometimes you’ll try something else, or you’ll reveal your emotions in a big way, or relate to family members differently than you have before. You do all of these different things. An observer could see a person openly working on growing and changing and transforming, and trying things and relating in different ways. That’s a wonderful thing. And most parents don’t show any of that. They don’t try to grow or evolve. They just do what they think will get them certain results. And the fact that you’re out there doing that is very important — regardless of how successful you are at one point or another. And you have made a big impact on your family. You are now relating to them radically differently and more effectively than you related to them before, and they must realize that. And it’s an amazing thing that a mother would love them so much that she would try so hard to find the best way to relate to them. It’s just very moving.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during Janet’s
NLP TimeLine Therapy Session 3-18-09

Parents / Children

(Janet was saying that when she asks her kids to do chores, they don’t do them, and she doesn’t expect them to.)

“It seems you’re not being taken seriously as an authority. So we should talk about what being an authority means, and how you get to a place of authority — which is similar to what I’ve described about being a leader. Both you and your child are under reality, and it’s a matter of relating from that place of what’s actually true. And as you are standing in the truth of what the situation is and what really needs to be done, the more you will be listened to. And then your job is to help guide your child to be connected to reality and truth as well, so that they, also, can see what needs to be done and so they’re not just being told what to do by a parent authority. The idea isn’t for one person to have power over another, but rather for the parent to guide the child to what the reality truth is, so that the child can function in the world as well.”

Power in the World / Male vs. Female

(It then came out that Janet feels she is not respected because she is more emotional than logical. She sees men as logical and women as emotional, so people listen to men more than to women. She sees it as a man’s world. She feels left out of conversations such as about finances, politics, and legal matters — areas of power in the world.)

“It appears that the limiting decision we need to clear is that men have the power in the world. This decision then results in you not seeing yourself as a part of the world, and therefore you disengage from it. Therefore, when you try to stand in a place of authority about the world, it holds no weight. And because you see it as a man’s world in which you have no power or authority, you then need a man to deal with the world for you. This then means you need to rely on the man, which makes you feel like a burden on him. And then, apparently, you feel you have to make this up by taking care of him, and doing everything to support him in being in the world.”