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.

(Previous dialogs with William are under the
“William & Terry” category in the right side bar.)

Continuing the journey of William (an NLP TimeLine client of mine) and his wife: As you may recall, a number of months ago William’s wife of nearly 30 years went off the deep end emotionally, recently ending up in a residential program at her therapist’s recommendation.  From William’s point-of-view, it was no longer possible to be in relationship with her, as she was relating to him increasingly more as if she were literally his child.  The longer she was living with him, the worse she seemed to get, and the more impossible the situation was for William to tolerate.

His wife always liked being in charge, and was very vocal and insistent on things being her way, according to what pleased her.  Although she was so non-functional she was totally dependent on him, William was letting her make her own decisions about how she spent her time and how she conducted her life. The result was she kept getting worse, and the situation kept getting increasingly more painful for him.

His wife has now just gotten home from the 5 week residential program, and William is determined to not let the situation with her revert to the way it was previously.  He was feeling depressed about her coming home, basically in the same emotional state she was in before, until it crystallized for him what he should do.  And that was that he should just take charge of everything about her life, telling her what she should do and making all of the decisions for her, as it has become clear she is incapable of making decisions for her own benefit.

William feels he can’t really move on with his own life until he’s take care of his responsibilities for her.  He’s trying to sort out what she is and isn’t capable of, and let the responsibility for what she is capable of fall on her.

Jane: People are always doing the best they can, from the position of where they’re standing.  So that is why one of the cornerstones of the Life is Meant to Work thought system is that it’s never about what the other person is doing.  You can’t judge them, as you’re not in their shoes.  You can’t take on that responsibility.  There are too many factors.  All you can know is your own experience.  Your only guidance for what to do is your own enlightened self-interest.  That’s why it’s so crucially important.

Enlightened self-interest is what truly benefits you and connects you to what is true.  Enlightened self-interest is what really matters to you.  It is a fact, not something that can be manufactured or manipulated.  It is not necessarily the easy path, as it often requires personal transformation.  It is very different than selfishness, which avoids what is true, causes separation between people, and is a part of an emotional defense system.

That’s why you felt better when you took a stand on making all of the decisions for your wife’s life yourself, as it has become clear to you that leaving it in her hands makes life for both of you impossible.  Your decision to do that was based on your own enlightened self-interest.  It has been a breakthrough for you to do that because you didn’t trust yourself.

For any relationship to work, each person must be coming from what truly matters to them, or there is no solid foundation for it.  Ultimately the only relationship we are in is between ourselves and a larger or Universal Truth.  If you try to make up for each other’s limiting decisions* to try to make things between you work on the surface, you just get mired in deeper and deeper untruths, which ultimately creates impossible situations where there is no way out, which is what you have been finding out.

On a soul level, your wife has made a decision to put herself in the difficult position she is currently in.  All you can do is be in reality the best you can in relation to yourself and her.

* Limiting Decision:  An unconscious 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.

(Previous dialogs with William are under the “William & Terry” category.)

As has been described previously, William’s wife went off the deep end emotionally several months ago, and has been relating extremely irrationally toward him.  Her therapist hasn’t been able to make any progress with her and she is currently in a residential program.

During this time William (an NLP TimeLine client of mine) has been working through the limiting decisions* in himself that have been triggered by his wife’s behavior toward him.  His pattern had been to at first endure it, and do things and respond in ways he really didn’t want to, in order to placate her.  Eventually when he got to his limit, he would end up exploding at her. He can now respond honestly to her without being in defensive mode — with compassion, but fully being truthful and staying in touch with what matters to him.

In working through his issues, it has become clear that this experience has been just as much for and about him as it has been about her.  He has also realized that he has not been in reality about what a relationship actually is about.  And so William asked me how I would describe what a real relationship would be like.

Jane: It has to do with finding love through coming into what is actually true.

Relationships are about relating.  And any form of real relating is participating in the human evolutionary process.  That is because when you do that, you are tapping into something you don’t control — something beyond where you have previously been.

In the ideal relationship, people reveal the truth of how they are responding to each other, which means not coming from a defended place.  We don’t control how we respond.  How we respond is just a fact.  We are so busy trying to control the results of our effects on each other, we never find out what the truth is between us, and how what is really true turns out to be what we really want of each other.

When you get to the bottom of what is true between people, it always is love.  That is what is underneath the separation, the fear, the anger, and the pain.  But most people are so daunted by the dragon at the gateway to coming together with the other, they never find that out.

When we are truly relating to each other, allowing things to be what they are and reveal them without trying to control, manipulate and distort them according to what we think will work — we find that life really does work and we find love.  But relating to each other is also likely to bring to the surface every limiting decision* you have that is in the way of love.  And so it can move you very rapidly along your own transformational, evolutionary path.

* Limiting Decision:  An unconscious 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.

As you may recall the last “Ask Jane” was a continuation of a dialog with William whose wife of nearly 30 years had become so emotionally out of touch with reality, it became impossible for him to live with her.  And the comfort and stability he had built up in his life with her for all of these years had been pretty much shattered.  The point of my answer to him had to do with the only thing that really happened is he learned that he was looking in the wrong direction for his source of well-being and stability.

In response to that “Ask Jane,” I received this request from a reader:  “Will you please expound next on what actually gives us stability?”

The answer to this is a large subject, beyond the scope of this newsletter, and goes to the heart of what the “Life is Meant to Work” Thought System Course I teach is about.  So, for this article, I’ll just touch on a piece of it:

The source of the deep feeling of instability for William was he had had more faith in his ability to control the outcomes in his life to result in his benefit, than he had in the inherent nature of how life works. Real stability has to do with coming into alignment with what is actually true, with what is real, the inherent principles and foundations of Life, Truth, Love, Consciousness, Intelligence — present-moment reality; and allowing it to transform your experience — and you — in the process.  It requires letting go of human control.

People generally don’t consciously relate to Life itself (or an overall Intelligence or Consciousness, or a Divine Presence….),  which is not in human control — unless perhaps when they’re in some sort of crisis that they see no solution to that they believe they can control.  This is based on the deeply ingrained, underlying belief that life doesn’t work — or that it’s just arbitrary, and not something that can be counted on.

And it is based on the idea that what is actually real is the physical world, and can be controlled by human beings.  It’s just a question of:  Who is controlling whom?  Who is the source of well-being for whom?  Who is defining reality for whom?  We either control them or they control us.

William had been trying to control the outcome of what is actually true in his life with his wife.  And he was assuming that this huge change that has been happening in their lives would end up being harmful for both of them, rather than trusting that if he followed what is actually true, the shifting and changing that would result from it would move both of them forward in their personal growth and life’s path.

Another way to put it is we generally believe truth is against us.  People often compromise themselves in relationships rather than revealing what is really true from their perspective, because they don’t believe it could possibly work out if everyone did that.  It means they don’t put themselves in a transformational — which is another way of saying “evolutionary” — process where the whole picture could shift and change in a way that they don’t control, and can’t foresee the outcome of.

From the human perspective, putting oneself in that position is counter-intuitive.  That is because it is switching survival systems.  It is relying on a whole different system for your safety, stability and well-being.  In order to be willing to do that it is crucial to really get that — when your experience of reality is not distorted by limiting decisions* — life inherently does work.  It is switching from what I call the “substitute world” to the “real world,” which is one way to describe what the shift in consciousness is that the world is in the midst of now.

* Limiting Decision:  An unconscious 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.

Excerpt from a TimeLine Session with a client I’ll call William (not his real name)

William is having problems in his marriage.  His wife likes to always be in charge and generally insists on things being her way.  She has very strong desires and opinions about everything, and is not open to what matters to others.  William, on the other hand, isn’t much in contact with what he wants, but generally finds himself “going with the flow” in life.  Going with the flow has generally worked out well for him, and he seems to find interesting opportunities for himself that way.  But in his marriage it’s causing major problems.

Jane: Going with the flow is basically moving along with where the real life energy is, which is a very important ability to have.  But in this case, between you and your wife, it’s instead a part of an emotional defense system.  It’s a part of a dysfunctional relationship between you.  She becomes the flow for you.  She determines what the flow is.  Although, when she’s doing that, she herself is not actually connected with the flow of life.

The issue is “Who is defining reality for you?”.  People often go along with what’s happening around them as if that’s just the way things are, not realizing that they are letting themselves be controlled by other people’s energy.  That’s very, very different than going with the flow of life.  You have to be in contact with your self, with your enlightened self-interest, with your own direct experience in order to really be going with the flow of life.  If you are not connected with that direct experience, and you let the flow of your energy be defined or controlled by someone else, it can be disastrous — as you’re finding out.

William:  I guess you’re then flowing down the wrong branch of the river.

Jane: It’s not the river at all; it’s someone’s distortion of reality.  Really going with the flow is directly connecting with reality, the heart of things, the real life energy — which is what Divine Order is about.  It’s what makes things work.

When you’re really going with the flow — when you’re really connected to the nature of the way life is — then things works amazingly well.  But when you let yourself be taken over by someone else as a result of not being connected to your own direct connection with life, that’s when things get messed up in your life. It’s your limiting decisions* that disconnect you from your own direction experience, and therefore accessing your own path in life.

* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions made at a very young age, which are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you — such as “I am stupid, unlovable, without value….”  “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 a continued dialog with Jered about the Australian Founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, who has been responsible for leaking sensitive secret government information out into the world.

Jered: My concern is the wisdom and consequences of these disclosures since there’s no way Assange read 250,000 sensitive documents.

Jane: What is the purpose of judging the wisdom and consequences of his disclosures?  I guess you’re wondering what the righteous thing to do is.  Should we allow government to keep certain things secret and who should be in control of that? Is that covering up things that should be known by the general population?  But if we don’t keep these things secret, is that causing even more harm?

Focusing on trying to control each other is a losing battle, and if we look out in the world that becomes pretty apparent.  We can’t control the terrorists, we can’t control which political party wins and the laws they end up passing or revoking.  Sometimes things go our way, and sometimes they don’t.  But that’s not the real playing field.  And the shift the world is undergoing right now is increasingly making that clearer.  We have been looking in the wrong direction for solutions. 

Whether Assange’s actions are wise or not is not the issue.  He did what he did, and apparently is going to continue doing it.  You could say he is in a dialog with the world, and the world is in dialog in response.  And how you relate to the dialog will be a learning experience for you.  The dialog itself is what opens up truth.  As I said in the previous post, the issue now is engaging rather than trying to control.  Engaging is where the resources, safety and well-being can be accessed, because it’s hooking into a larger truth, a larger framework beyond any individual person’s control.  It’s participating in life, rather than trying to control it.

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.

Question from Jered (Real names are never used):

Jered: What is your thinking on the Wikileaks guy, Assange. Is there a balance in that mess or …?  I question the practical usefulness of disclosures and Assange’s seemingly righteous stance. The world is a delicate place at times.

Jane: It’s difficult to know the effect that Assange revealing these documents is having on the world.  A multitude of things are happening in the world on multiple levels, much of which isn’t being talked about.

And whether Assange is coming from a place of truth and reality inside himself, or it’s a part of his emotional defense systems, I don’t know.  Very likely it’s some of both.

There are many forces and dynamics happening in the world that are a part of a complex evolutionary process.  And all we can do is to play our part in this universal drama, from within our own personal perspective and experience.

The reason that someone like Assange, who is affecting things on a global level, has such a huge impact is because of the general human belief that our safety and well-being is dependent on what the people outside of ourselves do.  And so we live in a world based on trying to control each other. And in fact, one statement Assange seems to be trying to make is about letting go of the control.  Although, his emphasis seems to be on other people letting go of the control, rather than himself.

The world is in great flux right now, and getting ourselves in the position to ride with the flow of life seems to me vitally important.  And that means letting go of the control.  But we can’t let go of the control as long as we believe the source of our safety and well-being is at the mercy of the world outside ourselves.

It’s a good thing that the book and movie “The Secret” (which teaches how to manifest into your life what you desire) has been so popular.  Even though the majority of people don’t have a lot of success making it work, many people have enough success with it to pay attention to it.  This makes it more acceptable to conceive of the idea that the source of our survival and well-being has to do with an internal process, not something imposed externally.

It’s not about what other people do; it’s about what you do.  Each of us is a leader, because we are presenting a model of reality with every thought we think, and expression and movement we make.  We are in a transition period, moving into taking personal responsibility for the world each of us is creating.  We can no longer afford to blame it on what the other person is doing.

The world you experience depends on the vibrational stream you enter into, the kind of energy you tap into — whether it’s positive and loving, or fearful and hateful, or somewhere in between.  That’s the world you are entering into.  And that’s the reality you project out into the world.

As we approach the New Year we can see the transition we have been going through in these tumultuous times.  One way to describe it is we are shifting from striving to be in control, to engaging instead.  The business world is demonstrating this very graphically with social media revolutionizing the whole field.  Engaging requires letting go of our investment in having things take on the particular forms we are invested in, that we believe we are in control of.

Stock piling resources, and building empires, and creating “foolproof” strategies — only to have the stock market tumble, home values bottom out, and the financial world destabilize.  How many symbols of being in control have you lost this year?  Your house?  Your job?  Your retirement funds?  Your relationship?  Have you been trying to regain that control in order to lean on it again for your stability?  Or have you been allowing the loss of it to reshape you, to transform you, to shift how you are looking at and approaching life itself?

There is no safety or stability in being in control.  But that is not a lesson the world could learn as long as the old ways of doing things seemed to be working.  Really engaging is the opposite of control.  It is putting the truth out there to be seen.  It is a process of vulnerably being present with each other and life itself.  This is giving up the control to a larger truth and reality than human control, and finding out that this larger source is based in love.

The bottom line of what this transition requires is love.  It takes love to let go of trying to control our experience, and to engage in life instead.  It takes a recognition of the love that’s all around, which is the ultimate gift.

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.

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

_________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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