(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.”

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

Stan (a client of mine), has been separated from his wife for quite a while.  He has recently started a new relationship.  This is the first relationship he’s even thought about getting into since his separation from his wife.  He is trying to figure out what a healthy relationship would be about, having realized the relationships he gets into don’t work.  The below dialog is a part of uncovering a central “limiting decision*” that is holding the dysfunctional pattern in place.  (The next stage in the work is to do an NLP TimeLine Process to clear the limiting decision.)

Stan:  This new relationship is making clear to me that I really don’t like to be needed, because I then start restricting myself based on the other person’s needs.

Jane: There is a difference between someone who is needy and trying to use you to make up for a lack in themselves — and someone who is coming from wholeness and love, and from really enjoying you.  When a person is needy, they don’t have the channels open to receive what it is they need.  You then become a symbol to them of what they need, rather than who you really are. This is the kind of relationship you’ve generally had in the past.

Stan: While I’m involved with this new woman, my wife’s crazy dynamics don’t get to me the way they were getting to me before, and I don’t feel a victim of her needs.

Jane: When you weren’t involved with someone else, you were leaning on your wife as your life.  But when you’ve got your own life, then it doesn’t matter to you what she does, because your life isn’t dependent upon her.

Sometimes in relationships the new relationship sort of counterbalances the old one.  Whatever dysfunctional dynamics in the old relationship that felt crippling to you, because you were leaning on them, are now offset by leaning on the new relationship.  And since you don’t yet have much investment in the new person, whatever happens in the relationship doesn’t matter so much to you, until you become invested in it — which is actually beginning to happen.  And then you’re right back in the dynamics you were trying to escape from in the first place, where you now feel victim of her needs.

It’s your neediness that is really what is trapping you.  You tend to make the woman the key focus of your life.  So you’re leaning on her for all of your needs, rather than being fully engaged in life itself.  Being fully engaged in life is a challenge for most people, because engaging with the larger reality as your focus, rather than a particular person, feels much more risky and difficult.  But if you don’t base your life on a larger reality, you end up losing your self, and therefore have nothing to base a real relationship on.

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

Mitchell (a TimeLine client of mine) does not like being dependent on anyone.  And because he is extremely intelligent he has always been able to figure things out himself.  He’s now at a point in his life where he realizes he needs to expand his world beyond the limited home life he has created, but finds himself resistant to doing that.

Jane: Your life is confined to the limits of your intellect, and your personal experience from the perspective you’re standing on.  That is highly limiting.  You can’t expand your world if you can’t go beyond yourself.  To expand your world means there is something larger than you you’re dependent upon.

Mitchell: I don’t understand the concept of being dependent upon something greater than myself.

Jane: Most children start out viewing their parents basically as God, because they are physically and emotionally dependent on their parents for their well-being and survival.  But when children run into a conflict where something traumatic happens that shakes their perception of reality about themselves in relation to their parents, they then generally contract into making a generalized limiting decision* about those they are dependent on.

For example they might decide those they are dependent on can’t be trusted or that they are inadequate.  In this case they then build a defense system, such as relying on no one but themselves in life, which is what you have done.  This then limits your life to what you can personally conceive of and to what is in your control.

Or the child might make a limiting decision* that he can’t trust his own perception of reality because his perception caused him to be in conflict with his parents, or to get in trouble with them, or to be wrong.  This causes him to be dependent on authority figures and what other people think.

Or highly evolved souls, instead, basically shake the walls of heaven and demand to know what this experience means.  They then, instead of making a limiting decision*, expand to a more evolved perception of that situation, that expands their understanding.  They are then letting divine inspiration show them a greater truth than what they had understood before.  The child then is depending on a larger source.  As each person evolves he finds ways to tap into this larger source, whether he defines it in those terms or not.

People either rely on human authority, or their own defense systems, or a larger source, which then connects them with their own direct experience.

Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

Q & A: “What do I need in order to be happy?”

To read the previous Q & A’s about William and Terry, go to the “William & Terry” Category in the left bar.

We’ve been following the life drama between William and his wife, Terry, from the perspective of William, who is a client of mine.  The relationship had nosedived a number of months ago, when Terry went into a deep depression and started relating to William in an increasingly more controlling and infantile manner, becoming completely dependent on him and unable to function in life on her own.  This resulted in Terry (at the advice of her therapist) entering into a month-long residential program, which she just recently came back from.  From William’s perspective, the attributes in Terry that have always made the relationship difficult for him have taken over, leaving none of what attracted him to her in the first place.   He has been struggling with what his responsibilities are toward her and how to cope with this situation, which has brought up major emotional triggers in him, sometimes resulting in him losing his temper and being hateful toward her, and often resulting in him feeling deeply unhappy.  During this process William has been having weekly TimeLine sessions with me in which we have been clearing the limiting decisions* that have been brought up in him by this situation.

The implicit question from William has been: “How can I stand this situation?”

But the real question now emerging is: “What do I need in order to truly be happy?”

Jane: It’s impossible to tell how something is supposed to end up being.  It could have been (which is what you hoped for) that Terry is somehow going to get significantly better, and things will be alright, and life will go back to the way it was.  Or it could be you end up being so fed up with Terry, because life is so miserable living with her, that you end up leaving her.  But what’s actually happening is you are going through a major personal transformation, bringing yourself increasingly more into your enlightened self-interest*, which doesn’t match either of these obvious outcomes.  The form it’s currently taking is you realizing that you have been avoiding expanding your world beyond your immediate home life because of unhealed issues in you.  But in order to be happy you have to expand your world, so your life is not limited to your relationship with Terry. It is you limiting the scope of your life which is what has been causing you to feel trapped. So right now, you moving toward happiness doesn’t require you leaving Terry.  Following enlightened self-interest* is leading you down a path that we couldn’t have preconceive of.  This shows how irrelevant our preconceptions are about how things are supposed to end up looking.  The challenge is being willing to stand in the confusion and discomfort of the unknown until things become clear, rather than jumping into an immediate solution so you can stop dealing with it.

The solutions in life require staying in reality.  And in order to stay in reality you have to follow what your enlightened self-interest* is.  Limiting decisions* block you from accessing your enlightened self-interest*.  And so when you come up against a brick wall blocking your enlightened self-interest*, you heal the unhealed issue (i.e. clear the limiting decision*) in you, and then a way forward becomes clear.  And as we’ve seen, what is in your enlightened self-interest* generally doesn’t turn out to be what we thought it would be before the limiting decisions* were healed.  And so you then take the next step, and it’s adjusting and changing.  It’s allowing things to unfold as they do.  It’s really quite a marvelous process.

Limiting Decisions*:  Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions made in early childhood, such as “I am stupid,” “I am bad,” “People can’t be trusted.”

Enlightened Self-interest*: That which truly benefits you and connects you with reality, as opposed to selfishness, which is an emotional defense system and separates you from other people and reality. To read more about enlightened self-interest, go to: http://blog.janecohencounseling.com/2010/03/the-importance-of-self-interest/

or

http://blog.janecohencounseling.com/2010/06/how-do-we-know-life-is-actually-for-us-and-not-just-random/ .

(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.

(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.

(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.

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

As you might recall from the last “Ask Jane,” William’s wife has been becoming increasingly more disconnected from reality, and her psychiatrist hasn’t been able to help her.  She has become increasingly more difficult to live with, basically using her relationship with William to remove herself even more out of reality, by obsessively focusing exclusively on him having to be with her and do things for her every moment.  William had hoped that this was just a temporary phase, but he is now having to face she has to go into a full time residential program.  And until he finds one for her, he has to move out of the house, for his own sanity (and hers).  He has spent his whole life building up a comfortable and stable life, which he has been very successful in achieving in his life with his wife.  And now his wife has gone off the deep end and is wrecking havoc on that stability.

Jane: When people are younger they have to make their way.  They have to engage in life and put effort into making things work.  They have to try new things, which may make them uncomfortable.  When people get older and get married, many have this expectation of comfort and stability, and they build their life around achieving that.  They “settle down” and basically give up moving forward in life. The idea is that each partner has committed to staying in that relationship no matter what, in order to maintain the stability of this unit.

William: Don’t you think the majority of people look for safety and stability and comfort as their ultimate goal?

Jane: What people often associate with safety, stability and comfort is actually retreating from engaging in life, into a world they believe they can control. For example, people often make their significant others the center of their universe, rather than Life itself.   You’ve been trying to get your sense of stability from your relationship with your wife and the physical life you’ve built together, rather than having those be a part of your relationship with life.  And now, the person you have been trying to create stability with is falling apart.  And so your life feels like it’s falling apart. Your real source of stability is not, cannot, be another person.  Your real source is a larger truth, a larger frame-of-reference.  And if you’re not relating to that, then your world is inherently very unstable.

When you retreated into the comfort and stability of your marriage and comfortable life, the problem is you were sinking into an unconscious state.  The roles people have generally relied upon in marriage, business, religious life, and so on — such as how a wife or husband acts, how to advance in business, who defines what being good is — that are supposed to create stability, have been based on a lack of individual consciousness.  That is why they require you to lean on something pre-defined and set.  What is happening right now in human experience is a major shift toward increasing consciousness.  It’s a significant evolutionary change.  This means the old forms that are based on being unconscious are falling apart.  They’re losing their relevance.

William: Wouldn’t this road block that’s come along be earth shattering for anyone?  Wouldn’t anyone be upset when they’re going along a road, whether it’s a wrong road or not, when their partner goes crazy and all of a sudden you have to switch roads?

Jane: It depends on what you’re leaning on for your stability, whether you’re going to experience it as debilitating or not.  There is a huge difference between when you’re conscious and connecting on your life’s path, to life the way it really is — and when you’re invested in something that buffers you against actually engaging in life.  That is inherently unstable, because it’s an avoidance of truth.  The only thing that has really happened to you is you found out that you were mistaken about where real stability in life can be found.  And rather than continue to invest yourself in a mistaken direction, you have the opportunity to switch gears, and move toward what will actually give you stability.

(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)

Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.

William, an NLP TimeLine client of mine, has been married for almost 30 years.  His wife (who I’ll call Terry) has been increasingly losing her connection with reality over the past several months.  She is under the care of a psychiatrist, but doesn’t seem to be making any progress.  She has lost almost all interest in life and is obsessed with being attached to William virtually all of the time, getting upset if he does anything that doesn’t include her.  William has been working through the issues in himself that have been triggered by his wife’s behavior toward him, and is responding in increasingly empowered ways.  But it’s now becoming clear that things can’t keep going the way they have been, as it’s taking a large toll on him.  He went to a session with Terry and her therapist, and the therapist said if Terry doesn’t make any progress in her behavior she will recommend William leave her, as there is no point in both of them going down.  She recommended Terry enter a full time live-in program where she can get the help she needs, but Terry is unwilling to do that.

William has been feeling conflicted over the commitment he made to his wife, about if it would be wrong for him to leave her — if he’d be failing in his commitment to her, showing lack of character.

Jane: The question is what you are committed to.  From a shallow kind of perspective, people can be committed to what makes them feel good in the moment.  And so when things get difficult they just leave.  On the other side of the pendulum, a person can blindly follow whatever they make a commitment to, no matter how they end up feeling about it, which is how some people approach their marriages.  They feel that after you make that commitment, come hell or high water, a moral person just sticks with the commitment.  Many people have stayed in very unhappy marriages on the basis of that.

Or, you can make a commitment to be true to yourself.  Now being true to yourself is not necessarily the easy route, it’s not necessarily what feels good in the moment.  It’s not a shallow decision.  It’s a decision to follow truth, and following truth may require you to go through experiences which are difficult, including transformational kinds of experience.  Truth is not the same thing as just doing something because it feels good.  If you’re truly in love with someone and really want to be with them, but the dynamics between the two of you are very painful, if you follow what’s really true for you, you’ll probably make a substantial effort to work through the issues in yourself as long as you can see a way forward.  Generally the energy will be in there as long as you feel life in the relationship, a spark in which you see or experience that there are possibilities or there is potential there.

If, however, you’ve worked through the stuff that is coming up for you, as far as you can, and if the other person is not committed to making the changes that they need to make, that are causing the relationship to not be in your best interest, then what happens is the energy starts going out of the relationship for you.

The commitment is to what’s really true inside yourself, including being committed to the truth of how you really feel about Terry.  And I believe you truly do love her.  And so the commitment might be to keep the door open for her, for now, if she can walk through it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be living with her, or that you have to relate to her in any particular way. Right now she’s got the door closed; she’s not available to be in relationship with.

I don’t know what you should actually do, but it appears to me that she’s got to face the reality of the situation between you. If you sacrifice yourself for her because you feel sorry for her, it is probably not doing her any favors. Catering to her, and feeling sorry for her, and sticking with the commitment you made to a particular relationship form isn’t going to create change, and change is desperately needed right now.

(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….”