Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 10-1-09

(Participant’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)

(During a discussion Melanie was saying she never learned how to respond with her vulnerable emotions.)

(To Melanie) “If you were not blocking being affected by someone’s vulnerable emotions, and having your own vulnerable emotions respond, you would naturally respond with your emotions.  It’s not something you have to learn how to do.  You are actively, on an unconscious level, blocking it.  If you weren’t blocking it, it would happen.

I’m not saying you’re bad or wrong.  I’m helping you get a sense of something that could cause an amazing transformation, that would allow you to have intimate, emotional relationships with men and women.  I gather that relationships with people is very important to you.  And so this is a process for you to get so you can actually do that.  So rather than seeing this as you’re bad or you’re wrong, it is that you revealed where you are at, and I’m working with you to push you beyond that, so we can get you to the other side.  You are too identified with your defense system as your value.  And that is leaving behind your real value.  I’m moving past your defense systems to the gold that is you, underneath the defense systems.  That’s what I’m after.  I’m not after making you feel bad or wrong.  I’m after the real you that’s hiding behind the defense system.  The problem is the defense systems keep you from evolving as a soul. And so as your desire to evolve as a soul gets stronger and stronger, the defense system gets more and more in the way, and so it gives you more and more impetus to get through the defense system.  And getting through the defense system can feel like jumping off a cliff.

And on top of that there’s a large evolutionary force at play, other than each of our individual lives.  This world is shifting, with the whole economic turmoil and whatever else may be raining down.  People cannot remain comfortable in their defense systems any more.  It’s time for major, major change.  So if it’s not going to come internally, it’s going to come externally, because things have to shift and change, and so that’s part of what’s happening.  People’s defense systems, even the really effective ones, are not going to continue to work.  That’s a big shock for a lot of people.  And a lot of people who have gotten away with feeling very normal as they are following all of the different rules — having their stocks in the stock market, and all of the different things you’re supposed to do to do well in the world.  For a safe citizen following all of the rules, it’s a huge shock when those institutions are falling apart, because they’re having to make changes.  And you could say people who have been struggling all of this time are not having as much difficulty as people who haven’t been, and now have to start changing.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 10-1-09

(Participant’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)

(To Melanie) “If you’re feeling something along the lines of life can’t work, or it’s not working, or it’s not going to work, then you know it’s got to be out of reality, because the bottommost truth is that life is meant to work.  So if you’re seeing an impossibility, just know that there’s an unhealed issue in there.  It’s not the nature of reality. So whatever emotions are coming up around that, know that they’re not an indication of truth.  These are just triggered emotions.  That’s all they are.  It’s not because life is really like that.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 10-1-09

(Participant’s name is changed to protect her privacy.)

(To Laura) “You have a distorted idea of what women’s relationship with men are, or women’s value in relation to men, or just the nature of how men are.  It’s an old paradigm that has been pretty widespread, but it seems to be stronger in certain cultures.  There is probably some impossibility that you see in relation to relationships with men, based on what your father was like, on what the whole male-female culture was like in your culture, the way your mother related to your father — the whole macho thing, the whole man is to be worshiped kind of thing.  But it’s not something that’s really tolerable, especially to a woman who has outgrown it.  You have outgrown that old paradigm.  You can’t go backwards.  You’re too much in your power. If you have limiting decisions holding that structure in place, then you wouldn’t have a concept that it’s possible to have a relationship with a man that’s different. There are men who don’t fall in that category that aren’t like that.  There are men who are emotionally available.  There are men that don’t demand to be treated like they’re the center of the universe. This is not inherent in the nature of men.  This is the nature of your limiting decisions based on cultural limiting decisions.  And so until you clear those, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.  You know that it doesn’t work for you, but you don’t really know, on an unconscious level, that there’s an alternative.

This old paradigm is actually just as hard on men as it is on women, because it’s a huge burden the men have to carry. In this paradigm the man has to be the one in power, and has to be the strong one, and has to support everybody, and bring in the money, etc.  I had a client who was from Italy and he told me, in the Italian culture, the father has to buy a house for each of his children.  It’s just a huge burden.  And if the man doesn’t do those things a man is supposed to do, he’s not considered a man, and he doesn’t feel good about himself.  And the women think he’s not a man if he’s not this macho guy.  So that puts you in a bind, because you think that men who act like this, you don’t really want to be with them on the one hand; but if they don’t act like this, you don’t have respect for them.

The whole paradigm is not in relation to truth.  It’s not in relation to the way people really are.  It’s not in relation to how men really are.  It’s not in relation to how women really are.  It’s not in relation to the real dynamics between them, so it doesn’t really work.  It only works when people force themselves into a mold, which means they have to repress and disempower themselves.  And eventually when people evolve past that, where they can’t stand it any more, that whole form of relationship starts falling apart. And you’re right in the midst of that, so you have to heal those issues in order for you to be able to be in a relationship with a man that will work for you, because you can’t force yourself into the old mold any more. You’ve gone too far.

If you have to be a lesser power in relation to men, that means you can’t be fully in your power.  But you’re a powerful woman, and if you really stood where you are, that would be obvious. And you keep giving your power away, by trying to be something you think men will want.  But when I look at you, I see so much value just in who you are, without you doing any of that stuff.  And if you were to function out of that, you would be in your strength and you would be directly relating to life and to people from that direct experience. So there’s some switch in there that needs to happen, allowing yourself to be fully in your power.

Giving your power away is the same thing as giving yourself away. It means rather than you being there in your experience, defining your reality, you are forfeiting it to the other person.  It’s you letting them define reality.  So instead of you being out there seeing this, doing this, whatever — you now are looking at them as if they’re supposed to define reality for you, and they’re supposed to tell you whether you’re valuable or not. So rather than directly engaging in life, you let go of your perceptions.  You let go of what’s important to you.  You let go of what you value.  And instead you’re valuing what they think of you, rather than valuing life, or whatever you’re engaged in.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 10-08-09

“A way of producing change is through relating in a group situation, in which you are out in the open about how you’re really responding to things, and then you find out whether your experience is in reality or not.  People’s emotional defense systems are not fun for anybody else.  In a group, people’s defense systems usually irritate other people — either someone may be talking on and on, or flooding the airwaves with excuses.  People might be feeling bored when the person is talking, feeling it’s going nowhere. If you’re really honest about how you’re responding, generally something comes up in relation to the person’s defense system.  And if people have the courage to reveal how they’re responding, then it intercepts the defense system.  And you can have someone get really upset because someone has interrupted them, or someone has stopped them from doing this usual thing they do that makes them feel good about themselves or makes them feel accepted, or makes them feel whatever that is. Several people here have experienced that.  And the defense systems cover over the limiting decisions*.  And then the limiting decision* comes up, which is what you’re afraid is true.  And so when the defense system is penetrated, and the limiting decision* comes up, then you are present in the here-and-now with the limiting decision*, which is what people spend their life trying to avoid, because they are sure that it is true.  But when it gets brought up in the little community of the group, you find out that it’s not true.  So it’s a way of coming into direct contact with reality, beyond your limiting decisions*.

The group is a different kind of social situation, in which instead of people going along with your defense systems or skirting around them, they are putting in the picture their own experience, which means the defense systems are no longer ruling.  Out in the world people’s defense systems are ruling.  They are basically creating cushions around themselves, where they are non-verbally saying ‘Don’t say this to me.  Don’t look at me that way.  Don’t talk about this subject.’  And people more or less go along with it because they don’t want conflict.  Out in the world, it doesn’t often work well to butt up against someone’s defense system, because there’s no way to deal with it.”

* For an explanation of limiting decisions, click here.

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 10-08-09

(Participants’ names are changed to protect their privacy.)

(To Paul)  “If you were to say things full out the way you really see them, the way you really feel them, and be where you really are — the way you have it formed in your mind is it’s going to be impossible.  Things can’t work with Kira, or you’re not going to be able to make things work at work or with your sisters.  There is some way that you don’t come down where you really are at. You only reveal a little bit of it.  You say things in a minimal way, rather than full out the way you really are experiencing it.  So there’s some way that you don’t really believe that life is meant to work, that truth will end up with things working well.   And this is the major thing for all of us, for humanity.  We think that it’s our manipulations and our fudgings and our organizing things this way and that way, from our limited perspective, that is somehow making life work.  And probably children — and that’s where it begins — the child thinks that the little thing he or she is doing, they think it’s keeping a catastrophe from happening, or a parent from leaving, or whatever association they give it.  And that’s what people are doing all of the time.  People are generally always manipulating their circumstance to one degree or another, because they don’t believe that things being really the way they are, and being in truth and following what’s truly important and real for you, will end up with things working.  People don’t generally believe that.”

(Laura asked how people can stop manipulating things.)

“We’re talking about a major paradigm shift for humanity.  There’s a whole frame-of-reference that’s being held in place by everyone.  So it’s a process.  It’s not something you can just do.  It’s a process of being able to come into truth more and more as you clear limiting decisions*.”

(To Paul) “You’ve been afraid to advance yourself as fast as you could because you’re afraid of leaving Kira behind. And so that is a form of the manipulation that I’ve been describing. And underneath that is a lack of realizing that there is a larger intelligence, with a larger perspective beyond the limited perspective that each of us can see of the picture.  We’re only seeing a very small view of what’s really happening in the larger frame-of-reference.  And from the perspective that life is meant to work, the best you can do is to follow truth, on as deep a level as you can in order to allow what is really meant to happen, to happen. So within the frame-of-reference that you’re looking at it, there really isn’t a solution, or it doesn’t look very hopeful. But there’s a larger frame-of-reference beyond that.  And so you have got to get yourself out of this very narrow perspective on things, and start participating in a larger frame-of-reference.  Your path and Kira’s path are beyond just the relationship between the two of you.  She’s on her life’s path, and you don’t really know exactly what that path is. And you’re on your life’s path, and you don’t know exactly what that is.  And you’re trying to manipulate it to work a certain way.  And that’s not really going to help.  And it hasn’t been helping.  It hasn’t been moving things forward.  So you need to be on your path, following your path. That’s the only way anything can work.

There is some way that you are not allowing yourself to be in your territory and her to be in her territory.  You will have an affect on other people from within your territory, if you reveal where you are at.  And that is a much more Divinely guided place to be in because it’s truth.  It’s where you’re really at, rather than trying to manipulate her to get her to be in a different place.  Trying to have an affect by keeping yourself hidden, and managing the other person, whether at work or with Kira, is not in alignment with Divine order.  Instead you reveal where you are at — what works, what doesn’t work for you, what you want, how you respond.  You can only connect with Divine order if you’re in truth.”

Transcript excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 9-24-09

(Participants’ names are changed to protect their privacy.)

(To Laura) “You have an energetic sense of what you’re trying to accomplish and it gives you a particular feeling that you’re after. And the same thing for you (Melanie).  (To Laura) If you can get your point across, then you feel you’ve accomplished something.  But what you’re trying to accomplish is not actually going to benefit you.  And the same thing when you’re (Melanie) getting your point across, when you’re saying, ‘She did this, and she did that.’  You’re just venting when you’re doing that, and so you are not getting to what would really benefit you.  You think what would benefit you is if you have a certain feeling sense that the group is paying attention to you, or supporting your view of things.  So there’s an energetic goal of feeling a certain way, and then that becomes symbolic for you getting something. But it is not the real thing.  So when a person makes a limiting decision*, such as they’re not lovable, or they’re not valuable, or they’re not acceptable, they develop a defense system that symbolizes to them being loved, accepted, etc.  So if they can get people to respond certain ways, that means to them that they’re acceptable, or that means to them that the person loves them.  Basically they do things to get a certain kind of response from people that symbolizes the thing that they made the limiting decision* that they can’t have.  So it’s a substitute for the real thing, and doesn’t get anywhere. It’s like treading water.

And I think you (Barry) do something similar.  You start talking and I can just see your whole expression shift, you’re energy shifts.  And then you’re on a roll.  The last time you were saying you were trying to feel accepted, and I think that was right on the mark, and so I think there must be a limiting decision* something along the lines that you’re not accepted. So you do a number of different things that will symbolize to you that you are accepted. But since it’s not the real thing, but a part of a defense system, people feel manipulated.  So that’s the point for all three of you.  When you’re functioning from that defense system, it feels to other people a manipulation, and it is.  It’s not on purpose.  It’s an unconscious thing. But emotional defense systems always are manipulations.  People are manipulating each other right and left.  This group is meant to uncover that kind of thing, because that’s treading water.  It’s not really helping you.

And often when I stop a person from doing it, then what it triggers for them is the real limiting decision* underneath it.  That’s when people tend to freak out when they’re stopped from doing that thing.  Then they feel not accepted, or not valued, or not loved, or not respected. That’s what typically will come up, and so then there’s potential for transformation.  As long as you get away with the defense system, as long as no one interrupts it, then everything feels fine.  As long as Melanie can do that kind of thing and people go along with it, she doesn’t notice anything.  And as long as you (Laura) can do this story telling and no one interrupts it, you feel that everything is fine — and the same thing with Barry — because the energy feels like a fix.”

(To Laura in response to her wanting everyone in the group to have a fixed time allotment.) “Because this group is dealing with the live energy, I can’t follow a format of 15 minutes for each person, going around the circle, and where you get to talk about whatever you want to talk about.  That would be dead and it wouldn’t get anywhere, because this is about what is really happening in the present moment.  So if you’re droning on and boring everyone to death, or if you’re completely avoiding the point, then that’s going to come up. And if you don’t have anything to say, than you can’t just say something just to fill in your allotted time.  You can’t just talk for the sake of talking.”

* For an explanation of limiting decisions, click here.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during a “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 9-17-09

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

(Melanie says she never gets a chance to say her side of things.)

“What to you is getting it all out, is putting out a whole barrage.  It’s basically dumping your emotions.  It’s not giving information.  It actually covers over information.

When I gave you a chance at the end and you said a bunch of things. It was not really giving information. It was pounding something through.  It’s occupying the space so that you can’t hear any feedback. It’s like holding in place a whole frame-of-reference that you’re sure is true and not allowing a space to actually find out what is true.  So I’m sitting here ready to sort things out, but you’re insisting ‘This is the way it is.  This is the way it is.  Isn’t she terrible, and she’s doing this, this and this to me.’

This is a defense system of yours.  But even though I’m pointing it out, I’m not saying you’re bad or wrong.  This is information.  So none of it, from my point of view, is judging you.  It’s just that a lot of important therapeutic stuff is coming out.  So the job for you is to hang in there, and not let your emotions get the better of you, because there are some deep-seated things (and were getting closer and closer to getting them out) that are causing you to see the world, or other people, or significant other peoples as against you. And you have this big defense system defending yourself against it.  And in order for me to come in there and sort it all out, I have to get through your defense system.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 9-17-09

(To several participants) “Often what happens when there is some kind of conflicted interaction between people and if you’re triggered, you generally feel as though you’re a small child and there is this big adult that has all of the power attacking you.  That’s what usually happens. When a person is triggered like that, they feel, as in your case, justified in responding as strongly as they can to defend themselves.  And that’s what you’re doing.  So you’re feeling like a child being attacked.  You’re wanting to defend yourself because you’re feeling powerless. The only reason someone comes out so strongly is because they’re feeling powerless. And then if the other person is triggered, they also feel like a small child being attacked.  And so what we have is back and forth child-parent, child-parent.  The person feeling like a child then attacks in order to feel they’re not powerless. So you’re seeing her as the big powerful parent, and you as the small, weak child, which obviously is not really true.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 9-10-09

“The emotional defense system defends against a limiting decision*.  Now a limiting decision* is some devastating negative belief about yourself or the nature of life (such as a decision you are not loved, respected, accepted, intelligent, safe, etc.).  So the purpose of the defense system is to avoid the here-and-now truth, because of the fear that the here-and-now truth is going to somehow be negative and against you.  But you can’t learn in that state, or really relate to another person, because you’re defending against being in the present moment.  That’s what the defense system does. So it’s hard on other people because, for instance, if you’re talking a blue streak and nobody else can get a word in it’s not in alignment with the life flow.  So people get bored or they get angry because they can feel that the energy is stuck or distorted.  It affects people around you because it doesn’t leave a space for whatever is potential in that moment to happen.

People hold on to their defense systems to various degrees depending upon how vital they feel to them.  And it can be hard to penetrate through someone’s defense system if they’re really identified with it and really holding on to it.  But the defense system is holding in place an impossibility.  It is hiding the gold that is the person.  It’s keeping people away from loving you.  It’s keeping the amazing self that’s underneath defended walls from being known, and from being loved, and from being connected with.  And so when that defense system is penetrated through, then the painful limiting decision* comes up, which you think is true.  And if you can hold the space and sit there, which is what I was trying to get you to do, and just be there with the reality of what is really true, you find out that people do not respond to the real you the way you were afraid they would.  And they do not have the response that the limiting decision* is true, because it never is true. So when we get through the defense system, we unearth the limiting decision* and get to the real self.  And it’s very transformational because you find out the way you thought the reality was, is not that way at all.  The reason I can go into this apparently negative material, is because I know what’s underneath it is always positive.  Love is at the bottom of it.”

* For an explanation of limiting decisions, click here.

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s teachings during
the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 9-3-09

(Participant’s names are changed to protect their privacy.)

To Rita: When people don’t receive what they need from their parents, they tend to make a limiting decision that they’re not going to get what they need.  Now, the limiting decision can be in the form of ‘Oh, gosh, I can’t get what I need.’  Or it can become a power-struggle in which you dig in your heels and say, ‘If I don’t get it from them, I won’t get it from anyone else,’ which means ‘I’m not going to accept it from anyone except from those people, because they’re suppose to give it to me because they’re the parents.’  But your parents are just bumbling souls like everyone else.  They don’t necessarily have the tools to be parents.  They’re just in that position. And they’re not necessarily more advanced than you are.  In fact they’re usually less advanced because that’s the way evolution works.  The children are more evolved than the parents.  The universe is filled with resources, with everything you could possibly need.  But it may not come in the form you decided it should come in.  So if you get into a power-struggle that it has to come from your parents or you’re not going to receive it, you are then holding that limiting decision in place with that power-struggle.  Then you have the channels closed and the universe can’t give you what you need, because you won’t accept it from any place but that person.  In this case it is your mother who has to give it to you.  And if she doesn’t, you decide, ‘That means, I’m not loved.’ Or ‘That means, ‘I’m not cared for.’  No that’s not what it means.  It means that, for whatever reason, your mother is on her own path, and just can’t do it, or won’t do it, or whatever. But you’re not dependent on her.  You’re dependent on a larger reality than her.  And the universe has exactly what you need, if you don’t get into a power-struggle and make a limiting decision.  You’re a perfectly capable woman, and you’ve proven that to yourself.  And it appears to me, that you may be causing yourself to be incapable in order to make her take care of you. And she’s not cooperating. You’re trying to get her to play a role that she cannot play.  For whatever reason, whatever her unhealed issues are, she can’t do it. And when you try to get her to do it, she freaks out.  So it’s not going to be solved through her.  Perhaps you are focused on getting her to take care of you, rather than getting out there and getting a job.  I don’t think you’re consciously doing this, but you may be undermining yourself.  And we keep clearing stuff that is undermining your ability to function and so you’re functioning a lot better now.  But you may be, on an unconscious level, undermining your efforts in order to get her to do what she’s ‘supposed to do.’  And we can get to what that is, because it should be cleared.”

(Ren said she’d just have to accept not having a mother.)

“It’s not that you have to accept not getting what you need.  You don’t have to accept not having a mother.  The bottom line is life is meant to work.  That means you have everything you need.  You don’t have to accept not having enough.  But there’s a decision inside that you don’t have what you need, or a decision, in some form that boils down to that life is not meant to work.  That’s what needs to be changed.  It’s definitely not that you have to accept anything less than everything. But you won’t necessarily get it from your mother.  You’re never dependent on another person to get what you need.  The Universe is filled with resources.  The source for what you need is not out there.  The source for what you need is inside of you and your internal connection with the Divine.  That means if you are in alignment, then whatever it is you need will show up in some form. It may come from this person or that person or that person. But you’re not dependent on the person through which it shows up. They are just the vehicle through which the Divine is giving you what you need.  And if it doesn’t come from this person, it will come from someone else.

This is really important because this is what often happens when people who are more evolved get born into either a whole social context or to a family, who is less evolved.  And sometimes the gap between the parent (or social context) and the child is really large.  And the child often doesn’t realize that they’re more evolved.  They think the parent is older so they’re supposed to know more, they’re supposed to be wiser.  And ‘Why can’t they see what I see?  It’s perfectly obvious.  What’s wrong with you?’   So they are trying to lean on this less evolved person as if they should be able to support and help them.  And they can’t, and the pressure that the child puts on them to support them is more than the parent can handle, because it’s like trying to expand something that’s really tiny, and they can’t do it.  And some parents are really upset by this.”

Rita:  That’s how my mom acts.

“You’re trying to force her to be bigger than she is. She’s too small to expand to where you’re coming from.  On a soul level, she cannot be your parent. She is biologically your parent, and she fed you, etc.  But on a soul, spiritual level, she cannot do it.  She is too unevolved.  You can’t get it from her.  The child trying to make the parent expand to where they are is too much for the parent.  So it’s not that she doesn’t love you.  It’s not that she doesn’t care about you.  She’s just not big enough.  She’s not expanded enough.

And this goes back to the big shift that humanity is going through right now, which is that the source of what we need, the source of our safety and well-being is not out there.  We think it’s got to be the parent, it has to be the government, it has to be the banks, it has to be all of those different sources of safety.  That’s not where it comes from.  The real source is larger than all of us.  It’s the Universe, and we access it internally.  The source in inside not outside.  You can take comfort in the fact that this is the big shift that humanity is going through right now, so if you haven’t really gotten it, that’s because none of us have totally gotten it yet.  This is a huge transformation.  This is a really, really big deal.”