Transformational Teachings from Counselor Jane Ilene Cohen

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.)

(Nancy was revealing some painful feelings that came up and Melanie said something she thought was helpful to Nancy, but it didn’t feel good to Nancy.  When Jane asked Melanie what she felt when Nancy said what she originally said, Melanie said she felt really sad for Nancy, and she was sorry she had had that experience.  Nancy then said that that felt much better to her than what Melanie had originally said, and it made her feel heard.)

(To Melanie) “You don’t have to know how to mend someone, or how to put the right answer in there, or tell them what you think they need.  That’s making things up.  But what is true are the emotions that are coming up.  You have an emotional response to Nancy.  That’s not making something up.  It’s a real feeling that is coming up in you.  That’s a fact.  And when you give the fact to the other person, you are now participating in something larger, because you don’t control your response.  That’s something real that’s just there.  It’s one human being, being affected by another human being.  And because it is part of truth, it is a part of the larger reality.

People start out as inherently a part of the larger reality.  But when they make limiting decisions (such as they are stupid, or unlovable, or not safe) they create an alternate and defended self that tries to create its own reality. It’s a part of the emotional defense system they form to shield themselves from feeling the limiting decisions or believing that they are true.  Limiting decisions are basically some form of deciding that life is not meant to work and that the person is excluded from what they really desire and need in life.  So in the area of their limiting decisions the person builds up an alternate self and an alternate world that they think they control in order to feel good about themselves, and where they think they can control getting what they need.  It’s basically giving up on reality to be for them, or to give them what they need.  They basically make up a whole world based on their defense systems, separated from truth.  This is a world apart from the Divine.  It’s a world apart from God.  It’s a human made-up world, and is outside of Divine order.  It is imperfect. Things will not ultimately work in that made-up world.  There are many people who build a whole lifestyle or career based on this alternate self in this alternate world.  And then they generally have a mid-life crisis, because their life is so meaningless. That’s because they’re not connected to what’s true. They’re connected to a whole made-up world to keep themselves ‘safe’ or to feel that they’re valuable, or to feel they can connect with people and get what they need.  It’s a substitute for getting what they need, and a substitute for feeling good about themselves, because they’ve decided on a deep unconscious level that they can’t have that.

And then people relate to each other from their defended alternative selves, such as ‘I do this for you, and you do this for me.’  ‘You act this way that makes me feel OK.  And I’ll act this way that makes you feel OK.’  And so on.  It’s a way of feeling like you’re connecting with the other person, in a way that feels safe to you.  It’s a way of being with other people that isn’t in Divine truth. It’s not connected to the larger reality, and it’s not really relating. But when you start clearing limiting decisions, those kind of interactions no longer feel fulfilling, because now you’re ready for the real thing.

To some degree you’re still trying to relate in this old way where it feels safe, where you expect the other person to then relate back in that same way. But that’s the substitute part of you and the substitute part of them. And it’s not real relating. It’s not real nourishment. And it’s not a part of Divine Truth.  But when you’re sharing a real response inside of yourself, now you’re beginning to get into real territory.  It is who you are.  And when you share that with Nancy, after she has just shared something deep inside of herself, she then feels heard. She feels connected with.  She feels you. And then there’s a back and forth of sharing the real material.  And that’s relating, and that’s intimacy, and that’s coming together.

Relating in this way is allowing what’s really true, what’s really real to enter into the picture.  You say something, you wait, you let things happen, and then you see what else is there.  So it takes really knowing that life is meant to work.  It takes really knowing that the Universe is benign.  And that you can say something and allow something else to flow in and then you see what’s there, and you see how it works out, and then you see what’s next.  But instead you’re going in there and you’re controlling the whole thing because you don’t trust the Universe to be OK, and to be for you rather than against you.  To you it looks as though you’re carrying everything. But what I see, and probably most people see it as you’re trying to control everything.”

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

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

(Paul is describing his unusual work situation in which he works two weeks straight and then comes home for two weeks.  During the work weeks, he lives and works with his fellow workers. Paul described that he tends to start saying all kind of emotionally vulnerable things when he’s at work, which he’d rather not do, as there can be all kinds of backlash from people, who will use it against him, i.e. “office politics.”  There is one older man that he tends to talk to a lot and ends up saying way too much. He can tell that the man doesn’t approve of him doing that and that it makes him feel uncomfortable.)

“This work situation seems ripe for some shift that could make it livable, rather than ‘Now this is work and I have to cut off my feelings. I have to pretend I don’t need anything.’  This is half your life, and it’s half of their life too.  To do that would require a change in paradigms, from an old paradigm to a new paradigm of what work is about.  There’s particular construct about the way people are supposed to behave in this particular kind of situation, in terms of what they can reveal and what you are supposed to say.  The fellow that you’re referring to that you bounce things off of — he holds a particular frame-of-reference of what he thinks is proper behavior, and you don’t fit too well into that behavior.  And so you’re representing a different construct. And your construct is challenging him and making him feel uncomfortable. You’ve been thinking that means you shouldn’t do that, and that he’s right to disapprove. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that.  Why do you think his perception of things is any more valid than yours?  You may be participating in transforming the whole situation.

Before coming into the group, you mentioned that revealing your emotions in a group was a challenge for you, because the real stuff going on feels very private and you’re not used to sharing it with other people.  There’s a limiting decision in there.  We’ll get to it in the individual sessions, which will then change the whole framework of how you’re perceiving it when your emotions start coming out like that.  It’s going to have a different meaning for you.  It won’t be something that you feel you have to guard against.  And then you’ll be even more participating in the positive transformation of that whole work situation, which seems really ripe for some good stuff to happen in that regard.

The whole office culture and the whole way people have defined what work is, what is appropriate and what is not appropriate, and the way bosses and workers are in relation to each other, is a human construct.  And it’s been evolving from inhuman to more and more human, which actually translates to more and more productive.”

(Rita said maybe this particular place isn’t the first place to try this out on.)

(To Rita) “This is a perfect place to start, because when people are stuck in close quarters morning, noon and night, it’s a pressure cooker, in which it’s harder to repress your needs.  It’s more likely to get changes happening there than when you only have to be at work for a few hours and then you can leave and go home.  There are probably a lot more possibilities for transformation, for changing that construct, than people recognize.

You’ve often worked in male fields and you see the workplace as a men’s world.  They’re the ones that get promoted, they’re the ones that get paid attention to, and they succeed before you do, because they are men.  And so for you, the men have the power and are determining how things are.  Now there’s something mistaken in there.  And when you change, when the limiting decisions related to that get cleared in you, you’re going to not see the situation in such a powerless way, and you will be able to see how you can be there more fully with yourself, and with your worth.”

(To Paul) “When you’re in that work situation, it feels as though this is the world, this is the Universe, this is just the way it is, and these are the rules, and these are the roles, and these are the way things are supposed to be.  But that is really just a construct. There is a larger reality outside of that that isn’t a construct and that represents truth.  It represents the way things really are on a deeper level.  Once you start accessing that larger reality, that starts opening the door to something beyond this controlled construct.  If you start transforming the issues in you that are keeping you stuck in the way you relate to that situation, you will find that solutions emerge that you wouldn’t have thought of before, and you then can become a channel or a catalyst for bringing in a larger reality than this small limited construct. The fear is probably that if things aren’t in control in a certain way, they won’t work, or something will fall apart or something bad will happen.  And that is not the way life really works.  If you are allowing in truth, there is a way to make it better, beyond that limited way of looking at things.

There is some limiting decision that you have about revealing and expressing your emotions, and that is affecting the situations you find yourself in in your life, including your work situation.  So as you start transforming, and the limiting decisions in you get cleared so they are no longer limiting you, then whatever situation you’re in, you’ll be in your emotions in a completely different way.

Our experience of reality is very malleable, and each person here is representing a particular paradigm of reality that you are broadcasting wherever you go.  And so when you shift that relationship with your emotions, you’ll be having a completely different impact, you’ll be having a completely different influence on the world around you.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings during
the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 9-10-09:

“In some traumatic event, when a child makes a limiting decision, it’s generally a decision that, in some form, life is not meant to work.  There must be something wrong with them, and/or there’s something inherently wrong with life.  There’s some impossibility there. And so they make a decision that is limiting because it limits things to life not working.  It means, ‘Now I can’t find love.’  Or ‘Now I can’t succeed.’  Or ‘Now this won’t work,’ or ‘that won’t work,’ because now the idea is the nature of life is limited in some way.

A limiting decision is the opposite of evolution.  A very advanced soul, rather than making a limiting decision, shakes the walls of heaven and says, ‘What does this mean?’  Rather than contracting to a very small, unworkable idea of something, they expand themselves to open up to more than what they knew before, in which case it can now be seen that life does, in fact, work.  But you have to expand your consciousness in order to understand that life is meant to work.  It requires transformation and growth.  So it’s similar when there’s a perceived conflict between people, and it seems as though there’s no solution. If the truth that life is meant to work is held in place, if that’s understood, then rather than freak out and run in the opposite direction, and say, ‘Oh God, a conflict.  O dear!’, if instead you explore it and go underneath it to what’s really going on, you find out that there’s a larger frame-of-reference that it can be viewed in, where there is a solution.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into your New Consciousness” group 7-30-09

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

(To Chas) “The way it works is after you made the limiting decision that who you are is unacceptable, you then built up a false persona that is what you considered to be acceptable to the people you wanted to be acceptable to.  These will be people similar to the original significant people in your life you made the liming decision in relation to.  Those are then the kind of people who you will attract.  You will attract people who are attracted to the false persona, not who you really are.  And then if you try to relate to those people with your real self, they’re probably not going to have a positive response to you, because they fit a whole scenario in which the real you is not acceptable, so that’s how they’re going to respond to you. You’re selecting people who will respond positively, perhaps, to the substitute persona that you set up, depending upon what the structure is that the limiting decision is formed around.  So as you start changing, and becoming more of who you are, you are very likely to find that the people you attracted with the false persona don’t fit you any more. But you’re also more likely to be open to people who actually like you.  I think everybody in this group really likes you.”

… “It’s similar to what I have said to Janet many times before, because both of you are very emotionally vulnerable.  Your real strength probably has to do with you coming into your vulnerable emotions and accepting them, stepping into them. And this is a foundation from which to build whatever you want to build, whether it’s your law practice, or your relationships with you family, or whatever it is.  It’s where your gifts and strengths are.  You probably don’t realize the power of your vulnerable emotions.

(To Janet) To you, if it comes from male logic, you think that’s the only way you’ll have the right to make waves, or the only way you’ll be taken seriously.  Then you have the right to have an influence in the world.  But that’s not the way you’re going to make waves.  You are going to make waves with the power of your emotions, because that’s where your strength is.  Emotions are very powerful, and you may be afraid of that.  And it will have an influence, and you may be afraid of that.  What you just said is you’ll be held to a higher level of conduct, and I think that’s what you could be afraid of.  You have said before that once you start getting into your passion, what it is that you want, you’re afraid you going to be like a dictator, and make things all the way you want.  And this perhaps relates in some indirect way, to a higher standard of conduct.  There’s some misconception that’s in the mix of this, that’s confusing the matter for you.

What is also the mix, which it might also be important to you, Chas, is enlightened self-interest.  It’s a very important concept.  When we’re talking about power and we’re talking about what matters to you. When we’re taking about your passion, and about really getting out there in your power — then the issue of self-interest comes into the picture.  It’s important to understand the distinction between self-interest as a defense system, which is what selfishness is — and enlightened self-interest, which is what really matters to you, and which is in alignment with life, the universe.  If it really matters to you, then that is the truth.  It either matters to you, or it doesn’t matter to you. That’s just a fact.  So that makes it a part of larger truth.  If you make the limiting decision that you can’t have what matters to you, whether it’s love, or acceptance, or being valuable, that’s where things get confused.  Generally before you make the limiting decision having these things are not an issue.  You just go toward what makes you happy, what matters to you. But after you make the limiting decision, for instance, that you’re not valuable, then being valuable becomes an issue.  Since you then don’t think you’re valuable, then you do symbolic things that make you feel you are valuable, such as buy an expensive house or car, whether or not you can really afford it.  So people go for these symbolic things.  But these symbolic things are not what really matters to you.  People think, ‘Oh I want this, I want that, I want that, and that’s self-interest.’  But that’s not what enlightened self-interest is.  Enlightened self-interest is the real thing, not the symbol.  If you’re going for the real thing, then it can only have a positive influence on everyone and every thing, because it’s in Divine order.  It is truth. It is the way things really are.  But when you’re going for something that is a symbolic substitute, and not what you really want, then it comes from a blocked and distorted perspective, and that puts you out of alignment with truth. And then somewhere down the line, it’s going to not turn out well, because it’s not in alignment with truth.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into your New Consciousness” group 7-30-09

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

(Janet told the group about a man she read about who was a talented dolphin trainer.  And he was so sensitive to dolphins that he knew that the dolphins hated being captive and many become very depressed and commit suicide by stopping breathing.  He quit his job and wrote some publication describing this.  And now he steals dolphins in captivity and frees them, putting himself in jeopardy of being arrested.  Janet then said that she once had a research job in which they were dissecting live lobsters and running tests on them.  The scientists told them that the lobsters didn’t feel anything.  But Janet could feel them screaming, and so she quit the job.)

(To Janet) “Both with this fellow and with you, part of what’s in the picture and messing things up is an adversarial belief system that’s causing you to relate to this in an adversarial manner, rather than make a positive contribution. Your positive contribution is that you are so sensitive that you can hear the lobsters screaming. So this information, this is a contribution, and doesn’t have to be adversarial. It’s similar to what I said last week about that it doesn’t have to be that one person is right and one person is wrong. That’s not what it’s about.  It’s about people contributing their piece in the puzzle.  Now people sometimes put input into the picture, that’s not really their piece in the puzzle, like perhaps the scientists saying the lobsters don’t feel anything.  That’s probably coming from a defense system of some sort. But if you have something that’s really genuine from you — that’s invaluable. That’s a treasure. And so rather than feeling you have to fight someone, or vindicate yourself to someone, or prove something — look for the open channel to contribute this miracle of information.  This is a piece of the Divine, this is a piece of truth, or the Universe or however you want to put it. There’s a place for it.  It’s a gift.  It’s a very fine-tuned sensitivity that both you and this other fellow have.  He’s putting himself in an adversarial position, but he doesn’t need to.  I’m sure if he wasn’t internally experiencing the world from a limiting decision causing an adversarial defense system, he would find a way that he would be embraced and that he could utilize his very fine-tuned sensibilities to contribute something invaluable.  And you too, you don’t have to fight somebody.  It’s a wonderful gift if you don’t see it in terms of being adversarial.  In fact, the adversarial energy is adding to the very thing you’re trying to fight against.

The process of evolution has to do with coming more and more into what’s really true.  And so human experience keeps evolving more and more toward what’s true.  And what’s true is not adversarial.  What’s true is not about criticism.  What’s true has to do with people putting into the picture their piece of the puzzle, their perception of things, and this isn’t against someone else’s perception.  It’s an addition.  And if you add each of these in there, then you get a much better idea of what the whole picture is. Now in the old frame-of-reference, in which you’re right and I’m wrong, and I’m going to criticize you, if someone puts their piece of the picture in there that looks different than what another person puts in, that person then feels they’re being criticized.  But it has nothing to do with that.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t any space for that person.  If you bring the participants all into the picture, and then you see something that has far more dimensions and far more truth, and can catalyze something altogether different.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 7-23-09

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

(Rita told the group she hadn’t been there last week because she had a class she went to on sex.  Melanie said something about thinking Rita went to this class because she wanted to immediately get into another relationship with a man, and that that was more important to her than coming to the group.)

(To Melanie)  “You’re assuming what this class is and the meaning of it for Rita, and then having made the assumption, and without asking her about what it was, you scold her.  You’re so sure that your assumption is accurate, that you don’t stand in the question. This group is about standing in the question.  You reveal your response, and then you find out what’s actually there. You walk into the unknown to a place where you don’t already know the answer, which is extremely important for transformation.

Not allowing yourself to stand in the question and stand in a place where you don’t know — that seems to be one of your largest defense systems.  It is filling in the space, not leaving it open to find out what’s actually there, because in your original family it was very dangerous to allow your mother to take over the situation, because she’d be violent.  So you were filling in the space all of the time to distract her, to make it safe for yourself.  And you’re doing it less now, but that’s still one of your major defense system.  It’s ‘don’t ask a question, don’t stand in the question, don’t leave any space for whatever is really true in the situation.’

Your perspective, as well as Rita’s perspective are both important pieces of the puzzle.  It’s not a matter of one person being right and the other person being wrong.  The piece that you added that was very important, was how important this group is to you, and how important it is to you that everyone else is committed to putting 100% in. Now that adds to the picture.  And it does not conflict with Rita’s perspective and where Rita was coming from that was important for her.  It’s just that there are different pieces of the puzzle that different people bring into the picture, and they’re all important, and they’re all legitimate.

When we get these different inputs from different people looking at the situation different ways, it’s like different facets to a picture. And you put it together and you have a much richer idea, sense of truth. And it doesn’t exclude anybody. And it’s not one person is right and one person is wrong.  It adds another color. It adds another dimension in which not only is there room for everyone, but everyone has an important part to play or important piece of the puzzle.”

(Melanie responded to a group interaction about her response to Rita as if she’s being criticized.)

“This is an example of an inner world that you carry with you and you interpret input that you get from within that world.  So what people were noticing about you is that you were scolding Rita. And so now you think that if anyone has any response to you, they’re scolding you. You were taking what people said as a criticism of you because that’s the world you live in, a world in which people criticize each other, rather than including people as a part of the picture. The way I’m looking at it is it’s all positive.”

Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” group 7-23-09

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

(Anita said at the beginning of the group that she is feeling lost.  She doesn’t know where she is, and that this is very painful to her.  When Jane asked why that was painful, Anita said you have to know what you’re doing at all times, and that’s how you steer the boat.)

“And that’s in a very specific old paradigm in which there is a very specific way that a responsible human being is supposed to go through this life — what they accomplish, what they’re responsible for, how they act, how they appear to others, their relationship with their job or career. There’s a whole set things, which is a complete construct, and has nothing to do with reality.  It’s what causes people to go into despair in middle age. It’s called mid-life crisis when a person realizes that this whole construct they’ve devoted their life to is meaningless, and has nothing to do with reality.

Being lost is standing in the question. From that place you can find out what’s actually there.  It has nothing to do with this whole scenario that you were just describing, because in that place where you think you know what you are doing — where you are steering the boat based on some construct passed down through the generations, having nothing to do with direct personal experience of life — you never find out truth. It’s a place where nothing meaningful can happen.  You are in a much better place when you feel lost and are standing in the question than having mastery over an old construct.  That’s really lost.

It’s perhaps the guilt or rebellion of feeling as though you have to be doing this old set way of doing things, but not doing it, that keeps you stuck in the power-struggle about it.  That’s my guess, because one thing I’ve been noticing, is that even when you are in a place of pain, maybe especially when you’re in pain, you have an opposite expression on your face.  You look like there’s an inner joke going on.  My guess is that it’s almost like an adolescent rebelling against this external thing you’re supposed to be doing, and you’ll be damned if you will do it.  You’re saying f-u. And that f-u is keeping you stuck.  You don’t trust enough what you really want to do, and standing in the question and really looking and looking at your situation and following your inner guidance.  You don’t trust that.  You think it’s wrong and bad and something to feel guilty about.  You’re always imagining this external voice that you’re supposed to be doing this or that, and you’re rebelling against it, and so you’re stuck.  You can’t go one way or the other with it.

The old concepts and the old paradigms of how reality gets defined, has nothing to do with what’s true. It has to do with people imposing human constructs on their experience.  And it’s people leaning on other people’s constructs to define reality.  And that’s not how reality is defined at all.  Reality has to do with truth, and it has to do with your own personal inner experience.  And when you are out there with your own personal experience, that has a large effect on everyone around you — not because you’re imposing something or making someone be some way.  It is the expression of what’s true.  And what’s true rings true, and is extremely powerful.  As soon as you’re aligned with anything that’s true, it then becomes aligned with a larger reality, and then you are adding to creation.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into your New Consciousness” group 7-16-09

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

(To Chas) … “What happens in interactions in which you are triggered is you generally take action without the other person being involved.  It’s either they have all of the control, or you have all of the control, so one or the other of you doesn’t have a say in what happens.  So either your self is not involved and you feel pulled along, or you just say, ‘Enough is enough.  I’m just going to do it my way,’ and not have them in the picture.  What you’re missing is the interaction.  You’re missing the actual potential that happens when two people come together, open to each other, both of them having their needs and their desires, and their full self is there.  And it’s sort of a dance.  You stay connected to your center.  You stay connected with who you are.  And you communicate, and then you find out what the potential in that moment is, which then brings into the picture something larger than either of you, what that present moment holds.  And then something magical can happen, something that’s even better.  It’s the synergy, it’s what happens when you’re open to allowing that moment to speak to you, or whatever the potential is in that moment.

But you’ve got the channels for this kind of interaction closed.  So therefore, the egoic self is in control, and is blocking life from working, because it’s coming from a very, very narrow perspective of what’s actually happening.  And because of that you’re closing off a larger perspective that is all inclusive, and which makes things work.  The channel is closed because of a limiting decision.  It’s that you believe, for instance, and I’m just guessing, that what is in your best interest, your needs, is somehow against someone else’s needs.  That could be the limiting decision that’s in there.  So therefore, you either give up your needs or you do something regardless of the other person’s needs.  It feels to you like a conflict between your needs.  But when you really are in your experience and you’re doing what really benefits you, and you don’t have the wall up –  all of a sudden your vision opens up and you see that this is actually good for everyone, that you can be undefended, you can be vulnerable, and you can be open.  And that’s where love is, when you recognize that.

To understand this, it’s important to understanding that what’s truly important to you, and what’s truly in your best interest turns out to be in the best interest of all concerned.  That’s the bottom line truth, which is why enlightened self-interest is so important. There is a big distinction between selfishness and enlightened self-interest.  Enlightened self-interest is what is truly of benefit to you. What’s really of benefit to you is very different than what people in general think is of benefit to them, and which ends up being against other people. And that’s what the false self develops and thinks that it wants, because it believes that what really matters to it is not possible.  So then you go toward things that don’t really benefit you.

For instance, when I was talking to Melanie about some of the structures that she has formed, and that she was really invested in holding in place — such as that people are actually harming her — she was really fighting to prove this.  But what she’s holding in place is pain.  She’s fighting for something that doesn’t benefit her.  Or some of these things that have symbolic meaning for you (Nancy), that feel like you’re being catered to.  They’re not really benefiting you.  These are substitutes for what you want, and you don’t even know what that is.  It could be love or honoring, or whatever is underneath that.  And so what people go for are symbols when they don’t have the channels open to receiving the real thing.  But if you were to receive the real thing, it couldn’t, by definition, be against anyone else.  It has to be in the highest good, because there aren’t any channels closed.  So it has to work for the whole.  But when you’re trying to get something that’s a substitute, you’ve got the channels closed and therefore, it has to be harmful because truth is being distorted.  It can’t be beneficial to you or anyone else, in the long run, although it sometimes may appear to work for the moment.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during the “Shifting into your New Consciousness” group 7-16-09

“The rules, or most of what we consider or think about as rules, are human constructs.  They’re made up by cultures and people in an effort keep order, or to make things work.  And then there is really the way things work, which is just the nature of reality, the nature of truth.  There are certain principles and laws of how things actually work.  So the rules and constructs that humanity develops are an evolving process, moving toward the way things really work, because evolution moves toward truth.  And this is why, for instance, marriage vows no longer use the words ‘man and wife,’ or ‘love, honor and obey.’  They evolved because the relationship between men and women has evolved more toward what is really true about men and women.”

Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s Teachings
during a “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” Group 7-9-09

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

(After a discussion about people in the group hiding their power.)

(To group) “Many people feel that if they let out their real self, they would be too much for other people. This originates from childhood, when children often can feel that if they came out with their real selves, it would be too much for their parents, and their parents couldn’t handle it and they’d fall apart, and therefore they (the child) wouldn’t survive. Children come in to this life, completely outside of the framework of their parents’ emotional defense systems. And in one moment, with one word, they can shatter the parents’ defense system. One look, one word of truth … something that’s outside of the control of the parents’ defense system, can be extremely upsetting to the parent. The parent can then act as though the child has done some horrible thing and has this huge power. But the child is just being a child, not doing anything but just expressing who they are, and just saying things the way they see them. But truth is enormously powerful. Often the child then makes limiting decisions based upon how the parent responds. But the parent’s response is not reflecting truth. And so the child can get a mistaken idea about what it means to be in your power and the effect it has.”