This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
Julian: In the news recently there is focus upon ‘hacker victims’ in UK newspaper mess. Then there are people who express frustrations with life as if a victim of the world. I’m wondering how you might characterize the difference between these two?
Jane: Regardless of the external circumstances, being a victim has to do with attitude and interpretation. If your general attitude toward life is that it works well for you, then when something that seems to not go your way happens, you’re likely to interpret what happened from an empowered perspective. If you’re general attitude is that life is hard or difficult or that it doesn’t work well for you, you’re likely to interpret what happened from a disempowered (or victim) perspective.
Whether you’re able to come from an empowered or disempowered place or not has to do with where you perceive the source of your well-being comes from. If you see yourself as being dependent on what people outside yourself do toward you for your well-being, that puts you at the mercy of what other people do, which feels disempowering. If you approach life from a larger perspective, knowing that there is a larger truth or guiding principle, that is inherently positive, that gives meaning to everything you experience in life — then you don’t feel at the mercy of whatever happens to occur in your life. And as a result you approach whatever happens from a positive, empowered attitude, which then enables you to much more easily find solutions to whatever the challenge is and move in a positive direction.
This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
This “Ask Jane” is a continuation of one that came out a few weeks ago called “My wife has gone off the deep end.” I’m describing the continuing journey of a client who is dealing with a very difficult situation at home. (Real names are never used.)
William was saying his wife is more irrational than ever and it is a living hell for him, and nothing seems to help her. He has no personal space in their home. Whenever she wants to ask or tell him something, she interrupts him or just starts talking. It doesn’t matter if he’s sleeping in the middle of the night or if he’s working in his office. She just barges right in. She tries to hang up the phone when he’s talking with someone she doesn’t want him to talk with. He’s making plans to work outside of his home so he can get some work done, but he feels bad for her spending the whole day alone by herself, probably in bed. She keeps thinking she has everything wrong with her and gets into panics about it, such as thinking she has diabetes when she doesn’t; she believes she isn’t breathing, when she is. And so he tries to demonstrate to her that she is in fact breathing, and so on. At times when she gets more rational, he thinks things are getting better. And then she goes off the wall again. He’s generally a person who is unemotional and never cries, but he’s been feeling so stressed he finds himself crying frequently.
William: I don’t know what a loving person is or does now.
Jane: This is not about doing the right behavior. I make suggestions to you, but that’s not necessarily what you should do. What’s more important than taking certain actions, or changing your behavior in relation to her, is changing your insides. This situation is causing you to have to deal with your own unhealed issues, and is breaking through your own emotional defense systems. I can’t necessarily tell you what the right thing to do is, because I’m not in your situation. But I can help you find where the emotional triggers and the limiting decisions are in you. We clear them and things shift in you; and then the way forward becomes clear.
Right now you’re supporting your wife’s insanity to some degree. A good example of this is when she is convinced there is something wrong with her, when there clearly isn’t. And then you get upset and try to convince her there isn’t. When you’re trying to convince her or change her, it’s because you’re leaning on her to define what reality is. You’re triggered by her irrationality, and are trying to get her to be rational. Any place you’re emotionally triggered by her and therefore coming from that triggered place, you’re supporting her insanity. You’re supporting the reality paradigm she’s living in. She’s in a power-struggle with you, and you’re in a power-struggle back, and feeling controlled by her. But what your power-struggle actually is against are the emotions that are coming up in you that are triggered by her.
The best thing you can do to help her is to come into reality yourself, and relate to her from that place. As you clear the limiting decisions in you and come more into reality, you’re connecting from a real place, from your heart to her heart, in the real world in relation to her. You’re holding the real truth of what’s really true between you and her, despite the way she’s acting, which is outside of the reality of what is true. And then you’re not being controlled by the insanity that’s coming from her. And you’re also coming from a compassionate place, which includes compassion for you. It includes you in the picture. And so you’re no longer letting her insanity rule the situation between you.
Who knows — this could be the best thing anyone could do for your wife right now — to be actually going through the process with her, and coming into reality and relating to her more and more in reality. It could perhaps bring her into reality.
This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
William: “My wife has gone off the deep end. She’s become very anxious, and is not willing to do the things that would help her. She has become completely reliant on me for everything, and needs constant reassurance. She is upset if I do anything without her. I am reaching the end of my rope. What should I do? I’m afraid she might harm herself if I don’t do whatever she wants me to do that she feels reassured by. I only see two choices: Either go along with her — or don’t and feel responsible for the state she gets into as a result, including that she might harm herself.”
Jane: “The bottom-line is if your life is appearing to not work, there are one or more limiting decisions you have that are distorting your experience of reality. And when they are cleared, the way you are looking at things will shift and a way forward will become apparent. The reason you see only those two choices is because the ground you are standing on is limited and structured by limiting decisions that filter in only the information that supports the limiting decisions, and not anything that doesn’t.”
When we discussed it further it turned out that how William was experiencing his wife was virtually identical with how he felt with his mother when he was a child. His mother was very anxious about life and felt to him to be very unstable. He felt responsible for her emotional state, and that what he did or didn’t do determined whether she felt OK or not. He thought he had married someone who was strong and the opposite of her, but now it turns out that underneath that apparent strength was someone who was actually very weak, and now he is right in the middle of the very thing he thought he had escaped.
After we cleared the limiting decision “he is responsible for the existence of the woman he’s dependent on,” William said he felt a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
He was standing on the new ground of realizing that he really didn’t have the power to determine his mother’s well-being and stability, no matter what he did or didn’t do; and so he was also now realizing that about his wife as well. He realized that he doesn’t have the power to personally solve the problem for his wife, and that nothing he can do will make any difference about it, as the source of it is only in her; and that he’s been enabling her to not find a real solution. And therefore he is no longer feeling hostage to her, or that her life depends on what he does or doesn’t do.
And so, because of this, he realized that there were, in fact, other options than the unacceptable ones he had felt locked in by. He can now relate compassionately to her, from standing on this new ground, making clear to her what he can and can’t do, and therefore no longer being co-dependent with her. He had felt imprisoned by his wife’s dysfunction, but what he had really been imprisoned by was his own.
Below is a response from RL to my invitation for dialog about the direction humanity is going in and the challenge in front of us. Underneath that is my response to RL. If you can a response to these you can send it to me using this blog’s contact form.
_________
RL: “GM foods are a fantastic idea, initially, produce mass quantity of food to feed people more quality food… Of course there are people who want to monopolize on this instantly, such as Monsato, maximizing profits by contracting deals that cannot be withdrawn. This is done without being cautious to the effects, and giving time for science to perfect the process. Hydrogenated oil… when created at first, great idea! Food shall not spoil so quick… yet 30 years down the line we find its ill effects, but to completely ban it from use is impossible, as to the multi million dollar agreements of companies like crisco and mcdonalds. But 30 years down the line we find Hydrogenation of food is useful on sugar starches, to create an indigestible sugar that is great for diabetics, and does not cause insulin spikes. Every discovery has an application, we just need to find the correct one, and the key requirement is patience. Money is the root of all evil….”
Jane: “To me, what you are saying boils down to: Because of greed, some people take advantage of, and have huge power over, other people. This perspective is that we are victims of the greed of other people.
When we look at these kinds of issues, the focus is generally on those who take advantage of other people, as if they are the problem. This is not recognizing that those other people are just as powerful as those who “take advantage of them.” The problem isn’t those who take advantage of other people; it is what causes those other people to give their power away and let themselves be manipulated. And it is not others they are being manipulated by.
What people really desire are, for example, being powerful, valuable, successful, loved, safe and so on. And having those is the true nature of people. But people make limiting decisions* as children, which cause them to believe that can’t have those things, in whatever area it is that they make limiting decisions* in. Because this feels deeply unacceptable to them, they develop emotional defense systems that cushion them against, or compensate for, not being able to access those. People then get invested in symbolic substitutes for these that they feel they can control — such as buying expensive things they don’t need; drinking excessive alcohol; and eating unhealthy comfort foods that give them a false, but immediate, sense of well-being. These kinds of symbolic substitutes give them the feeling that they are powerful, valuable, successful, lovable, safe and so on. People tend to buy into symbols of what gives them a sense of well-being.
When we go toward symbolic substitutes, we are believing that the source of our well-being is outside of ourselves. This is what addictions are all about. They are something physical that we believe we have control over that will give us a sense of having something we truly desire, but feel unable to access, such as love, emotional nourishment, power, success, significance and so on. But in reality, an addiction is something that becomes out of our control, and ends up having control over us.
And so these symbolic symbols ultimately have harmful effects on us, as well as often on other people and our common environment. This is because they not in alignment with reality. They result in excessive consumption of resources and pollution in one form or another. And they bring us into an increasingly deeper sense of hopelessness, because we’re looking in the wrong direction for solutions. They cause us to rely on those who provide these symbolic substitutes believing they are the source of our well-being. Those we believe have huge power over us, such as Monsato in your example, only have that power because we are giving it to them, believing them to be the source of what we need, as if that source could come from something outside of ourselves.”
Limiting Decisions*: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7. They are always some form of life doesn’t work and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as: “I am bad, not valuable, a failure…” “People can’t be trusted.” And so on.
Question from Manny from Rancho Santa Fe (real names are never used):
Manny: What does the evolved person think about in a situation in which they are being physically attacked, besides trying to physical ward off one’s attacker or escape without harm?
Jane: That depends on where you are in your personal journey, what you have the capability of doing. The main challenge is to get yourself out of an emotionally triggered state (caused by limiting decisions*), which most people would be very much in. You want to get yourself, instead, in a resourceful state, in which you are relating to the actual reality of the situation, rather than the distorted one the attacker is representing. So in other words, instead of entering into the attacker’s distorted world, you connect with what is actually true in reality. So it’s just a question of how much your internal world resonates with the attacker’s distorted world, and how much you are able to bring yourself out of his world and into a positive and resourceful one. That determines how well you’re likely do in that situation, and what resources you’re likely to be able to tap into. The objective is to get so strong in orienting your reality around a larger truth that you don’t get pulled into this kind of distorted illusion of reality.
Being a victim is a state of mind, not a physical circumstance, and is not determined by how physically strong you are or aren’t. It is not about whatever you might experience physically, but the state of mind you get into, in whatever the circumstances you find yourself in.
The illusion being created by the attacker it is not about the actual possible physical harm that could be imposed. It is about the hateful, fearful, separating, substitute world that he is representing. This world is holding in place the illusion that hate and negativity are more powerful than love. It is about the distorted meaning that is attached to whatever physical action is happening. And that distorted meaning is really what the attacker is invested in. If you are not buying into that distortion, it is less likely you’ll end up being physically harmed. And if you are physically harmed, it will not be so traumatic to you emotionally. And there will be some learning in there for you that will move you forward on your evolutionary path.
What the evolved person does in his or her mind is ask for inner or Divine guidance, in all situations, especially including ones in which there appears to be no solutions, such as what you are describing. They call upon the larger truth, universal wisdom, a perspective beyond their own limited human perception, and beyond their limiting decisions.
The totally enlightened person is always in contact with their Guidance, which guides every moment in their lives. And so they are always being guided to the best place for them to be in for their highest good. They are so much in their power that everything that happens to them is in alignment with the larger truth.
* Limiting Decisions: Unconscious decisions, usually made before the age of 6 or 7, such as “I am bad,” “I am not good enough.” “People can’t be trusted.” They are always some form of deciding that life doesn’t work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you.
Manny: What causes an evolved person to be caught up in a physically violent situation?
Jane: We are complex beings, made up of many aspects, some representing who we are in our essence, and some representing unhealed or unevolved aspects of ourselves. Each aspect has a particular vibrational energy that we radiate. When an aspect of ourselves resonates with an aspect of someone or something else, it gets amplified. And then we feel affected by that aspect of the person. Other people who resonate with different aspects of that same person may have a completely different kind of relationship with him.
Negative vibrations, such as fear and hatred are extremely common in people, even if they don’t tend to initiation relating in that way. When someone does something very hateful toward a person, in most cases, it elicits that same kind of response in that person in response. People generally feel justified in attacking if they feel attacked. Someone who has done some horrendous crime generally elicits the response of hatred from others, even from people who consider themselves to be good, loving people. The people who do these kinds of hateful acts, are like lightening-rods. They serve as an outlet for the kinds of emotions that people don’t generally find acceptable in themselves.
As long as there is that kind of vibration in you, it can be elicited in you by someone who lives in that vibration, and you can be drawn into that world.
Whatever vibrations you have in yourself has to do with the perception of reality you are holding in place. And whatever that is, has influence in the world around you.
This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
Part One of a Three Part Dialog.
Question from Manny from Rancho Santa Fe: (Real names are never used.)
Manny: Even with the most enlightened of us, there are times that, by chance, things happen that put us in danger, such as a wrong turn to a dangerous neighborhood or a robbery takes place where you are shopping. Isn’t there a time when even the more evolved of us has to regress to the physical for survival, for those times when truth, love, enlightenment, etc, will unlikely have an immediate role in survival?
Jane: Being in an evolved state of consciousness does have an immediate role in those kinds of situations. The kind of state you are in determines whether you are able to be resourceful or not, are empowered or disempowered, are aware and conscious or not. That doesn’t mean you can’t also take some form of physical action. But it does mean that whatever kind of action you do or don’t take, will be from a more conscious and empowered place.
The purpose of the attacker is to reinforce a reality in which physical violence dominates.This is the kind of world he believes he can win in, because he has given up on getting what really matters to him, such as love, significance, personal empowerment, and so on. In some form he believes himself to be a loser or a victim in the real, commonly-shared world that he doesn’t control.
When an attacker does violence to another person, there is an emotional reason why he does it, which is a result of limiting decisions* he has made, such as that he is powerless or valueless or is bad. When he does this kind of act, he is immersed in a substitute, unreal world, or he couldn’t do it, because it would be against his real self. It is a world most likely of enemies, hatred, violence, and invulnerability. And because he feels powerless to fight this world internally, which is the actual source of it, he is creating symbols for it externally, and then he attacks the symbols. He is trying to impose this substitute world on whomever he attacks. It’s a state of insanity, disconnected from who he really is, and disconnected from reality.
What people are pulled into when someone physically attacks them is not the physical world. It is the non-physical distortion of reality that that person is representing, which is their substitute world. And because it is a non-physical world, you always have a choice of whether or not to participate in it.
If you have a limiting decision* that is activated by the reality the attacker is representing, then you will most likely be pulled into that world. If, however, you are firmly in your present moment experience, and not being triggered by a limiting decision*, you can’t be pulled into the world of the attacker. If you do not have a limiting decision* that is activated, you will be able to relate to the person outside of the substitute world he is trying to uphold, and outside of a state of fear and disempowerment. In that case, you would be an unlikely target in the first place.
*Limiting decision: A 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.
If, when you are a child, a bucket falls and hits you on the head, it may physically hurt just the same as a sadistic school bully punching you in the face. The bucket scenario is just a physical event involving an inanimate object, with no trauma involved. Once it’s over it doesn’t exist anymore for you.
But, in the scenario with the bully, if this is the first event in which you have been confronted with this kind of experience, you may have made a limiting decision* (see definition below). And if you did, you have now locked in the fearful and disempowered interpretation of reality you have just made, based on how the bully’s sadistic emotions and intent affected you. Your feeling of disempowerment is based on taking on the bully’s defining of reality, the emotional energy he is putting out. This is what causes the trauma you end up feeling. You are letting another person define your experience of reality, rather than interpret your experience from within yourself, standing in your own present moment experience. You are confusing his physical impact on you, with his emotional influence. His physical power in relation to you is minor in comparison with the emotional power you have now given him.
The real danger is not the physical action someone might take that would be harmful to us, but it is the distorting of reality that is transferred, like a computer virus hidden within a Trojan horse. It is a defining of reality that represents for example — fear, hatred, division, conflict, pain, deception — everything that is the opposite of spiritual truth. And because this distorting of reality is non-physical, we always have the choice of whether to take it on or not. But it takes making the distinction between what is actually physically happening, and the emotional interpretation that we are attaching to it. It is the emotional interpretation that causes us to give our power away, and blind ourselves to what really is happening, and therefore walk toward harm. What I mean by walking toward harm, is putting yourself in energetic alignment with being a weak victim. Our emotional interpretation is what is doing the real damage.
*Limiting decision: A 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.
To listen to the Preview audio for the next “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
For the info page with all of the details about the upcoming “Life is Meant to Work” Tele-seminar, click here.
This is a part of the “Ask Jane” Series,
in which Jane answers questions
you email to her that of concern to you.
(Names are changed to protect your privacy.)
Just go to the “Contact Jane” page
and ask your question in the contact form.
Question from Fiona in Oceanside
Fiona: I’m working on forgiving my husband for being emotionally abusive to me. I’m having difficulty doing that.
Jane: The need for forgiving someone comes from having first felt emotions such as anger, hatred or vengefulness toward him. It’s based on the idea that he has wronged you. Forgiveness implies that even though he has wronged you, you’re going to let go of these negative feelings and be either neutral or loving instead.
In this instance, you are still in the same situation with your husband, so the same feelings keep getting brought up in you toward him, which is why you can’t forgive him.
The painful feelings you are feeling as a result of your husband’s way of relating to you are caused by one or more limiting decisions* in you. The limiting decisions* could be something like you are not valuable, or you don’t deserve to be respected, or men are more powerful or more valuable than women, and so on. It is not your husband who you are angry at. It is what he symbolizes that elicits the intense emotional responses in you. And you are most likely symbolizing for him the intense emotions he is reacting to you out of.
Once you have dealt with the limiting decisions* at the bottom of the emotions he brings up in you, you will find there is nothing to forgive. And your relationship with him will probably either change, or you will find no reason to stay in it, as you will no longer be trying to heal the issues in you by getting him to change.
* Limiting decisions are unconscious decisions made before the age of 6 or 7 that are always some form of life is not meant to work and/or there is something inherently wrong with you.
Transcript Excerpts of Jane’s teachings
during Melanie’s NLP TimeLine Therapy Session 7-13-09
(Melanie was saying that when Jane is talking to her in the group, it’s like she’s talking Greek. She can’t take it in at all.)
“The reason this is difficult for you to take in, is you have a whole structure set up about how you interpret reality. And you’re very invested in it, because of the limiting decisions that you’re protecting. And I am dissembling it. I am talking to you and responding to you in a whole different frame-of-reference. And that’s why it’s like Greek to you. I’m not talking the same language, because the language that you’re talking in is holding in place the dysfunctional structure, which is holding in place the pain — lots and lots and lots of pain! It feels to you, probably, that you’re having to give up some kind of control, because this is what’s giving you a sense of power, because you KNOW you’re being a victim. Almost everything you say is in the framework that someone is abusing you, someone is victimizing you. And you’re so invested in it. My definition of a victim is a person who is not taking responsibility for how they are using their power. It’s not possible for anyone to be powerless. It is just a question of how you are using your power. You are using it, with great force, to prove that you are being victimized by other people.
(Melanie is saying this process is really hard for her. She didn’t want to come to the session today.)
“You deserve really great credit for participating in this process because it is so against the structure that you have built. It is a huge shift for you. But the way you’ve been living your life is so painful, it is more painful than the process of shifting it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be willing to do it, because this no doubt feels like jumping off a cliff for you.”
…
“The fact that you believe that letting your real feelings out is dangerous, causes your relationship with people to be distorted, including with your son. So there’s a lot that’s happening that he’s responding to, and it’s not in your conscious awareness — which isn’t to say that he doesn’t have huge limiting decisions himself, and isn’t seeing things in relation to you in a distorted way. But both of you have a lot of unhealed issues coming in, swirling around, messing the whole relationship up.
The defense systems and counter-defense systems, the things that you do to substitute for other things all seem in reality to you because of the limiting decisions. And you probably are not conscious of the machinations and the complicated dance you’re doing to compensate for the limiting decisions. You do it all underground like it doesn’t exist, while you’re trying to do something else. And you’re not aware that what you’re doing is having an effect out in the world. People are responding to it. You think you’re just defending yourself against reality, the way you think reality is, which is distorted because of the limiting decisions.”
