The life of every living organism must be based on self-interest. Every moment of our lives is based on it. Breathing, eating, sleeping, loving, helping others. A plant turns toward the sun in order to get the nourishment it needs. And it’s flourishing gives us pleasure. If it were to deny itself what it needs to do well, would we think it was being virtuous? The very nature of life is based on self-interest. You are ALWAYS doing what you conceive of as self-interest, even if it’s denying your self-interest in order to be what you believe to be virtuous. The reason you would do this is because it makes you feel better about yourself. If doing what you believe to be virtuous ended up making you feel bad about yourself, you wouldn’t do it.
Following your own self-interest defines who you are. It is the expression of who you are. When you are allowing yourself to move toward your enlightened self-interest you are contributing who you are to the whole. You are revealing a piece of creation.
Even if you are not connected to your enlightened self-interest, you must start with the self-interest you can access in order to move toward more enlightened self-interest. Those who deny their self-interest are living in an artificial shell, a false persona, in a false world. They are not authentic. Life around them is devoid of anything real, and therefore anything of real nourishment or value.
Before you made limiting decisions, and before you started creating false personas and false worlds, you were living in a state of true self-interest, i.e. what really benefited you. Your focus was on life, truth, experience. You were led by what mattered to you. That is what guided your every moment — opening up your life, experience, and development. You were participating in living, flowing, experiential truth.
What makes suicide bombers so frightening and difficult to combat is their denial of the most basic self-interest of being alive. They, presumably, believe they are following the self-interest of doing what it takes to be virtuous, by doing God’s work. And they look forward to their reward in some version of heaven.
The people who are the most disconnected from their own most basic self-interest are the ones who act in ways that are the most distorted and dysfunctional. And it generally results in out of control behavior, under the radar of consciousness. For example people who are immersed in fundamental, repressive religious dogma, who can find no legitimate outlet for their human desires, can tend to act out sexually dysfunctional and destructive behavior in situations where they think it can remain hidden or not talked about, such as molesting children.
It is not possible to deny one’s own self-interest. It will be expressed in some form, either in its pure form or, as a result of being denied, in its distorted form. In its distorted form, it is likely to be destructive.
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 Fellow Healer in New York
Fellow Healer: A dear friend of mine, who has worked the Law of Attraction (LoA) religiously for years, ended up broke at her mom’s house. She called me distraught wondering why the universe isn’t bringing her the wealth she meditated on. What the LoA professors neglect to tell us is that our soul is on a journey and that journey will be fulfilled. Soul trumps LoA. My friend now sees that going home offered her valuable healing time with her family and was vital to her path.
Jane: I agree with your conclusion that the soul’s journey trumps everything else. However, the Law of Attraction does work perfectly, and people are always manifesting, but not necessarily what they consciously desire. To manifest what you consciously desire, there has to be some combination of alignment between the conscious mind, the unconscious mind, and the higher self (i.e. the soul’s path). When the conscious mind is in alignment with the unconscious mind, you are likely to manifest what you consciously want. What causes conscious/unconscious mind misalignment are limiting decisions*. Limiting decisions cause misalignment with what is really true. They then cause the person to manifest the distortion that the unconscious mind now believes to be true. I.e. if the person decides there is not enough, that is what they will manifest. When the limiting decision* is cleared, the unconscious mind now aligns itself with the truth of abundance.
But the soul’s journey also affects how effective particular people are at manifesting what they desire. Many people use, or try to use, the Laws of Attraction to manifest things that are not necessarily in their highest best interest (which also is a result of limiting decisions*). At some point in the soul’s journey, the higher self does not allow that. So this then requires the soul to evolve to going toward what truly benefits them — what I refer to as “enlightened self-interest” — before they will be effective at manifesting what they desire.
* Limiting decisions are unconscious decisions made in early childhood, and are always some form of deciding life is not meant to work and/or there is something inherently wrong with you.
Our perception of reality is how we interpret our experiences in life, and how we have order in it. It is the foundation we build our life upon. It determines where we believe our source of safety, survival and well-being comes from. It is the basis on which we make decisions, determining the kind of life we live, and what the possibilities are for us. It affects whether we go toward or away from solutions, resources, survival and well-being. It’s the very ground we’re standing on.
There are certain cornerstones about the nature of reality that humanity in general holds in place that are out of alignment with larger truth. These cornerstones are what the problems humanity faces are based upon. And even many of those who have expanded their consciousness beyond that limited perspective — when it comes down to what their lives depend upon — are really standing on the old foundation for their reality.
To most people their perception of reality just is what is, and they don’t question the truth of it. But our perception of reality is, in fact, very subjective and changeable. There are many more bits of information that are bombarding our senses every moment than we can possibly take in. We filter out most of it. What bits of reality we take in, and what we filter out, is very subjective.
Perceptions of reality are held in place by individuals, by families and other kinds of groups, by countries, on up to the global human experience. The more people holding a perception of reality in place, the more real the perception appears to be. But that has nothing to do with the truth of the perception.
The thought system I will be teaching in the “Life is Meant to Work” webinar, shifts the old reality perceptions to be in alignment with larger truths.
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 was from Fellow Healer in New York who made this comment in the context of his description of an ex-girlfriend’s treatment of him, and also the way he observes people, including new age-type people, acting toward others.)
Fellow Healer: “… ACIM says the only sane response to our brother, even when they act out, is to love him. No holy book says lecture, scold, and runaway. No heart would say that either…. True self needs love too. It’s all one. When we love all in the trinity, then all flows. Now is the time to return to love. Love. Just love. Love is the secret!!!”
Jane: Yes, of course, the answer always comes down to love. It’s certainly an important place to focus our attention, and it would be great if everyone could just decide on love and be there. But getting to love is an evolutionary process (both on a personal, individual level, as well as on a human evolutionary level). The path to love isn’t always obvious or straightforward. Many things people think they do out of love are not really about love.
For instance, in your earlier email about you being “loyal” to the first girlfriend, therefore staying with that relationship (even though you knew it wasn’t right for you), and saying “no” to the second girlfriend (who you really wanted to be with) — it appears you felt you were doing this out of love or kindness to the first girlfriend. But since it was not in truth, it was not in Divine order. And it was not following enlightened self-interest. And enlightened self-interest is an extremely necessary ingredient in order to be moving toward love. (But that’s another whole subject altogether.) So it’s not necessarily that obvious or straightforward. There are a lot of elements potentially involved.
The way to solve human hurt is to move toward clarity about what is really happening in reality. Therefore there’s no getting around the fact that in order to eliminate your emotional pain, your personal transformation is required. There is no short cut that will have a lasting result.
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during Lita’s NLP Timeline Session 10-22-09
(Client’s name is change to protect her privacy.)
(Lita was describing an interaction in which several of her girl friends had views about how she is living her life that bumped up against how Lita sees it, and didn’t feel good to her. She felt judged by them. Lita is asking who’s to say who’s truth is better? Lita is also dealing with trust issues.)
“It’s not a matter of this person thinks this and the other thinks that, and that’s her point-of-view, that’s her truth — from which then follows the question of: ‘Who is to say which person’s truth is better?’
Each person comes from their own perspective, which adds richness to the truth of the whole situation. So different people’s perspectives are a wonderful gift. But people’s limiting decisions* cause them to be afraid of what is really true in reality, and so they develop emotional defense systems in order to control how reality is perceived in the areas of their limiting decisions*. But blocking present moment truth also blocks a person’s real contribution. Therefore people’s defense systems end up covering over the individual richness that people could be adding. So it only becomes a matter of whose truth is better when there’s an avoidance of truth. Otherwise each person’s perspective would add to a greater understanding of what is true.
The reason the issue of judgment comes up for you has to do with who is going to define reality. You seem to think that people can define reality and make it so. So whatever they say, then becomes the reality for you, which you then struggle against.
Because you are letting other people define reality for you, the issue of if they are or aren’t trustable becomes vital, because now you’re depending on how they define reality for you. And so if they fail or are not perfect in some way, that becomes dangerous for you. By letting someone else define reality for you, you are giving them the power over your experience of reality. So the limiting decision that people can’t be trusted easily follows from that because you’re expecting others to basically take on the responsibility of God, which no one can live up to.”
Transcript Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during Janine’s NLP Timeline Session 10-27-09
(Client’s name is changed to protect her privacy)
(Janine is in a career transition. She’s been a nurse for a long time, and is exploring other possibilities. She enjoys doing energy healing with people, but hasn’t tried to earn a living doing it, because she’s had limited success with the results.)
“The heart of the matter is the issue here for anything you’re trying to do, healing, whatever. In order to come into the heart of the matter, it takes faith in reality. It takes faith that what is really true, works, that there is a solution that can be found in what is really true.
What I’m talking about is different than the usual paradigm about faith. It has to do with walking into the unknown and being willing to see/experience what’s there. In a sense it has to do with faith because, it takes courage to walk into the unknown if you don’t already know what’s there. So it’s faith that it will be positive. But then it is looking at what’s actually there. It is walking into the center of experience, and looking at, and listening to and feeling what it is. This is, perhaps, scarier than the traditional idea of faith, where you don’t necessarily find out how things actually are. You just trust they are or will be good. You hope and pray that they will work. It’s not about walking into the unknown and opening your eyes, and seeing what’s there.
In day-to-day life, people put emotional defense systems up so they can avoid present moment reality, because they’re afraid that the truth is somehow against them, as represented by the limiting decisions* they have made. In the group process**, we move through the defense systems, which puts a person smack dab in the middle of their limiting decision*, where they get to find out what the truth is. And of course limiting decisions* are never true, so that’s what shows up.
So the faith involved, in that case, is to let go of the control in order to find out what the truth is. But once you’re facing the truth, you see what’s there. So it is not blind faith. That’s what coming into the heart of the matter is. You find out what’s actually there.
So it’s a further evolutionary step beyond faith. The less evolved concept is to just have blind faith. This new paradigm about faith is more empowered. It is having the faith to look at what’s true, and then you experience what is actually there. Now, if it weren’t true that life is meant to work; if it weren’t true that it is a benign universe; if it weren’t true that the divine is for you, not against you; then, from the human perspective, it might not be a good idea to experience what is actually there. It might be better to stay in blind faith. But since the truth is it is a benign universe, it is limiting decisions* that keep people wanting to be in the lala land of blind faith, and not wanting to step into the heart of the matter, the present moment, and experience what’s actually there.”
(Janine is saying that she believes that the way God originally created His creations was meant to work. And then it got corrupted, because once the creations were created, they were then on their own. So God created a perfect world, and then left it up to nature and humanity, as to what happens next.)
“Getting to the heart of the matter is what the most obvious thing in any situation is, by definition. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to get to in a lot of cases. Something that would be so obvious, for some reason, is extremely difficult to get to. There’s a human block against doing that. And we need to get to the bottom of why you, in particular, don’t do that. You think in terms of theories and explanations of why this and why that.
Mental theories or concepts for understanding how things work are not the same thing as coming into present here-and-now experience, and seeing what’s actually there. Your concept that once a creation of God is created, it’s on its own — is of a creator that is limited. A limitless Creator is in every cell and every vibration and every aspect of all that is. That would be an all inclusive definition of Creator or Divine, which is not how you are conceiving of it.
What I’m trying to get to is what will enable you to know that it’s safe to come into the present moment, into the heart of the matter — rather than believing that when you actually get to the bottommost reality of things, it won’t work, which seems to be where you’re at. When it comes down to it, you believe it just doesn’t work. You believe that people (the creation) are on their own, that it’s like a crap shoot. Therefore you don’t want to see what’s really there, and that keeps you from being grounded in the present moment, which then limits your ability to be an effective healer.”
(The next step for Janine will be to clarify what the limiting decision is that is causing her to avoid the heart of the matter, and do a Timeline Process to clear it.)
* Limiting decisions are negative decisions made unconsciously in early childhood, such as “I am bad, not valuable, stupid…” For a more complete description of limiting decisions, click here.
** “Group Process” refers to the “Shifting into Your New Consciousness” transformational group. For more information about the group, click here.
(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 Excerpt of Jane’s Teachings
during Melanie’s NLP Timeline Session 9-7-09
(Client’s name is change to protect her privacy.)
“There’s a confusion about the phrase ‘creating your own reality,’ which is a popular phrase these days. When you’re talking about creating your own reality, I think what you’re really wanting is to move closer and closer to what is really true. You have been afraid what was true was negative and therefore you were trying to control it to be different than what’s in divine order. And nothing can work out that way. When you make a limiting decision*, the alternate self (ego) creates a world that it feels it can control, because it doesn’t trust the world of the Divine. It has decided that the universe is not going to give it what it wants. So it can be very invested in particular areas of ‘This is the way it is. And I’m controlling it. And I’m right.’ It’s basically against God, against Divine truth.
Before the limiting decision* was made the person is in the flow of love, and so there is a heart opening for all of these different possibilities. And then the limiting decision* gets formed, and it’s like a wall gets formed, the heart is closed and the channels are closed. And you think, ‘That’s the way the universe is.’ No, it’s not the way the Universe is. It’s what happens when you make a limiting decision*. You wall off, you close your heart, you don’t allow. And people get into power-struggles: ‘What I want and need has to come from this place. It has to come from my parents.’ Or ‘It has to come from that person. And if it’s not this way, then I’m not going to receive it.’ And therefore you close the channels. And that’s the difference between being in the alternate self and being not in the alternate self. The alternate self has to have things its own way, in it’s control, rather than allowing the Divine truth to be in control and opening to it. Getting there is a human evolutionary process. So it’s not like something is wrong because this happened and the person made a limiting decision*. It’s part of the evolutionary process.”
* For an in-depth explanation of limiting decisions, click here.
(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 Teaching
during Dillon’s NLP TimeLine Therapy Session 8-26-09: (Client’s name is changed to protect their privacy.)
“My particular perspective on the question of marriage (or any committed relationship) is to find out what is really true, the truth between you and the other person. The commitment is about being true to yourself, being true to what really matters to you, which means being true to your emotions in relation to the other person as well, true to what you want in relation to the other person.
It’s not a matter of conforming to ‘This is what marriage is, and now I have to conform to it.’ I believe the reason there is so much divorce right now, is because people have been trying to conform to some external ideal of what marriage is supposed to be, rather than find out what’s really true between the two people. Women, probably more than men, have stayed in unhappy relationships because they thought they were supposed to, and also because they didn’t think they could support themselves on their own. But this is changing, with fewer people willing to stay in unhappy relationships, and women becoming more empowered. People are less willing to compromise who they are in to conform to an old ideal.
That frame-of-reference can work because of the truth that life is meant to work. If you follow what is really true between people who are right for each other, there will be a coming together. If you are true to yourself and doing what’s right for you to do, doing what you’re here on earth to do, and following your own guidance; and your partner is being true to his or her self as well, there will be a way for your paths to join together. And the two of you can be fully empowered, fully true to who you are, and be together in loving connection.
This generally requires personal transformation for it to work. Relying on what’s really true between people, rather than some ideal form, will only work if the unhealed issues that are distorting how each partner relates to each other are worked through. It’s people trying to avoid and manipulate what is true, because of limiting decisions* and the emotional defense systems protecting the limiting decisions, which cause problems in relationships.
This also means working on yourself so that you become more and more true to who you really are. That’s the commitment that enables you to be truly together with someone else. Whatever would cause you to be untrue to yourself, would cause the relationship to not work. People think they have to be untrue to themselves in order to make relationships work, but that’s what actually cause them to dissolve down the line. And the older you get the less patience you tend to have for being untrue to yourself.”
* For a definition of “limiting decisions,” click here.
