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.
Below is a response Fellow Healer in New York had to a previous “Ask Jane” Q & A. For the original Ask Jane Q & A with Sally that this response is about, click here.
Fellow Healer in New York: YES.. and integrity means wholeness with self …watching the game may just be more in Integrity for this man, then following a promise he in retrospect will prob. not make again!
Jane: Being in integrity with himself is not about the action Sally’s husband (I’m calling Jake) decides to take one way or the other. It’s the process by which he gets there. People often take a stand on one particular action in order to feel in integrity with themselves, in order to hold some kind of boundary. But they only need to do that if there is an unhealed issue that results, for example, in them tending to give up their needs for the sake of the other person’s needs, if they don’t rigidly take this kind of stand. And so doing it that way is a part of an emotional defense system that ends up causing a separation with the other person in order to feel you can have your own needs met. This is the kind of dynamic that often occurs in relationships in which people believe it’s not possible to both be in integrity with yourself, and also be vulnerably and intimately connected to the other person.
The only way around that is to engage in dialog and be willing to explore your own unhealed issues (limiting decisions*), which requires letting go of control, rather than taking control, and results in transformation.
Jake had agreed to go to the event with Sally. But when he realized there was a crucial football game on TV that was really important to him that conflicted with him going to this event, his knee jerk emotional response was feeling forced to go to the event with Sally or she would probably get really upset. And so he emotionally rebelled by blurting out that he wasn’t going, before he could get his conscious mind around what he was doing. So basically his knee jerk response causes a separation, believing this to be the only way he could get to do what he really wanted to do. This is based on the very common belief that if we stay connected in reality with each other when there appears to be conflicting desires, there won’t be a solution. In other words that it’s not possible for life to work out well for all concerned. So Jake caused a separation because he believed that there inherently was a separation between his desires and Sally’s. It feels far less painful to cause a separation from an invulnerable, defended place, then to feel at the mercy of there inherently being a separation between himself and the person he loves, when he’s coming from a vulnerable place. And that is because if that would turn out to be true, it would be evidence that life doesn’t work.
But the truth is — the only thing that could create this situation not to work out well for all concerned are the limiting decisions* each person brings to the table, that causes each to respond from a defended place, rather than being open to a solution.
As it turned out, after they discussed the situation, a friend of Sally’s came to town and Sally asked her to go with her, which worked out well. What was keeping Sally stuck in having bad feelings toward Jake was a limiting decision* in her.
* 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.
By the non-physical world, I am referring to the reality that is beyond what is discernable to our physical senses. Examples are emotions, passion, intention, motivation, focus, love, intelligence, life force, inspiration. Those of you who don’t believe in God, or spirituality, or the soul, or anything beyond this lifetime, obviously are nonetheless aware of the presence of these. At a certain point they begin to merge into what others of us would consider spirituality. And the delineation between them as non-physical versus spiritual is difficult to define.
Just because they are not accessible by our physical senses directly does not make them less real to us. Our physical senses are aware of expressions of the non-physical, through physical vehicles, such as musical instruments or voices that can express, for example, inspiration, love, yearning, and so on. There is an internal feeling sense that responds to the non-physical essence or energy or vibration, or however we describe it, that can be extraordinarily powerful. Whether we experience it as non-physical or spiritual perhaps depends on how high its vibration is. For me, when I’m in a state that feels connected to the Divine, it’s a blissful, inspired feeling that feels like I’m vibrating at a high frequency.
What I mean by spirituality, is central to an understanding of the larger Source I often refer to. By Larger Source, I mean the overall umbrella that everything that exists is encompassed by and originates from. I don’t generally use the word “God” because it connotes a personification of spiritual source that I don’t think is accurate. I generally use the words “the Divine” instead. I refer to the Divine as a very high vibration that can be present anywhere in anything in living creation. I sometimes use “Divine” as an adjective, such as “Divine Truth” to indicate a larger than human perspective. Other words I use to describe the essence of the larger source are: Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Spirit, and Intelligence.
When we make the distinction between an individual person’s intelligence or ability to love — and the sense of intelligence or love as something in and of itself, we begin to understand it as a force beyond human control — just as we might recognize truth as a force beyond the physical experience, cutting through confusion, lies, and smoke screens. Because these are root concepts, the only way to really understand what they are is through direct experience. They have power in and of themselves, and the power they have can move nations, they can change people’s whole paradigm of reality. They come from a source larger than human experience, and therefore supersede our individual consciousness. They move us beyond our physical experience and give us a larger perspective. They are the real substance of what matters to the human soul.
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.
From Sally in Solana Beach: My husband agreed to go to an event with me that was important to me. But a few days before the event he realized that an important football game was playing that night, which he hadn’t known about and he blurted out that he wasn’t going to the event because he wanted to stay home and watch the game. I told him that I had thought he was a person of integrity, but because of how he acted I realized that he really isn’t, if he could just blow off his commitment to me like that. He did realize shortly after his response that he hadn’t behaved very well, and suggested we discuss possible solutions. But I am still seeing him as a person without integrity because of how he acted. He obviously didn’t see me as a very high priority. Don’t you think this shows a lack of integrity?
Jane: I’d say, clearly your husband was coming from an emotionally triggered place — at least in his initial response. But it doesn’t mean to me that this shows he is a person basically lacking in integrity.
I think this brings up something important for you to look at in yourself. Leaning on ridged rules, as you seem to be doing, is a way to avoid relating in the moment, where you reveal where you are at, and engage back and forth about what’s really happening, such as “I’m triggered,” “This is how I’m feeling”, “This is really important to me.” If you avoid relating in the moment, you don’t have to be vulnerable, you don’t have to reveal anything, and you don’t have to engage. It’s just, “This is the rule; you follow it or you’re bad.”
And that’s a place that people often fall into in areas in which they have limiting decisions*, because they don’t trust life to work the way it really is. And I’m guessing a significant limiting decision* was triggered in you by this situation, bringing up emotional responses beyond what the situation really called for. For example, the limiting decision* could have to do with you not feeling valued or that there isn’t anyone you can count on. And you’re projecting the pain of the limiting decision* onto your husband, which is why you are being ridged about it, and why you’re drawing a broad generalization about him.
Since — after his initial knee jerk response — your husband was open to discussing this with you to find a solution, it appears to me that he’s not creating an impossibility. But if you take a ridged stand on a judgment about what this means about his character, you have shut the door to a way forward. When you’re really being present — engaging, revealing, and being vulnerable, you don’t need to have ridged rules, because you are interacting in life, and life does work when you’re really participating in it.
So — you recognize that your husband had a dysfunctional response, you look at the limiting decisions being triggered in yourself and in him, and you work through it. A way forward will become clear, when you are really able to be present with each other.
* 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.
The preview call audio for my upcoming
“Life is Meant to Work” 12-week Tele-seminar — is now here.
In this preview I share the personal journey that brought me to a totally positive new thought system, based on the principle “Life is Meant to Work.” This thought system, combined with my NLP training, is what has enabled me to facilitate profound life-changing results for my clients for the past 14 years.
I also describe some of the basic ideas from this thought system, addressing these 3 topics:
“Limiting Decisions: How Your Perception of Reality Gets Distorted”
“Is Life Meant to Work, or Is It Not?”
“Self-interest vs. Enlightened Self-Interest”
In addition you’ll get the main details of what is included in the “Life is Meant to Work” program.
I hope you enjoy the audio, and I welcome any comments, responses or questions you might have.
Warmly,
Jane Ilene Cohen
(760) 753-0733
Excerpts from the Preview Call
“When I took a stand on life is meant to work, it’s like I walked through a portal or a gateway in which a whole other landscape was now visible or available to me.And I started tapping into a whole body of knowledge that I had no idea of before.”
____________
“The reason ‘The Secret’ and the Law of Attraction has become so popular is it is about being able to manifest into our lives what we desire, rather than feeling at the mercy of forces outside of ourselves. But many people have difficulty in making this work for themselves, or have success with it only in specific and limited areas of their lives. Really understanding how to effectively use the Law of Attraction requires much more than what is generally taught, and represents a step forward in the human evolutionary process. The meaning of this goes way beyond being able to manifest a certain number of dollars per month, or buying the fancy new sports car. It is a shift in where we understand our source of safety and well-being comes from.”
____________
“From the very individual perspective to the larger global perspective, many people experience life as not working. But they don’t understand how we are participating in creating this, just believing it to be the nature of how life is. And therefore we are looking in the wrong direction for solutions.”
________
“We experience reality as something objective that is external to us, and that imposes itself on us. But our perception of reality is, in fact, very subjective and changeable, because we are never experiencing reality directly. We are only experiencing a model of reality. There are thousands of bits of information that are bombarding our senses every moment, and it would be impossible to take all of it in. So we filter in a very small percentage of it, and filter out most of it. What we decide to filter in or out is very subjective and changeable. This means, to a large degree, we are choosing our experience of reality, as opposed to reality imposing itself on us.”
______
“Our internal state is caused by our interpretation of what is happening out in the world, rather than something objective that is happening to us. And we don’t realize that our interpretations are very often a result of projecting our limiting decisions onto something or someone outside of ourselves.”
“It’s crucial to understand how subjective, changeable and effectible our experience or perception of reality is, in order to have a choice about what to do about it. Most people believe this instability has to do the nature of reality, and don’t realize that it’s actually internal to themselves. And since the internal process causing it is generally very unconscious, what we end up doing about it is also an unconscious process, which often doesn’t end up serving us.”
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 question is from Jered in San Diego, CA (Real names are never used.)
Jered: As we all know, the head of BP Oil is being crucified in the press. From my perspective, his personal comments to the public and Congress are the sincere truth. His people are working around the clock to solve the problem. He goes home to the UK for personal family time and to get a few hours of fresh air. Certainly, his mind is preoccupied. Yet no matter what he does or says that is truthful – the public is unsatisfied. How does one handle these situations? It’s as though the truth is insufficient as compared to a carefully postured response.
Jane: We don’t really know the character of Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, or really what responsibility he does or doesn’t hold for what occurred. But I agree that he may very well be saying the sincere truth, but that many people want a scapegoat. They want someone to emotionally pay for their suffering, as if that would make them feel better.
The whole idea of sharing the suffering seems to be very strong in people. If I am suffering, then you ought to be suffering also — or you don’t care, you are selfish, you are a bad person. But this has nothing to do with any real solutions, or any easing of human pain.
This is a triggered kind of emotional response, and not reality-based. Whether Mr. Hayward is outwardly suffering or not, has no actual benefit to anyone who is suffering because of the oil spill. It won’t have any effect on solutions being found any faster, or people getting compensated any faster.
People who are invested in finding scapegoats for their suffering are looking in the wrong direction for any real solutions, and are invested in holding in place vibrations of misery, hatred and pain. As a result, I would guess, this is only one of many sources of misery in their lives, as this is what they would attract.
To answer your question more directly, about how to handle this kind of situation: Rather than the focus being on how other people might respond to us, as if that is the source of our well-being, and trying to cater to them, the real dialog is between oneself and a larger perspective, beyond the limited human scope of things. In other words, specifically in relation to Mr. Hayward, I’m sure there are lessons for him to learn, or he wouldn’t have found himself in this kind of situation in the first place. For example it is possible that he might have an emotional defense system of keeping himself at a distance from getting emotionally or personally involved in general, believing that that will keep him safe. This experience could rock that defense system, and be a huge wake-up call for him. Perhaps if he had been more personally involved, he may have prevented what happened.
* 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.
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.
Truth is a fundamental element in real experience. It connects our common reality, and is the foundation of it. It is what gives us real stability. And yet people often feel they have to avoid it, in order to keep the stability of the substitute worlds they are holding in place. At the same time, we assume mutual understanding between each other about what is actually true. We all have had the experience of knowing when the truth is obvious, such as when the indication of truth becomes so massive there is no way to avoid seeing it, or knowing it.
Truth is transparency. It’s seeing what is really there. Being truthful means conforming to actuality, to reality. It’s as though we’re usually living in an opaque atmosphere, which is masking what is actually true. And some people can see through it more than others can. And there are also times or certain conditions that happen in common human experience where that atmosphere thins out, and becomes for the moment, transparent, when something is so apparently true that no one can miss it.
People try to hide many pieces of truth, because of what seems to be either in their own self-interest or the self-interest of someone else, feeling as though they know what the repercussions would be if they didn’t. And sometimes it seems to work, and sometimes it doesn’t. In interpersonal relationships, in which the relationship really matters to you, if you don’t open it up to truth everywhere possible, it limits the potential of the relationship. But truth means engaging and getting involved, because it often takes you down a path you hadn’t anticipated, outside of your control. It has a life of its own. It is connected to a reality beyond what you could possibly conceive of, beyond the perspective and scope of limited human perception.
When we speak “the truth” we are revealing something that is objective. It is something we don’t control. It’s not about giving an opinion or advice, or making a judgment. Those can often be done without consciousness. Truth is more conscious than that. It has to do with revealing where you are. There is a difference between giving an opinion or advice — and being aware that we gave it. Our opinion, advice or judgment may or may not reflect truth, but it is true that we had those thoughts and ideas, and gave them. Our responses and ideas can come from many sources, some connected to inspiration and some connected to limited human perception. When they are connected to limited human perception, then the value of having expressed the idea is not about the content of it, but is about having revealed something true about you. And the truth that is revealed is the fact that you had this idea. That is what is true. The content of the idea, itself, could be described as a reflection of your limited perception, which didn’t make it past the walls of your defended self. You can either embrace the truth revealed by that or go in the opposite direction. If you embrace it, it can lead to your transformation, and therefore, evolution.
If, your thought comes from inspiration instead of coming from limited human perception, then you are tapping into Divine Source, and the content, itself, then reflects what is true. You have reached beyond your defended self where you are just reflecting back on yourself, and have broken through to a larger and real Source. And so in this scenario you are coming to truth from two directions: The content of the thought itself, as well as the fact that you had that thought.
Everyone inherently knows that truth is extremely powerful. But what they don’t know is if truth is for them, against them, or just arbitrary? And so people tend to feel afraid of its power and therefore often control it from being revealed. And so whether truth is for or against us, or is arbitrary, is the real issue. Everything hinges on the answer. Whichever we decide, and whichever the truth of it is, determines the world and reality we are living in.
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.
Our perception of reality is extremely impressionable, and can change from moment to moment, depending on how we interpret the experiences we have in life. We can feel up or down, depending on if things are going our way or not. If, for example, money is currently abundant, or we just got a new client, we may feel that life is good and feel very empowered. But maybe the next week, we lose several clients, and our boy or girl friend leaves us, and our best friend is angry at us. And this then triggers limiting decisions*, such as we are a failure. And so then we may feel very negatively about life. And then, perhaps, the following month the person we have a crush on calls and asks us on a date, and business sales start coming in. And for the moment we are no longer feeling like a failure. Most people define their experience of reality according to what is happening in the external world around them. And that puts us in a very disempowered position, because we are dependent on what the world around us does, and how it responds to us, for our sense of well-being.
People don’t generally realize that our internal state is caused by our interpretation of how we are affected, rather than something objective out in the world that is happening to us. And we don’t realize that our interpretations are very often a result of projecting our limiting decisions* onto something or someone outside of ourselves. Interpreting our experience of life in this way is orienting our lives around the world external to ourselves as the source we are dependent on, which puts us in an unstable, uncentered state.
Now there are many people who, to a large degree, have a certain amount of emotional stability, and generally create a positive world around them. But depending upon the kind or intensity of how they are affected, they can also be completely knocked off of their usual sense of reality. And, besides individual limiting decisions* being triggered, that has to do with commonly held beliefs about the nature of reality.
We are generally dependent on the extremes of other people’s negative behaviors being controlled in order for us to keep a positive sense of reality. You could say that’s what defines a civilized world. And when we find ourselves in situations in which this extreme is being acted out in our presence, an overwhelming perception of reality that we usually keep in our unconscious gets brought to the surface, like a nightmare or boogeyman. And that’s what makes the idea of someone perpetrating some violent act particularly difficult for us to deal with. It resonates with deep-seated, primal beliefs about the nature of reality.
Perhaps it’s the reason for the popularity of horror films, or the reason there is so much violence in movies and on TV. You could say it brings that material out in the open. But they are not being brought out in a way that can bring truth or healing. And I think that is because the general human consensus is that dark, destructive forces have huge power over us. And the best we can do is keep them submerged in the unconscious — or, from a child’s perspective, in the closet and under the bed.
It’s crucial to understand how subjective, changeable and effectible our experience or perception of reality is, in order to have a choice about what to do about it. Most people believe this instability has to do the nature of reality, and don’t realize that it’s actually internal to themselves. And since the internal process causing it is generally very unconscious, what they end up doing about it is also an unconscious process, which often doesn’t end up serving them.
*Limiting decisions are decisions made usually before the age of 6 or 7 years old, that are some form of deciding that there is something inherently wrong with you, and/or some form of that life doesn’t work — Such as “I am bad,” “I am worthless,” “People can’t be trusted.”
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.
From the “Life is Meant to Work” Teleseminar Course
Life is a living dialog that we are constantly engaged in. Our whole organism is a very fine-tuned, living instrument that has many means for taking in information, and is highly responsive. When we are affected we have a response. And this begins a dialog. Your response is some form of communication, which reveals something about you. And your response then affects the world around you, which then responds to you, revealing something about it, as well as how you affected it, which then reveals more about you. In this process you come in contact with increasingly more about who you are in your own evolving process. It’s like an opening up, like a flower. You may discover aspects of yourself that you don’t like or that need healing, and you may discover more of who you really are, in your magnificence.
The human dynamic of dialog is a major way the human evolutionary process works. We inherently have the potential to evolve, and to evolve quickly, because we so easily get affected and respond. But the human organism is not set up to evolve as quickly as this potential. It has its own timing. The human evolutionary process has been a process of starting with very dense, limited, contracted physical material, and expanding on many different levels to light-filled, clear, expanded consciousness — basically a coming into our own divine presence. In other words, we, as human organisms, are going through an expanding process, that keeps stretching us beyond where we currently are. It is stretching us on a physical, cellular level; on a mental level; on an energetic, vibrational level; on an emotional level; and probably on many more levels than I can think of.
In any area in which they have limiting decisions*, people usually find ways to avoid present moment interaction, and are therefore slowing down their evolutionary process. Among these mechanisms are avoiding truthful, live interactions with each other, through using social codes of behavior, such as what is considered to be polite, how people are expected to act in interactions with each other. For instance we routinely notice things about each other that we don’t talk about, because it would reveal personal truths that there is an unspoken agreement not to talk about.
Another example is the social expectation that if you relate certain ways to people, you can expect certain kinds of responses in return, which puts things in a kind of formula that people can hide behind. For instance, if you start talking to someone about some subject, they would probably feel obliged to listen to you, even if they are finding it not interesting. And that then would allow you to not have to deal with whatever the issue in you is that causes people not to want to listen to you.
There used to be a lot more social rules that people followed than there are today. People are now more routinely relating more honestly with each other. And this allows the evolutionary process to move more quickly.
*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.
This question is from Chad in Rancho Santa Fe:
Chad: Let’s say a friend of yours has a limiting decision* that they’re stupid, and you point out something to them that they did that ends up triggering that feeling in them. Then you are suddenly affronted by the fact that the person was triggered, even though you didn’t do anything to them on purpose. So the question is what do you do when someone gets triggered by some innocent remark you made?
Jane: First of all it depends on the particular type of relationship you have with the person, how vulnerable you want to be, how much energy you want to put into it. If this person is someone with whom the relationship really matters, I would say the healthy response would be to reveal to the person how you are responding to him. Relating in general is about revealing whatever is going on inside of you in response to each other. When you get affected, that is the beginning of a dialog, and so then you respond by revealing where you are. You always can participate in a dialog, which is honestly revealing where you are. If you’re triggered and you know it, you can reveal you’re triggered.
Chad: I’d like to have the way to deal with it when it’s happening, like a script.
Jane: Having a script is not the solution. You have to reveal where you are in the moment, which is more of an emotional risk. And since it’s revealing, it’s vulnerable, as opposed to judging or attacking. You might say, for instance, “I feel upset and surprised that you had that response. I didn’t mean what I said to be a criticism. What did it mean to you?” Or you might say, “I feel really triggered by your reaction, as I thought what I said was just a neutral comment. It’s bringing up in me concerns that it’s not safe to say what’s on my mind. Why was this upsetting to you?”
It is leaning on truth to move things forward, versus leaning on mollifying the other person, or manipulating things to calm him down, and not have things get out of hand, and upsetting. And you can do that, and try to calm things down, but it won’t get anywhere. It won’t be a deepening of the relationship. It won’t evolve things forward, because it won’t be bringing anything to truth. And it’s also not respecting the other person. If it’s a relationship that matters to you, then you want to get to truth. And you start with yourself, by revealing the truth of where you are, and trusting the larger medium that you’re both under — which is what I call the larger source, or Intelligence or Truth — to bring a larger perspective beyond the individual experience, and move things forward. If you allow the larger truth to be there, it opens possibilities. It makes things clearer. Whereas you could never figure it out with limited human intelligence to manipulate the situation in order to have this and that work out. But if you put truth in there, then perhaps you or perhaps the other person might see something you never saw before, or maybe something might happen that opens things up. And it might get messy for a while, but if both of you stay in the dialog, then you’ll get to a deeper place of truth.
* Limiting decisions are unconscious decisions made in childhood that are always some form of deciding that life is not meant to work, and usually that there is something inherently wrong with you, such as: “I’m not valuable,” “I’m powerless,” “the world is a dangerous place.”
