Transformational Groups Part I:
The Transformational Potential of Groups

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2009

Some groups hold in place what already is, perhaps set up for accomplishing a goal that is already defined, or for supporting something from a set position.  When a new participant comes into a group, they generally assume that what the group is about is what they walk into, what is currently happening.  Or they try to figure out what the group is about, in order to see if they fit into it or not.  And then they either try to conform to that; or, if it feels incongruous enough, they leave. 

 

But what interests me is the transformational and evolutionary potential of groups, which brings people beyond what they have previously conceived of, outside of human egoic control.  In a transformational group what the group is about is determined moment-by-moment by what is most important to each of its members, and to what degree they are able to reveal what that is. 

 

Transformational groups are primarily about present-moment relating between people, which is where the real and transformational material can come up. The group process facilitates this when each person in the group is there with their authentic self, expressing what matters to them in the moment in the context of what is happening around them -- which takes a lot of courage.  Every input of every person participating, wherever they are at that moment (which can keep changing), is a part of the continual transformation of the group.  That's what makes it so exciting.

 

Often, when what is important to two or more people, conflicts, there is the most potential for transformation.  When this occurs we are entering into the realm of "live material," where people's emotional defense systems get stirred up, emotions comes to the surface, unconscious responses emerge, and what really matters to people become more activated.  From within the perceived conflict resides the potential for transformation, which will open up the consciousness of each party concerned, as well as all who witness it. (It's the facilitator's job to hold the space for that to happen, and to bring clarity to the situation.)

 

So in the group, whatever your response is, you give it, and then other people respond to your response. And if everybody stays in the present moment with where they are at, allowing themselves to be connected with or affected by what happens, and reveal that -- the whole process goes deeper, bringing out truths that have been hidden, and putting the experience into a larger context beyond the distortions of the unhealed issues.   In that process, your whole experience of reality can shift and evolve forward. 

About the Author:

Jane Ilene Cohen is a spiritually-based, Intuitive and Transformational Counselor.  She certified as a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, & Hypnotherapist.  The spiritual foundation that supports her work was influenced, among others, by A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, as well as direct personal experience.  She has a private counseling practice in Encinitas, CA, where she works with individuals (using The Timeline Process) and couples, and facilitates a weekly transformational group called "Shifting into Your New Consciousness."  This group is for participants who want to shift into a more empowered, conscious life.  It is a living teaching in the context of group interaction and dialog.  For more information and for the start date of the next 8-week group session, go to: www.JaneCohenCounseling.com/Transformational_Group.html or call (760) 753-0733.

Her blog site is called "Transformational Teachings from Jane Ilene Cohen," and has transcript excerpts of her teachings during live group interactions, and during Time Line sessions with clients.  She also has an "Ask Jane" section where people can email her questions and she publishes her responses.  You can visit the blog and subscribe to it at: blog.JaneCohenCounseling.com.

Jane has written numerous articles that have been published in anthologies, as well as hardcopy and on-line magazines. She is currently working on a book describing the vision that is the foundation of her work.

For more information or a free phone consultation to see if this work is right for you, you can call (760) 753-0733. Her website is at: www.JaneCohenCounseling.com.

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Transformational Groups Part II
Going Beyond the Emotional Defense Systems
(Getting to Love)

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2009

Transformational Groups are meant to be a microcosm of how you interrelate with people.  They can reveal, and facilitate the transformation of, emotional structures that block your authenticity, empowered communication, emotional accessibility, and so on.

In the context of relating to each other in the group (just as happens outside groups), people tend to settle into emotional defense systems or structures that to them feel safe and familiar.  The purpose of the defense system is to defend against feeling the pain of unconscious limiting decisions* made in early childhood (such as decisions you are not love, respected, accepted, intelligent, safe, etc.).  A limiting decision* is some very devastating negative belief about yourself or the nature of life.  So the purpose of the defense system is to avoid the here-and-now truth, because of the fear that the here-and-now truth is going to somehow be negative and against you. 

Since you can't be present when you're in that state, you can't learn, and you can't really relate to another person. Therefore defense systems block the transformational potential of each here-and-now moment.  They block people from evolving forward in life.

In addition, our defense systems are hard on the people around us because they are not in alignment with the flow of life.  So when someone's defense system is coming out in the group, it affects the other participants.  People may get bored, or angry, or frustrated, because they can feel that the energy is stuck or distorted.  The defense system may not leave space for whatever is potential in that moment to occur.  But when other group participants put in the picture what really matters to them, as opposed to going along with what is currently happening, it can expose the defense system, and be a catalyst for transformation. 

People hold on to their defense systems to various degrees depending upon how vital they feel to them.  But the defense system is holding in place an impossibility.  It is hiding the gold that is the real person.  It's keeping the amazing self that's underneath defended walls from being known, and from being loved, and from being connected with.  And so when that defense system is penetrated through, then the painful limiting decision* comes up, which you think is true.  But in this transformational process, you find out that people do not respond to the real you the way you were afraid they would.  And they do not have the response that the limiting decision* is true, because it never is true. So when we get through the defense system, we unearth the limiting decision and get to the real self.  And it's very transformational because you find out the way you thought the reality was, is not that way at all.  You find out that the here-and-now truth is positive, and filled with love. 

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Transformational Groups Part III:
Accessing Divine Truth

By Jane Ilene Cohen

Transformational Groups explore the potential of the present moment, which is where Divine truth can be tapped into.  It's a process of moving participants past the control, distortions and limits of human emotional defense systems, into a co-creative process with the Divine. 

The human experience tends to remain stuck in what it thinks it already knows.  But there is something beyond our limited human perspective, which is evolving and transforming us into a new and expanded consciousness.  It is accessed when we tap into present moment truth -- what is really true that we are feeling, wanting, experiencing, doing.  Revealing the truth of where we really are sheds light onto what has been hidden and unconscious. Allowing that to happen can be challenging for people, because it is going into the unknown.  It is standing in the question, without filling in the blanks.  This is exactly the position most people avoid, because it is where they are afraid they will find out that their limiting decisions* are true (which they never are). 

Each group participant relates to the whole experience from a particular perspective, adding a fuller and richer understanding of what is really happening in that particular moment.  Each time a participant reveals their present moment experience, they are contributing their piece to a larger puzzle.  They do this by revealing what matters to them, what they are feeling and experiencing, how they are responding to what is happening at that moment in time.  This can break through defense systems that obscure what that moment holds.  This opens up the Divine truth inherent in that situation, which is what facilitates the human evolutionary process.  What is true is, by definition, connected with a larger source, a larger consciousness, a larger purpose -- which encompasses all of the complexities of truth within it. 

Evolution has to do with an expansion of consciousness, an opening of what is true about the nature of reality.  It moves consciousness from fear into love.  It moves from what does not benefit you or the whole, into what totally benefits you and the whole.  This represents a radical shift to really getting that Life, or the Universe, or the Divine, or God -- or however you conceive of it -- is totally benign and is for us rather than against us.  Our investment in holding onto our limited concepts and constructs about reality is held in place by the human belief that the Divine is inherently against us, and therefore we have to keep our experience within our limited control, i.e. what we already know and understand and can conceive of -- in order to create a life that we believe will be in our favor.  This inherently creates adversity in us in relation to the nature of reality, and what benefits each individual as opposed to other people.  So what we're dealing with here is the real world and the actual nature of the universe versus an alternative, made-up world (what can be described as the egoic experience), which is held in place by our emotional defense systems, for the purpose of keeping reality out. 

The transformational group, by focusing on what is happening in the present moment within and between participants, brings larger Divine truth into the experience, thereby penetrating through the defense systems that are blocking consciousness, into the wonder of who each participant is and the potential of what they are here on earth for.   It becomes a co-creation between human and Divine experience.

* Limiting decisions are negative beliefs about yourself or the nature of life, made in early childhood. They are decisions such as you are not loved, respected, accepted, intelligent, safe, and so on. For an in-depth description of limiting decisions, click here.

© Jane Ilene Cohen 2009

About the Author:

Jane Ilene Cohen is a spiritually-based, Intuitive and Transformational Counselor.  She certified as a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, & Hypnotherapist.  The spiritual foundation that supports her work was influenced, among others, by A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, as well as direct personal experience.  She has a private counseling practice in Encinitas, CA, where she works with individuals (using The Timeline Process) and couples, and facilitates a weekly transformational group called "Shifting into Your New Consciousness."  This group is for participants who want to shift into a more empowered, conscious life.  It is a living teaching in the context of group interaction and dialog.  For more information and for the start date of the next 8-week group session, go to: www.JaneCohenCounseling.com/Transformational_Group.html or call (760) 753-0733.

 

Her blog site is called "Transformational Teachings from Jane Ilene Cohen," and has transcript excerpts of her teachings during live group interactions, and during TimeLine Therapy sessions with clients.  She also has an "Ask Jane" section where people can email her questions and she publishes her responses.  The web address for her blog is: blog.JaneCohenCounseling.com.

 

Jane has written numerous articles that have been published in anthologies, as well as hardcopy and on-line magazines. She is currently working on a book describing the vision that is the foundation of her work. 

 

For more information or a free phone consultation to see if this work is right for you, you can call (760) 753-0733.  You can also visit her web site at: www.JaneCohenCounseling.com.

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Healing the Separation between
Physical Abundance and Fulfilling Your Soul

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2008

 

Many of us tend to make basic assumptions when we think about business, which are not necessarily true, and represent an old paradigm view of how survival and abundance are obtained. Generally we define business as how we earn our living. Most people spend the majority of their day doing unfulfilling things in order to earn it.  This is because in the old framework there is a separation between what's necessary to do to survive on the physical level, and what matters to us on a soul level. 

 

What causes this separation between the physical and the soul level has to do with a division or splitting off within the self, resulting in the creation of a substitute self. The substitute self is formed, on an unconscious level in early life, in the areas in which we made limiting decisions such as: "Who I am is not valuable," "I am bad," "I can't have what I really want," etc.  These decisions are always some form of deciding there is some fundamental defect or fault in our self and in the way life works. We then separate our awareness from the part of our self we judged against and whom we decided can't be fulfilled in life, and we bury that part deep in our unconscious, in an effort to get rid of it.  And then we begin building a substitute, "more acceptable" and less vulnerable self (the ego self) with which to get by out in the world.  This substitute self is focused on goals that symbolize, but are only substitutes for, what we really desire.  The substitute self lives in an alternate world, which is generally defined by and limited to what it thinks it can control.  That self is disconnected from present-moment experience, which is where real nourishment or fulfillment can be accessed. And it separates us from our God-self -- our higher self, our soul.

 

The limiting decisions, which cause the division within the self, are what cause us to believe there has to be a separation between what really matters to us on a soul level, and what is necessary in order to physically survive. Many of these limiting decisions are shared by humanity in general.  The result of this frequently shows up for people in middle-age, known as "mid-life crisis."  It occurs when the person becomes aware that the life they have spent so much time, energy, and resources in building up (particularly in their career) has nothing, or very little, to do with what really matters to them. 

 

But, there is no inherent conflict between fulfilling ourselves on a soul level and living a life filled with physical abundance.   However, in the new paradigm, there are entirely different principles than in the old one, for how one succeeds in whatever one does or in whatever one desires, including physical abundance.  In the new paradigm, the world of spirit leads and the world of the physical follows that spiritual lead. Because the physical world is finite and the world of spirit is infinite, this shifts us from a limited world, with limited possibilities, to a world of infinite possibilities and infinite resources.  In the unlimited world of spirit, the foundation is love and exists outside of the framework of controlling, or winning, or any form of competition.

 

This type of success is dependent upon the support of the Universe (or, depending upon your belief system; Life, God, Spirit, the Divine…).  The Divine is where the source of our survival and well-being actually lies, and is a larger framework than any immediate, conceived of goal.  What is required for abundance in the new paradigm is to be in alignment with the Divine flow.  Our immediate goals cannot be reached when their focus is not in alignment with the Divine flow. 

 

The rule of thumb is that the Universe is filled with resources, and what keeps us from connecting to these resources is when we have our channels for receiving them closed because of limiting decisions.  In the closed state we can't see the resources right in front of us, and we limit ourselves to a very small frame-of-reference, therefore separating us from the Divine source and flow.  The more we work through our unhealed issues, the more likely the channels will be open for our success and fulfillment in all areas of life.

 

Another important element in succeeding in the new paradigm is following our inner guidance.  We each have inner guidance.  It comes from a deeper source than our ego mind, and comes from a larger perspective than our immediate physical circumstances.  It can align us with Divine wisdom, enabling us to play our part in a larger, evolutionary process.  We may not start out with an awareness of our guidance, or recognize it when it communicates to us; but to participate in the new paradigm, it is crucially important to develop an awareness of it, as well as the faith and willingness to follow it.  Making that leap of faith enables us to shift to a present in which there is no longer any conflict between our physical well-being and survival, and the fullest expression of who we are and what our soul is longing to express moment-to-moment in our lives.

 

About the Author:

 

Jane Ilene Cohen is an Intuitive and Transformational Counselor, teacher and visionary.  She certified as an NLP and TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, and comes from a strong spiritual foundation that includes A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, among other influences. Jane has a private practice in Encinitas, CA, where she works with couples and individuals, and facilitates groups.

 

Her articles (as well as poems) have been published in "The Light Connection," "Vision Magazine," "Awareness Magazine," "San Diego Bride & Groom," "SpirialMuse," Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of a Woman, Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of a Mother and Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of the Holidays (anthologies compiled by Sheryl Roush), EzineArticles.com, and Selfgrowth.com. She received an Award of Excellence from Mo Bailey and Write4Good Communications for her article "Sexual Energy: Reality versus Illusion."

 

Contact Information and Free Consultation:

For a free consultation to decide if this work is for you, you can reach Jane at: (760) 753-0733. Her website is at www.JaneCohenCounseling.com where you can find out more about her work and read testimonies from people who have experienced it. Her blog is at: blog.JaneCohenCounseling.com

 

What is Spirituality?

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2008

 

One of my clients, who has only believed in the physical level of experience, is currently finding that this is limiting him in his personal growth.  He has been very resistant to opening up to any kind of spirituality, having had some very negative and confusing experiences with religion and spirituality in his past.  He recently came to the conclusion that he doesn't really know what spirituality is.  And so he asked me how I would define it. The below is my response to him.  Although, of course, the subject is far more complex than this preliminary answer, perhaps others will find it helpful:

 

God is the essence of all that is true and real.  It is truth, intelligence, life, love and goodness.  It is all that really exists beyond illusion, delusion and fear.  It is the source of safety and well-being from the broadest perspective. 

 

The Divine is a high frequency vibration of love, of intelligence, of life, of truth -- and is the essence of who we are.  People can be a vehicle for the Divine vibration, so can music, so can words, and many other things. The person or the experience that has been affected by It is like a harp's cord that has been plucked, and resonates to It's vibration.

 

When an actor, or a musician, or a singer, or an athlete, or anyone who is really functioning at the top level of human expression, gets into a zone where some perfection is pouring out through them, a channel has been opened allowing the Divine to express Itself through them.  That channel being open is what causes someone to stand out as a star. 

 

We can either feel in the Divine flow or not.  When we are feeling in the Divine flow, life flows smoothly, it's clear to us what decisions to make, what thing to do, and in what order.  It flows effortlessly, and blissfully.  We feel in alignment with life, with whatever comes up for us.  We get inspired thoughts for our creative work.  We feel a lightness, a full of life feeling, a high vibration, a feeling of joy or bliss, especially when we've got inspiration flowing through us.  We feel not in the Divine flow when nothing seems to work right, when we have to make a decision and have no idea what to do.  We come up with a blank, run into road blocks right and left, don't getting inspired thoughts, and our energy seems stuck and heavy. 

 

An important part of being on a spiritual path is learning how to be in the Divine flow more and more consistently until we are always there, which would then be a state of enlightenment. Being on a spiritual path requires receptivity, a listening for and to Divine guidance or inspiration. 

 

There are certain things that open up a portal to Divine inspiration, Divine knowledge, Divine experience, Divine flow.  One of them is truth.  Having faith that when you get to truth, things work out, a solution is found, transformation happens -- is having faith that the way things really are (which is what truth is) is perfect; it is the state in which life works.  People who live a conscious life, committed to following a path of truth, find that when we are in truth, we experience that life, in fact, does work, and that it is the avoidance of truth that causes our lives not to work.  This demonstrates that life lived in truth connects us with an intelligent, Divine order in things. 

 

Another portal to the Divine is accessed by coming into the present moment, the here-and-now.  There are two approaches that come to mind for coming into the present moment.  One, perhaps more commonly understood, is accessed in a meditative state, in which we are not picking out one thing any more than any other thing, and are allowing all experience to come in.  It is a non-choosing.  And we dispassionately float there in that state.  Inspiration can be accessed in that way. 

 

The other form of coming into the present moment interests me more, and has to do with what I'm here to participate in bringing in.  And that has to do with accessing the heart of the matter in any particular moment, which is often accessed when we become aware of what really matters to us in that moment.  And it is oddly difficult to do.  It would seem that one could get to the heart of the matter fairly easily, since that is what the obvious issue at any moment is. 

 

But often our conscious and unconscious minds cause all kinds of distractions and emotional defense systems, diverting us from the living moment, particularly in the areas in which we have made limiting decisions*. The job of our defense systems is to avoid experiencing what the truth is in the areas of these decisions.  This is because when we made limiting decisions we decided that the truth about ourselves and life, in those areas, is unbearably negative -- such as decisions that we are unlovable or bad, or that the world requires constant struggle.  And so we keep ourselves from being conscious and present in those areas of experience, so as to never really find out what the truth is.  We are then also cut off from what matters most to us in those areas, such as truly receiving love or being at ease in the world. 

 

Moving through that stuck place to experience what is true in the living moment, where the heart of the matter resides, is where our whole experience of reality has the potential to radically shift.  This pivotal, transformational place of the living present-moment is where truth is known, and where we can assess what matters most to us.  It is where our limited and distorted experiences of reality can be realigned to Divine truth.

 

*Limiting decisions are unconscious decisions made in early childhood, which result in dysfunctional patterns.

 

Author Bio: Jane Ilene Cohen is an Intuitive and Transformational Counselor, specializing in relationships.  She certified as an NLP & TimeLine Therapy Master Practitioner, and comes from a spiritual foundation that includes A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, among other influences.  She has a private counseling practice in Encinitas, CA where she works with couples and individuals, and facilitates transformational groups.  She also does phone counseling sessions. 

 

Jane's articles (as well as poems) have been published in "The Light Connection," "Vision Magazine," "Awareness Magazine," "San Diego Bride & Groom," "SpirialMuse," The Heart of a Woman, The Heart of a Mother, The Heart of the Holidays, and The Heart of a Woman in Business (anthologies compiled by Sheryl Roush), EzineArticles.com, and Selfgrowth.com. Jane received an Award of Excellence from Mo Bailey and Write4Good Communications for her article "Sexual Energy: Reality versus Illusion."

 

Contact Information and Free Consultation: For a free consultation to decide if this work is for you, you can reach Jane at: (760) 753-0733.  You can visit her websites at: http://www.janecohen.net and www.JaneCohenCounseling.com.

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What May Be Hindering "The Secret"
(of Deliberate Creating)
from Working Well for You

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2007

Many people have seen the movie "The Secret" by now, and many others have studied the Abraham-Hicks work, which goes into the process more in-depth.  This is, without a doubt, very powerful work.  Yet while some people benefit greatly from it, others just feel frustrated when they try to apply these principles.  

WHY?  The Law of Attraction, as it’s stated in the Abraham-Hicks work, and in "The Secret," is absolutely accurate.  The problem is how to change what it is that we are attracting, when what we have been attracting is not serving us.  What causes a person to easily be able to manifest what they desire is total congruency in their intention, which means both the conscious and unconscious minds’ intentions are in alignment.  "Limiting decisions" are what undermine that congruency by causing unconscious attraction of negative patterns of experience, or results, into our lives.  

Limiting decisions are decisions made at a very young age (usually before the age of 6 or 7), when we had very little experience, perspective and development.  They are decisions such as "I am stupid, unlovable, worthless…."  They were made in a split moment, on an unconscious level, based on how we interpreted the meaning of pivotal events that occurred that we didn’t have the conscious tools to make sense of.  They were locked into our muscle contractions, breathing patterns and neuro-network patterns.  And, in the areas in which we made the decisions, they became the underlying structure for how we now interpret life and what we now manifest into our lives. For many people they are locked so firmly in the unconscious that it is like butting one’s head against a wall to try to consciously turn that thinking around.

In addition, limiting decisions can cause people to believe that they can not get what they really want.  So a lot of the things people try to manifest in their lives are not really what they want in the first place. They are a substitute for it.  

When the unconscious mind makes a limiting decision, it is very invested in proving that that decision is true.  And so it is continuously looking for proof that the decision is true by the way it interprets experiences that occur, and by the people and situations it attracts us to, or attracts to us.  And therefore in the attempt to follow the kind of principles illustrated in "The Secret," when we try to focus and visualize and open the channels to what it is we desire, if there’s a limiting decision in that area, we can run up against resistance, sometimes really major resistance; and the unconscious mind will likely sabotage our effort.  But when that limiting decision is cleared, we then easily attract what we want.  Therefore, the most effect way, that I know, of utilizing the Law of Attraction, is to clear the limiting decisions that are blocking us from attracting what we desire.  

If you are someone who would like to start effectively manifesting what you desire into your life, but have not been able to make processes, such as "The Secret," work, or would like to make them work more effectively, the TimeLine Therapy sessions I offer, which facilitate the clearing of limiting decisions, may hold the key for you.

TimeLine Therapy is a powerful NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) process.  (NLP is the study of the language of the brain, and has to do with how we formed our subjective experience and how that can be changed.) TimeLine Therapy is structured according to how the brain works. It brings you back to the initial events in which you made the limiting decisions that are holding in place whatever in your life is not working well, and facilitates their clearing. It is an inherently hypnotic process that assists you in accessing events that generally are not be in your conscious memory.  (More about TimeLine Therapy Sessions below.)

About the Author:

 

Jane Ilene Cohen is an Intuitive and Transformational Counselor, teacher and visionary.  She certified as an NLP and TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, and comes from a strong spiritual foundation that includes A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, among other influences. Jane has a private practice in Encinitas, CA, where she works with couples and individuals, and facilitates groups.

 

Her articles (as well as poems) have been published in "The Light Connection," "Vision Magazine," "Awareness Magazine," "San Diego Bride & Groom," "SpirialMuse," The Heart of a Woman," "The Heart of a Mother, The Heart of the Holidays and "The Heart of a Woman in Business" (anthologies compiled by Sheryl Roush), EzineArticles.com, and Selfgrowth.com. She received an Award of Excellence from Mo Bailey and Write4Good Communications for her article "Sexual Energy: Reality versus Illusion."

 

Contact Information:

For a free consultation to decide if this work is for you, you can reach Jane at: (760) 753-0733. Her websites are at www.janecohen.net and www.JaneCohenCounseling.com where you can find out more about her work and read testimonies from people who have experienced it.

 

Releasing Our Evolutionary Process

by Jane Ilene Cohen © 2006

You might ask, “Why should I care?  What does releasing my evolutionary process have to do with my actual life concerns?”

 

Answer:  “EVERYTHING.”  The problems we experience in life are caused by blocking this evolutionary process.  They are caused by obstructions we created on a deeply unconscious level that keep us stuck in old, dysfunctional, limiting patterns.  They not only prevent us from continually opening up into more and more of our magnificent potential, but block and distort our relationships, careers, health, ability to create abundance, and so on, depending on the areas that are blocked.  How we relate to this evolutionary process also has huge implications for the global dilemmas we find ourselves in, as we are dealing with how the ground we base our experience of reality on gets formed.

The work I’m describing is based on an understanding that human beings have the potential, in their inherent nature, to rapidly and continuously evolve. This evolutionary process naturally occurs in the context of interacting with truth.  One of the ways we access truth is by revealing and delving into our profound present-moment experience in relation to each other.  The evolutionary process is how human dilemmas are truly solved.  

  

THE PROBLEM:

 

Making limiting decisions is where the obstruction of the inherent evolutionary process begins.
At significant crossroads in early childhood, intense or overwhelming incidents occur that pull the ground out from our perception of reality.  This throws us into a state of chaos and confusion, and moves us out of our conscious mind, into a deeply unconscious trance state.  In this very malleable state, we have the choice of either making a "limiting decision" (such as "I'm stupid, unloveable, not valuable...") or expanding our experience of reality, and taking an evolutionary step forward.  We make a limiting decision when we decide on, and lock in, a meaning for what we just saw, heard and felt, limited by what we already think we know, formed on the basis of our past experience, and from the perspective of our current developmental stage. (We could, for example, be two years old when we make this life altering decision.)  Generally people make limiting decisions rather than expand their experience, unless they are very advanced souls and way ahead of their times. Limiting decisions are based on a limited or faulty understanding of how life works, resulting in deciding that it inherently doesn't work, and that there’s something basically and inherently wrong with us.  This is unbearably painful, and therefore we form defense systems that block and distort our present-moment experience of reality, in order to avoid the possibility of finding out the decision might be true.  This then inhibits the rapid evolutionary process inherent in interacting with truth.  

 

THE SOLUTIONS I OFFER:

 

The work I offer takes you back to the crossroads where the conscious and unconscious minds meet, where you originally formed the limiting decision.  It enables you to let go of that decision, and instead take an expanded evolutionary step forward, where you can experience that life does work.  This opens up great potential and brings you into a significantly more evolved place. Each time a limiting decision is cleared, more aspects of your life demonstrate that the nature of life is set up to work wonderfully well.

There are three aspects to the work I do, which facilitate opening up the evolutionary process:

1) The first and most important is the intuitive connection I have with a larger source of information, which first started opening up when I began my practice in 1995.  I access it by coming into the present moment, in whatever context I am in, fueled by a passionate desire for uncovering truth. This intuitive connection enables me get to the heart of the matter very quickly, and plays a crucial part in the second and third aspects of this work.  

2) The co-creative evolutionary process between those I work with and me:  The specific dilemmas individuals or couples find themselves in catalyze in me intuitive knowledge, often bringing in information that is helpful for more than just the specific people involved.  This process also brings to the surface what the most pivotal limiting decisions are, for the specific person, that need to be addressed. 

 

I don’t tell people what their lives should be like or what they should do.  Instead, I unearth and make explicit what the limiting decisions are that are distorting things, and then facilitate their clearing with TimeLine Therapy™.  When limiting decisions aren’t distorting and making reality opaque, experience realigns itself into whatever the solution inherently is. This opens people's lives up in ways they may never have thought possible.

3) TimeLine Therapy™: a powerful process, which facilitates rapid and fundamental life changes by clearing pivotal limiting decisions, usually one in each session.  It is done with individuals in private sessions, and is a crucial part of both the individual and couple work.  It also greatly accelerates the group work.  TimeLine Therapy™ is an NLP process, set up in a very particular way according to how the brain works.  (NLP is the study of the language of the brain; how we form our subjective experience and how that can be changed.)

 

How the individual, couple and group sessions work together in the evolutionary process:  Couple sessions, and Groups even more so, provide the context for revealing and delving into the present-moment experience of participants with each other, opening up the evolutionary potential.  But for this to be effective, participants must be able to come into present moment experience with each other.  A part of the group process is to bring to the surface the limiting decisions that prevent this from happening.  It is sometimes most effective to clear these in individual TimeLine Therapy™ sessions.  Each time a group participant returns to the next group, having cleared a limiting decision, they contribute to a higher level of transformational experience for the whole group.  Limiting decisions can also be profoundly shifted when group interaction recreates the original trigger that caused the limiting decision, and juxtaposes a more evolved experience.  The individual TimeLine Therapy™ sessions can be done in and of themselves for profound change work, apart from group or couple sessions.

HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE: 

 

I am an Intuitive & Transformational Counselor, certified as an NLP & TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, with a strong spiritual background, including A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, among other influences.  My practice is located in Encinitas, CA, where I am available for working with individuals and couples, as well as facilitating groups.

 

Current Group Available: The "Shifting into Your New Consciousness" group experience is for those who want to shift into a more empowered, Divinely-guided life.  This is a living teaching in the context of transformational group interaction and dialogue.  "This work is very powerful for those who value their true awakening." (John Kingsmill, Encinitas, CA) (See flier and more testimonies below.)

 

For more information, and a free phone consultation to see if you and this work are a match, you can reach me at (760) 753-0733.  You can also visit my web sites at www.janecohen.net and www.JaneCohenCounseling.com, where you can find out more about my work and read testimonies from people who have experienced it.

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The Transformative Role

of the Victim and the Dominator

By Jane Ilene Cohen © 2006

 

I believe we’re in the midst of one of the most important evolutionary shifts that is meant to occur here on earth, having to do with our understanding of where our source of safety and survival comes from.  In the non-physical soul level experience, perhaps it’s much easier to have a sense of the safety of the Divine Source, because there is no physical body that can be killed or hurt.  But it appears to be not enough to bask in the heart of God, and have the experience of the Divine Source -- as the source of our safety -- handed to us as a given.  To evolve to the place of really knowing this to be true, from what appears to be the opposite circumstance, causes a much deeper evolutionary process to occur.

 

In my TimeLine Therapy work with a woman recently, we were working with a core issue having to do with her being dominated by men, which we had been unable to clear. It finally came to her that the originating event occurred in a past lifetime in which she was a Jewish woman in a Nazi concentration camp, and that she had been blocking it because this event felt so terrifying and horrible to her.  

 

We would all agree that the Nazi persecution of the Jews was a horrific period in human history, and no one would choose to endure such a humiliating and devastating experience.  But, as I reassured my client, even the most painful, and apparently senseless, of our earthly experiences, have a deeper meaning on a soul level, and contain the seeds for extremely valuable transformation, potentially causing a deep shift of the reality ground we are standing on.  Particular “limiting decisions” (unhealed issues), such as in this woman's case, the decision that men are more powerful than women, sometimes follow a thread through lifetimes or generations.  And the scenarios they play themselves out in can vary from epic past life events like WWII Germany; to a present lifetime father abusing his daughter; or, on a less dramatic scale, a little boy dominating his younger sister. On a soul level, in each experience, there is always the opportunity to make an internal shift so that person won’t have to keep re-experiencing the same debilitating experiences over and over again.

 

My own issues of humiliation and self-hatred played itself out in my younger years by allowing myself to be dominated and humiliated in a spiritual community by the leader of the community.  The whole situation ended up to be highly therapeutic for me years later because I could see in retrospect, in very graphic terms, the nature of the unhealed issues I had brought with me to that situation. It reminds me of a movie on TV I saw a while back, which took place shortly after WWII, at a hotel in which a woman, who had been a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, was staying with her husband.  She was shocked to catch sight of the Nazi who had been her captor, and who was also staying at the hotel.  She had at first been able to avoid him, because she was with her husband.  But her husband had to leave on a business trip.  She had begged him not to leave, but hadn’t told him why, and so he left.  She quickly got sucked into putting herself under the man’s abusive and sadistic power, hiding under a table in his room, as if that was some protection, and then putting chains around herself and believing herself to be a prisoner again.  And there was a very intense and powerful psychological relationship between the Nazi man and this young woman.  It was clear in the movie that she was a prisoner of her own unhealed dynamics as this man had no real power over her in the present.  And she ended up dying with him as the movie played itself out.

 

The symbolic dominator and the symbolic victim, perhaps epitomized in the Nazi/Jew relationship, has been represented in many forms by people throughout the history of our earthly experience.  It’s a soul level opportunity to break the illusion that one human being can ever really dominate another.  In that kind of dysfunctional relationship the victim perceives the dominator, as the center of their world.  The humiliation lies in experiencing the dominator as in control of our safety and survival, because it is putting the dominator in the place of God.  The moment the victim moves that central focus to the real Source, the whole dynamic between them changes.  To make that level of shift is a profound evolutionary accomplishment.

In a related, mistaken dynamic in some parent/child relationships, the parent imposes their will on the child, not cognizant that both of them are equally in relationship with God.  And when the parent tries to make the child bend to his or her will instead of support the child in a mutual endeavor to understand and follow Divine truth, there will be a power-struggle between parent and child.  And the child will either rebel, or else give up their power and break themselves, thus contributing to the distorted societal perception that we are dependent on other human beings rather than a Divine Source. The world’s dilemmas are based on the idea that other people can dominate or control our survival and safety. We are holding in place the dysfunctional perception that our well-being is in the hands of the government, corporations, those who want to destroy the earth’s resources, the terrorists, etc., rather than a Divine Source. And we are making controlling other human beings the focus of our lives; rather than orienting our experience of reality around our relationship with the Divine Source, which is a far more real, empowered and transformative reality to live in.

About the Author:

Jane Ilene Cohen is an Intuitive and Transformational Counselor, teacher and visionary.  She certified as an NLP and TimeLine Therapy™ Master Practitioner, and comes from a strong spiritual foundation that includes A Course in Miracles and the Abraham-Hicks work, among other influences. Jane has a private practice in Encinitas, CA, where she works with couples and individuals, and facilitates groups.

Her articles (as well as poems) have been published in "The Light Connection," "Vision Magazine," "Awareness Magazine," "San Diego Bride & Groom," "SpirialMuse," Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of a Woman, Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of a Mother and Sparkle-tudes: The Heart of the Holidays (anthologies compiled by Sheryl Roush), EzineArticles.com, and Selfgrowth.com. She received an Award of Excellence from Mo Bailey and Write4Good Communications for her article "Sexual Energy: Reality versus Illusion."

Contact Information and Free Consultation:

For a free consultation to decide if this work is for you, you can reach Jane at: (760) 753-0733. Her website is at www.JaneCohenCounseling.com where you can find out more about her work and read testimonies from people who have experienced it.

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