Session III, part one: Projection
In daily life, it is indeed difficult to avoid taking things personally. So much seems to be aimed at us that, although we bob and weave, it’s often easy to worry about how others view us; or to feel assailed and thereby discounted; or to feel wounded.
Actually, this “it’s-all-about-me” version of the world involves a gross misunderstanding of how things really work. In fact, much of the time, people are far too concerned about what you think of them to be thinking at all about you. Also, that oh-so-personal assailing usually truly comes out of the assailant’s personal insecurity, while the wounding you experience mostly hinges on your own (damaged) self-view, therefore having nothing whatsoever to do with you.
In other words, your historical bruises are rendering you inappropriately hyper-vulnerable to every daily poke. Thus, it’s how you perceive what you receive that determines your experience.
But even the powerful defense of Projection can be modified in a way that allows you to take the power back! Change your perception and you change the way your life unfolds.
Protecting yourself by using other people as a screen for unconscious thoughts and feelings. Tall, beautiful Aimee strode rapidly into the crowd-filled room, her long, auburn curls bouncing behind her. She’d made the lecture just on time, so she was mostly intent on finding her place and getting settled. As she looked up she noticed a petite, elderly blond woman whispering into the closely held face of a dark, heavily browed man. To Aimee they appeared almost conspiratorial. They looked briefly at her again before continuing their behind-the-palms whispering.
Aimee felt a familiar pang inside. People often talked about her – pointing her out in a way that made her uncomfortable. Her first response was usually anger. How dare they! What had she done to them any way. “I’m certain they’re saying something terrible about me,” she thought. “What dismal people. Who are they to talk!”
In the course of the day (a workshop about defenses), Aimee mentioned her discomfort. Both the blond woman and her dark partner looked shocked. Indeed, they had been talking about her, but not in the way she’d imagined. In fact, they’d simultaneously been bowled over by Aimee’s beauty and were mentioning their shared admiration.
That’s Projection at its best. Aimee was not feeling particularly lovely that day. She was self-conscious and, in fact, (on a very deep level) self-loathing. Therefore, without even realizing it, she assumed the worst. She projected onto others the contempt she felt for herself. Then, while imagining their (supposed) spite against her, she felt anger towards them and, at the same time, bitter self-consciousness towards herself.
This is a common procedure. Our self-loathing (or whatever feeling about self consumes us) gets splashed out onto the screen called other. When that happens, those around us become unattractive, irrelevant, aggravating, etc.
No matter how you look at Projection – whether it’s the way you think of and feel about yourself as it appears to you in the eyes of others, or the way you think of others ricocheting back to seem like the way they think of and feel about you. Projection is misdirection.
How Could Aimee Have Seen A Different Movie?
The very first step is to accept. Understand that the phenomenon called Projection is a real part of the way you yourself operate. Now:
This procedure can be confronting and therefore quite enough to start. Of course, there’s always the idea of asking others what they’re really thinking! In fact, that’s what brave Aimee did by bringing up her concerns in the workshop. She found out the truth about their admiration. You may think this could only work in a seminar type atmosphere but I guarantee this is not true. Sometimes you’ll get answers you don’t like and other times you’ll be delightedly surprised. Soon you’ll be able to distinguish between your projections and truth.
But as the old saying goes: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not being followed! Many times we are both in projection and correct about others. The part about others is helpful when discernment is required. However, staying focused on what we think and feel about ourselves and about other people is the key to successful self-change.
By the way, negative ideas are not the only things we project. It’s also the grand ideas - that we’re powerful, or beautiful, or smart, or glorious. we direct those onto others too, instead of accepting them in ourselves.
Aimee, for instance, might have (rightly) assumed that the whispering duo were speaking favorably about her if she hadn’t spent so much of her life ignoring her own good points, instead out-projecting those points onto those she met. In those instances, she saw them as ALL good. The worst part of this kind of assumption is that it describes no one! Each of us is a compilation of many elements – some usually deemed desirable and other elements apparently less so. Therefore, when you assume someone to be a wonderful person, you are destined to be disappointed when they show up lacking, faltering, incapable or in any other way human. This kind of familiar disappointment only served to confirm Aimee’s worst ideas about the untrustworthy nature of the world.
We have only scratched the surface of this complicated, far-reaching defense. For more information see pages 115-121 in Stuck In The Story No More, or pages 18, 97-98, and 149 in The Stuck No More Workbook.
A Closer Look
Make a list of all the ideas you have about who you are (i.e. I’m a good person, I’m stupid, I’m sloppy but talented). Don’t think too much when making the list. Let the words flow.
Now make a list of the things you tend to notice first about others (i.e. she’s fat, he’s rich, she’s so critical). Again, don’t think too much and above all, try not to judge what you write. Notice where the two lists conjoin and where they do not. Now take the big plunge by writing about how the unrecognizable characteristics you see in others (whether you deem them good or bad) might possibly operate inside you.
Session III, part two: Projection
By now you have begun to discover the pervasive nature of this Projection defense. You can see how others use it (against you and against themselves) and hopefully you’re starting to catch yourself in the act. The work is to tell the whole truth about yourself and then eventually, come to the point where you can authentically celebrate that truth. This positions you to become the greatest possible version of who and what you can be!
For years Peter had kept his deep love of writing to himself. He’d always written, even as a young boy – poems, short stories and pithy diary entries, but never, ever had he shared his work. His reasons were sound, he felt. He believed the writing to be immature, sophomoric and of no importance. He was certain that if it ever did come out, he’d be rudely ridiculed. Anyway, who’d be interested in what he had to say?!
But writing wasn’t Peter’s only secret. In fact, most of what he thought and felt about everything stayed hidden. After all, he’d think, no one ever listens to me anyway. Peter had learned this early on in his chaotic, fatherless home where a critical, cold mother reigned supreme. Outwardly, though, Peter looked reasonable and even fairly jovial.
However, inside the place of secrets, this man was seething with resentment and sadness.
One day, during a group process session, I gave spontaneous poem writing as an assignment. In a hugely brave moment, Peter chose to share. Generally, as leader, my intention under those circumstances is to let the power of the piece hold focus – therefore my response is most often minimal. As Peter finished his reading the group was intensely silent. The work, both moving and impressive, hung in the air like a humming bird. The group response was palpable. I placed my hand to my heart and said something simple like “Wow! Thank you, Peter,” and moved on. Others read and all were greeted with equal brevity. Only a few asked to repeat their readings because they had not voiced them fully.
Two hours passed. Meanwhile, Peter was getting darker and darker. Finally, we turned to him. “What’s going on Peter? You’re seeming suddenly sullen.” Right away he exploded furiously, “I just feel completely ridiculed and dismissed. It was really hard for me to read my poem and you practically ignored me.” The group was shocked, as was I, for each of us was aware of the feeling depth of our own responses to the writing and were certain that in tone, manner and visage we had communicated that feeling. What ensued was a long, tumultuous dialogue about what Peter had experienced versus what everyone else in the room had witnessed.
In the end, Peter had to come to realize that he was in total projection. We had all disappeared from view and were replaced by his scolding, critical, icy mother. He had really neither seen nor felt any of US – only her - humiliating and dismissing him. So real did his perspective feel, that Peter spent a good half hour arguing the rightness of his dismal viewpoint. Finally, he was able to push the ghost of mother out of the room long enough to acknowledge our true response.
Peter could have saved himself several hours (or years!) of pain by recognizing right away how extreme his own reaction was to the (perceived) poem reading response.
· The key always is to notice the volume of your reactions. The bigger the reaction, the older the material inspiring that reaction.
· Try a whole new behavioral tact. When you feel rejected first consider that you are the one doing the rejecting. Peter would have done this by thinking: I’m the one who’s afraid my writing is worthy of ridicule. I’m the one most likely to dismiss my own worth.
· Next time you want to get silent, leave, shut down or hide out from a situation or person, do precisely the opposite. Peter, for example, might have said: I’m feeling self-conscious right now and need to know what exactly everyone here thought of my work.
· Look at the ways you might be rejecting or judging others: These people don’t know anything; They’re a waste of time.
· This suggested behavior is extremely challenging and may give rise to all kinds of resultant feelings. Write those feelings down.
Workbook. For more information on the defense of Projection see pages 11-121 in Stuck In The Story No More, or pages 18, 97-98, and 149 in The Stuck No More Workbook.
Even telling ourselves the whole truth about who we are and how we think can be unnerving, but mostly, our fear is based on the idea that if we allow others to see us as we truly are, they’ll be disgusted, disappointed or even appalled. Who first taught you to focus on what other people think? What do you imagine would happen if people saw the “whole” you?
It turns out that freedom from the defense of Projection gives you a great deal of extra time and energy. How would you most like to use your newfound energetic resources and extra time?