Projections are fun to play with, as they reveal deeper insight into oneself.
As a being having a unique human experience, we project all the time. The way we perceive our reality is inherently a projection of our inner world, what we hold within. In this manner, external people, circumstances, and situations are naturally blank canvases that our mind (the projector) uses to view itself and resolve its unconscious material.
Since we exist in a world of duality, projections can be viewed as having a positive or negative valence. Positive projections are the qualities that we admire in others, which point to the same qualities that we hold within ourselves.
The basic premise of projection work is that we can’t spot something in someone or something else unless we possess the same within ourselves. Thus, the people we pedestalize or are inspired by are merely showing us our untapped potential. For instance, if you are enthralled by a celebrity who possesses charisma, you are peering into a mirror that shows you the undeveloped quality of charisma within yourself. The fact that you can spot a quality in another, shows that you possess the seed of potentiality of the same quality within yourself.
People who we are inspired by point to our potential, or our future self, while people we envy point to qualities or aspects of self we wish to be more developed, but have a limiting belief around. For example, if we are simultaneously inspired by and envious of rich people, we can understand that there is an aspect of ourselves that desires wealth and has the potential to be wealthy, yet there is a limiting belief we adopted at some point (likely from our upbringing) that people like ‘us’ (whatever the self-labeling may be) can’t be wealthy.
While positive projections indicate our untapped potential, projections of a negative valence indicate our shadow, the disowned aspects of ourselves or the qualities we have judgment around. As someone trained in shadow work, I am familiar with the masks that we often wear to fulfill our needs and be seen as worthy or some other desirable quality. These masks are inherently coping strategies. For instance, people-pleasing is a mask that can be used to be perceived as ‘helpful’ while subtly masking a fear of rejection or abandonment. As another example, being overly talkative can be used as a mask to appear ‘friendly’ while subtly masking a fear of vulnerability and intimacy. When we open to deeper self-inquiry, we are able to perceive the underlying needs of these masks or coping strategies.
Moreover, whenever we judge a quality in someone else, we are judging the life force or the existence of that quality within ourselves. Once again, we cannot perceive in another what we have not accessed within ourselves first. Thus, all judgment is essentially self-judgment or self-limitation. For instance, if we judge someone as being easily conforming, it is likely that we have disowned the part of us that conforms in favor of non-conformity. In other words, our pendulum has swung to the polar extreme of non-conformity where we can no longer tolerate any part of us that conforms. Thus, when we spot conformity in another, our inner self-judgment gets projected outward.
As another example, when a woman negatively evaluates another woman for being promiscuous, it is likely that she has not embraced her own sense of sensuality and is projecting her disowned shadow onto her.
When we integrate our shadows, we no longer have judgment around our disowned aspects, and we are able to hold a neutral stance with regard to those qualities, because we understand that everything exists on a spectrum and we are accepting, comfortable, and conscious of our personal choice on that spectrum.
The remedy for judgment is acceptance, or more specifically, self-acceptance. When we understand that we are one with life itself, we understand that we are everyone and everything projected outward. Thus, anything that makes us uncomfortable on the outside, is an invitation to go within and exercise greater self-compassion and self-acceptance.
Projection work is incredibly enlightening and freeing to experiment with in our daily lived experience.
That next person you’ll talk to – what does your perception of them reveal about you?
