Why Projecting is the Best Tool for Self Awareness

Image by Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay 

When someone asked me whether I was aware that I projected a lot, I had to pause for a minute and think about it. Projecting seems to me one of those modern words that gets banded around a lot by kids who have been in therapy.

The truth is that I project all the time, as I would guess most of us do given we see the world through our own unique cocktail of heritage and experience (this is also a projection, which I could validate by citing various studies and renowned experts, but I won’t as I’m only throwing it in to highlight how pervasive projecting is). When I hear about something happening in our world, I project myself into it and conclude how I would feel about it. 

Just this morning my daughter was telling me about a class treaty she and her classmates have been working on; and today are signing. In New Zealand our kids are taught about the Treaty of Waitangi, said to be the founding document of New Zealand. It was an agreement signed in Maori and English one hundred and eighty years ago between five hundred and forty-ish Maori chiefs and the British Crown.

As my daughter was explaining the class treaty, it did in fact seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to its namesake. Like the original treaty, it sounded rather like it had been written with an agenda (in this case about behaviour and compliance to school rules) and, like many of the Maori chiefs of the time, it sounded as though my daughter intends to sign it despite feeling uncertain about her commitment to it.

Now the feelings this evoked in me were pure projection. If I put myself in her shoes, I would be that kid refusing to sign. I am a person who commits to principles, not rules. So I was totally fine with things like “respecting one another and property”, I was not fine with things like “not swinging on school chairs”.

In fact, that particular rule sent me spiralling into a rant about modern education in general, sarcastically restating the rule as “we promise to act like robots and sit still in our chairs and be talked at for hours instead of acting like normal human kids whose bodies want to move and learn through experiencing life”.

This, of course, is classic projection. In short, I am not my daughter; I am not going to class today and having to decide whether to sign this treaty. While I can share my views, it is really up to her to find her way around these issues. In fact, it is exactly this kind of experience that will help her figure out what her own truth is and – in the fullness of time – the best way for her to communicate her own boundaries and opinions.

If I project onto her my truth and actions, and try to make her feel she needs to align with me, then I am no better than the treaty. And, indeed, sometime in the future when she sits in therapy unwrapping all these beautiful (double-edged) gifts we parents often unintentionally give our kids, it would be just another thing that would help eventually call her to her own truth.

In this case I decided the gift didn’t need double wrapped and encouraged her to do whatever she felt was the best thing for her at this moment.

Projecting comes up so often that, as I became aware of it on my journey to me, I realised it’s my predominant mode of thinking. It is so insidious that it shows up in (what would at first appear to be) relatively minor ways. If I look at these minor things in a broader context, they also are pointing to some deep lessons in awareness.

Again, I have to look no further than this morning to give you an example. As I was driving the kids to school, we came to the usual busy junction we have to navigate. The junction opens up wide enough to allow two cars to use it simultaneously, one going right, and the other left. In a country that drives on the left hand side, it’s always the right hand turns that are trickiest as you have to cross the right lane to get to the left lane.

The issue with this particular junction, is that by pulling over to the right, to allow others to turn left, they completely block my view of that direction and I have to wait until it’s clear again. In short, I have learned that in order to get out the junction efficiently its best to keep to the middle of the lane and allow everyone to take their turn on a first come first served basis.

This causes me a tremendous amount of anxiety as I want to be seen to being considerate of others. I sit at that junction in the middle of the lane glancing in my rear-view mirror watching for cars coming up behind me who want to turn left, hoping no one will. When they do, or even when I’m just hoping they won’t, I start this line of defence in my head, ready to defend my position just as if I’m imagining the person behind will start tooting their horn or jump out their vehicle to approach me.

This is, of course, because I did have to defend myself in the face of angry onslaughts often as a child. It’s also because being considerate meant putting other people before me in the household I grew up in. Consequently I have people pleasing issues and, while I thankfully seem to have an inner voice that often refuses to put others’ needs before my own, I often carry a tremendous amount of anger and guilt in asserting my needs.

I vividly recall previous times waiting at that junction for extended periods, while thinking I was being good and considerate by pulling over to the right to allow others to turn left ahead of me, only to get frustrated and feel indignant at being held up longer. The feelings attached to those memories fuel my line of defence further; it really is an amazing cacophony of tales woven together.

Now I know this is all a subjective experience that stems from this inner voice that wants me to look good and just to the outside world. And I completely understand it in the context of my upbringing, but I recognise that awareness alone is not going to change that feeling of anxiety. I have to change the voice in my head by changing the emotional signature of those events in my childhood that first created that voice. To do this I’ll probably use the process I outlined in How to Heal the Past so You Can Live Your Best Present.

However, this week, what I’ve been focused on is really flushing out the main taproots of my discord. I used a process Teal Swan recommended, and here are the points I considered:

• What things in others really trigger me? By others, I focused on my partner, kids and parents as those are the relationships that are close up and personal and I generally can’t escape from. I then listed each annoying thing down the left hand side of a sheet of paper. Examples included (unsurprisingly) traits like being inconsiderate, emotionally unavailable, messy and controlling.
• What positive intention could be behind each of these people adopting these traits? When I considered it, I could see the intention would have been some version of those people trying not to get hurt or rejected within their families, they were simply trying to fit into their environment as kids. There traits are a mirror of what I’ve rejected/disowned in myself. What are the opposite of these traits? I could easily see that if those people had adopted those opposite qualities they would have been consumed by their environment; it was therefore dangerous for them to do so.
• Then I created two columns alongside the traits I had listed as triggers for me: the first headed I am very much like that, and the other is headed I am never like that (to the extent it’s unhealthy). These are basically the only two options, to understand why it’s worth reading the article/watching the video on it.
• Note that this particular part of the process is where the rubber meets the road as I had to be self aware enough to own one of those two options. It reminded me of an Annette Noontil quote that has long since stuck with me “what I see in others I have in myself”; this is the crux of self awareness.
• For those traits I am very much like, I considered why was it dangerous for me to be the opposite? For those traits I am never like, I considered why was it not okay for me to be those? In both cases I decided I'd have either been swallowed whole or chewed up and spat out if I’d have been things like messy, unresponsive or inconsiderate.

I then repeated the whole exercise focusing on traits I admire/love in those other people, and finally asked myself whether there was anything I might have missed by just focusing on my nearest and dearest, I couldn’t think of anything negative, but I did add to my positives being open-hearted and light-hearted.

At first I was surprised to discover I struggled to come up with examples of people who exhibited these two qualities, but I guess it makes sense in a world that is still very much evolving into conscious awareness. These patterns I am discovering in myself have been playing out unconsciously for generations.

As we each use our projections as a tool to become more self aware, rather than using them as a way to blame others and avoid self awareness, I imagine it will become easier and easier to find examples of open-hearted and light-hearted people and that is a world that I look forward to living in.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Heal the Past so You Can Live Your Best Present, Do You Need to Heal Your Boundaries?, How Relaxed About Your Own Differences Are You? and Take Your Broken Pieces and Make a Beautiful Life. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.