Projection

Projection is a clever mechanism your subconscious mind uses to make your partner responsible for your old wounds. It's like creating a movie and forgetting that you're the director and the camera person. It really looks like it's all about your partner.


     Katie and Gay Hendricks





The path to demystifying our troubling experiences in life is often clouded with many misguided interpretations. The challenges we face often seem so formidable that we try to solve them by leaping to what feels like a clear and easy explanation. To put it in contemporary advertising terms:  "Mikey did it."

And, yes, it is strangely comforting to always pin whatever is plaguing us on "the other guy".  It takes the spotlight off of us.  WE don't have to change.  Someone else needs to.  And, in doing this, we lapse into the default victim role. And it is completely ineffective in bringing any change into our lives because that "other guy" who is "playing the heavy" is only cuing up the subconscious part of us which has been brooding about some deep, unhealed hurt.  And, now, "the other guy" has brought that pain into the bright light of day.  He has partnered with us as an instrument of healing.  And, although he may appear to be our worst nightmare, he may emerge as our greatest gift in helping us move through the chaos...that is, if we can recognize his role in our process of healing.

And the very fact that he is appearing in this scenario is testimony to the fact that that the
Divine Universe feels we are ready to deal.

The appropriate response from us for this heroic act is
"Thank You".  Not one that immediately (or easily) comes to mind. But gratitude and appreciation are truly called for because thanks to the actions of "the other guy", we are now in the undeniable presence of something that is blocking our happiness. And it doesn't have to do with the other guy. He is just the messenger.    The MESSAGE is:  Still here.  Still carrying the pain.  Still waiting for grace and resolution. 



So what are we to do other than blaming "the other guy"?  We step up and deal. Though it may appear to be so, THIS scenario is not about what "the other guy" is doing. THIS is about how we react to it and, if we are feeling a HEAVY reaction, it is because we have hit a hotspot.  And that is where our attention needs to go.


If "the other guy" is having a MOMENT and it makes us very uncomfortable, then we need to own that feeling.  We need to hold space for the knowing of "the other guy's" stuff and, especially, our stuff:  noticing it, witnessing it...but not reacting to it.  And we need to calmly say, for example, something like this..."This is not working for me.  I can see that I have some heavy emotion around this issue and I want to deal with it before we work on understanding each other.

THIS disturbing, confounding experience involving "the other guy" is all about you and FOR you.  It's a gift from the Divine Universe who deems you ready for an "unfolding".  And, if you interrupt the unfolding, and make it about the "other guy", you lose your chance to take in the special meaning.  If your ego tries to influence the flow to move in your direction, you miss what is being presented to you.

The complex and intricate evolution of your life has just taken center stage.  And your body knows it.  There is no hiding from the experience.

What will your next move be? 

Will you push the chaotic emotional energy of the episode back down into your psyche, condemning it to unending replays each time the hot button is ignited? 
Will you be angry and resentful that you need to go through this storm?
Will you take out your anger on anyone close by?

Or,

Will you bravely acknowledge the soul's wisdom in unearthing this buried pain, thank it for protecting you by storing your pain from an experience you were previously not prepared to deal with, let yourself grieve whatever loss you may have sustained and offer yourself love and compassion during these cleansing and restorative moments?

If we do not own our own experiences but, instead,  project and portray them as someone else's issue, we remain perpetually stuck in this dark night of the soul.  But freedom is not that far away.  And, if we courageously claim our pain and our involvement in the melee, this very act EMPOWERS us to see with compassion a truth we had not previously recognized about ourselves...a truth that is ready to reveal itself and waits only for our loving attention.



                                                                          Marie Helena

image from www.zazzle.co.uk