Seeing the World as You Are

In this episode of ‘Pearls of Wisdom’, I explore projection!

We often believe we are seeing people and situations exactly as they are. 

But I explore the idea that we are actually seeing them through the filter of our own beliefs, experiences, emotions, and conditioning

Projection is a natural part of being human. 

We project not only our fears and unresolved pain, but also our hopes, ideals, and expectations, but we sometimes  we see the worst in people and sometimes we see only the best. 

In both cases, our own inner world is shaping what we perceive!

This episode explores:

• What projection really is and why we all do it
• How unprocessed pain can be projected onto others
• Why positive projections can be just as misleading as negative ones
• The relationship between projection, reactivity, and awareness
• Using inquiry to question the stories we believe
• How presence and stillness help us see more clearly

Drawing on practical wisdom, personal reflection, and the work of Byron Katie, I explore how questioning our projections can become a profound path to freedom!

The clearer we become within ourselves, the more clearly we begin to see the world around us.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Feeling that they're seeing the world as it is, but actually the world is as we are. So by distracting from staying with our emotional pain, then we can often be living in a world of illusion. Pearls of wisdom to take on. Welcome to another episode of Pearls of Wisdom. Today I am going to talk about projection. And essentially, that is exploring the world we think we see. Because we can experience the same situation as someone else, the same event, the same person, and we'll see it differently, completely differently. We can have a group of people all in a circle, and they will see what someone's saying differently, hear it differently, respond differently, and so why is that? And essentially that's because projection is about putting our feelings, our beliefs, our wounds, our expectations onto something outside ourselves. And essentially, everything, the whole um universe experience, as I've said in another podcast, so within, so without, as above, as below, so the as the universe, so the soul. Essentially, everything outside ourselves is us projected out. But of course, if we're seeing it as something separate to ourselves, then we're unaware that we're projecting ourselves out onto a situation. So we will perceive that that person is angry or upset or doesn't like us or is is angry with us, doesn't respect us, all these things. And actually, that is often, I mean, clearly, the clearer we get, the more we're seeing things, but actually that is us projected on to that situation. And people are often very, very uncomfortable with emotional pain. It's a difficult one, and of course, and my observation and my orientation, I feel that the route to freedom is to actually feel our pain and heal it that way. If we feel it, we can heal it, we can clear it if we feel it, and stay with it and go on an inner journey to investigate the feelings, the wounds, all the things that are within us, uh, so that we then are aware that you know when the world is not necessarily something outside ourselves that people are feeling that they're seeing the world as it is, but actually the world is as we are. So by distracting from staying with our emotional pain, then we can often be living in a world of um illusion. We are living in a world of illusion. So often with emotional pain, what can happen is that people don't want to feel it, it's uncomfortable, and so they'll distract from it. And they'll distract from it by staying busy, um listening to things, engaging with things, keeping away from actually going within to their own their own inner landscape. Often they'll overwork, they'll over-socialize, they'll seek stimulation everywhere they can so that they won't have to feel discomfort or sadness or distress or anger or all sorts of unresolved pains that may have built up over the years. And sometimes people will take recreational drugs or pharmaceutical drugs or alcohol, all manner of things just to push the pain down. They can just push it down, put it in a box. That's often a method that people have used. Put it away, lock it away, don't process it. Or people project it outward, and that's often what projection is. I rather than you know, kind of going, I'm hurt, I'm feeling hurt, and needing to investigate that feeling, or I have you know anger arising in me, or disappointment, or any of the feelings that, as a human journey, we might have, rather than going in to process it and investigate it, as we live in relationship, we live in engaged with one another, it's often a um you know pushed out so that people go, you made me feel like that, you did this, and that can be anything from an individual person in front of you, you made me feel this way, to the weather, to global situations, to all manner of things. They'll project it outward. So, you made me feel this way. Whereas we can go, if we go from the position that nothing can actually make us feel anything, then we're more willing to go inward and go, but I am feeling hurt, and it was triggered by this situation, by this person, but it's actually an arrow into something within me to investigate, and also projections not always negative, even though it still can be an illusion. So people project outwards to. I mean, when I say it's not always negative, I think it's always if it's a projection, it's not a true journey within, so it's not going to give you freedom in the way inner clearing does, but people will per per, you know, think people are perfect, so they'll project, are they perfect, they're lovely, or they could never do that. So again, it's an illusionary projection, and that can come again from something within the person that they don't want to look at anything within themselves, or they don't feel they don't feel good, so they project that everybody else is okay, not them, so they'll project that everybody else is succeeding, confident, okay, and they're not. So it's still a projection. So if we instead, as in my other podcast, we've investigated the world as a mirror, then we can inquire what it's to do with us rather than living in a painful place, and it is painful to be projecting, it's painful to not be processing our pain, and it's painful to be projecting our pain outward because it creates tension, because if it's disempowering, because we're looking out of the world going, that's that's made me feel this, that person's okay, that person's not okay, that person's made me angry, that person's you know doing the wrong thing, or the situations, as I say, from anything from you know, group, corporate, the work environment we're in, to global situations that it's common for people to go, my boss is making me unhappy, my colleagues are, and all of this is ultimately disempowering. Because if we start to see the world as a mirror, then we can start to inquire, and then our life becomes a state of inquiry, personal inner journeying, and recognizing that everything is an opportunity to tell us something about ourselves. So if we are unhappy with a colleague or a you know a situation at work or in our relationship with our partner or our friend, endless, endless conversations go on about that person, that person, that person. But of course, all it does is dig you deeper into a hole. It doesn't actually resolve things because when we inquire into ourselves, of course, when we inquire into ourself and we investigate what that could be within ourselves, things can change because if we start to recognise a pattern, so it can be from patterns from childhood, wounding from childhood, you know, where we've not felt heard or seen or understood, all of those things, if we can start to heal at that level and see the mirror out in the world and see we're projecting that unresolved pain, and we actually start to heal that by you know recognizing it, talking about it, seeking some help for it, doing some clearing work so that we are have more clarity, of course. What can happen is we then might want to leave the situations we're in, and that of course often is a very um you know frightening thing for people because even if they're uncomfortable in situations, they're often familiar, but it is the opportunity. So seeing the world as a mirror, if something outside us we start to project onto it, and we start to project that thing's made us feel this, that person's done that, so we're unhappy. If we start to go, okay, let's inquire, what's this about myself? That's quite a difficult journey. I do understand this. It's a very short podcast to just invite you into that, but it is at least starts to loosen up the because there's nothing can be done. If we say that person's done that, that person's done something wrong, that person's hurt me, that person's ultimately that is limiting and debilitating. It if we start to inquire what's it about ourselves, it doesn't mean we've done something wrong, it could be that it's a pattern that we're available for this, or we do our part that creates this pattern, that we do a certain thing, and that means that that the person responds in a certain way, so it's our pattern and we can make a difference, and then we'll do something different, and then of course the person does something different in the same way of if we're in a conversation with somebody and we're facing each other and we're chatting away. If the person one person gets up and moves around to the side or to the back of the other person, but you want to continue, the person wants to continue the conversation with you, they need to turn around to have the conversation. So therefore, you change the people change around you. However, if they don't, you walk off into the distance. So we do have to think, you know, really think about our own inner journey, our own inner journeying, what direction am I going in? Where do I need to go? And often the as the inner journey leads to our uh outer journey, and it's got to be where am I going, and then see who's coming with you rather than standing still going, who's coming, who's coming, who's coming, because that can limit us and keep us in uh yeah, keep us stuck. Um Baron Katie um has a has a lovely thing that I've used often with my clients, and she calls it the work, and she will say, identify the thought. So if we're saying they don't respect me, then we ask these questions first. Is it true? Is it true? Well, we don't really know, do we, if they respect you or not? We're making it up. I always say to my clients, well, we're making it up, and we might make it up accurately, but until we absolutely know something, we are making it up. So then the next question is can I absolutely know that's true? So we've said we've seen something, we feel somebody doesn't respect us, they will just use that. Well, can you absolutely know that? And then come to who would I be without that thought? What's what do I feel without that thought at all? So you take the thought away completely, and then there's space and freedom actually, and then you turn it around and say, could could I not respect them? Could it be me? Could I be not respecting them? Which again, you go through it again. Well, is that true? Well, you don't you absolutely know? Um, what would you be like without that thought? So that frees you up. So that's a really good process, and I can you know really encourage you to do that. If you've got an absolute, they don't like me, they don't respect me, they feel this about me, just ask, you know, you know, is that true? Can I absolutely know it's true? Who who am I without that thought? What do I feel without that thought? And then turn it around. You know, could it be true of me? Do I not respect them? Do I not like them? So really and truly, if we live in in inquiry, we do start to free up our our life, we free up tension because it creates a lot of tension if we're going around projecting our pain or projecting everything, our beliefs, our expectations, we'll often limit ourselves hugely if we have we have a way we think people need to behave. It can cause such pain when we project out that that person needs to behave that way to show us certain things. And so if we live in inquiry instead and start to go, what's this to do with me? Because most people do believe their projections. I think I I hear it in the streets or when I'm running, I'll run past conversations or just hear a conversation near me in a cafe, and generally it's quite common that people are going, she, this, she, that, he, that, he, that, and they're talking about other people and often uh not happily, not not feeling good about what's going on, and there's lots of chat going on that's quite can be quite negative about other people and what they've done and what they should do and shouldn't do, and um, and therefore it indicates people are believing their projections. So instead, you know what if you became curious? What if you became curious and started to go, okay, I'm going to investigate living in inquiry? Why not? Because there is such an assumption, there's assumptions so much of the time, people are just making assumptions, making assumptions. Whereas if instead you became curious and thought, what's this to do with me? What's this to do with me? What's this to do with me? And you became curious, and you weren't again being hard on yourself, but just get curious where where did I first have this thought? Have I had this thought before? Have I felt this feeling before? Have I projected this idea onto people before? Is this something I had happen when I was young? Is this something from school? Is it from a real smaller child? Just get interested, get curious, because instead of assumption, we have freedom. And it's such a such a massive um, you know, it just expands life. I suppose to some degree it's worth recognizing we're always projecting to some degree. Yeah, we are, it's ourselves, it's us, our inner self is broadcasting, is pushed out, we're broadcasting out to the world, can't not be. It's just we're human, that's what's going on. And we have our we all have our history, we come from our the culture we're in, set of beliefs, all our conditioning, all the emotions we have. Now, the more curious we get, and the more we're interested, then we're aware of our projections. So at least if we're aware, so we'll be looking across and seeing a situation, and we can get interested in it and curious and fascinated because you know you know, humans are we're fascinating, I think. We're we're you know, we're all living these lives and we're all connected, and we're all we're all here having this experience, and how incredible! And we've we're all connected. So actually, if we're interested, then if we assume to an extent, we make an assumption we're projecting, then we can loosen up our assumptions, and we can be aware of our projections, which does create freedom too. So by being curious and aware, completely changes things. Also, I have to come back as always to the reactivity because if we're reacting, if we're having a reaction going on in the body that we're feeling um anything extreme, so if we're feeling very cross, very upset, very um jealous, very bad about ourselves, not good enough, or we're feeling overly excited, they're they're kind of a distortion, and therefore they are for clearing. So we need to, if we have a reaction to something, recognize that we're in the past, that it's an arrow to something in our past, that we can be up to 90% coming from a past experience, a past wound that could have happened way back when we it can be one thing where we didn't get enough attention. We're in a family with lots of things going on, children, mother being busy with other children, father doing something else, or whatever situation we grew up in, not necessarily a mother-father situation, but whatever situation where our caregiver didn't have the time at that particular moment when we needed them, and we can internalize we're not important, and it can be a one-off, but then we'll start to see it everywhere because projection starts very, very early. We immediately so then the whole thing builds up, so then we are always you know feeling we'll have somebody will do a slight look and we can immediately feel not important, but then we'll do a thing, we'll go and retreat, and so it plays out. So if we react, press pause, take a big deep breath, come into the moment again, come back into the body, the body can only be here and now. Come back into presence, find the space at the bottom of the breath when you breathe out before you breathe in. Let that feeling go, let that thought go, stop that narrative. I am where I am, it's okay. Clear the reaction, clear the reaction. Because if you keep doing that and you make that a practice, then you're back to presence. Presence clears the lens of what we're seeing through, and so therefore, even using the breath as a practice every day, coming back to the breath, coming back to presence, coming back to no thought, coming to back to where we are. Presence clears the lens, come back to stillness, stillness, find that still point in the breath, stillness clears the when lens, and also then awareness, aware that we can be projecting, aware of our sense of essence, ourself, and then we become clearer and clearer within. So the more clear we are within, the more clearly we see without because every single, and also if we go with every single projection, is an opp yeah, it's an opportunity, it's an opportunity to know ourselves more. So we can go from judgment, and projection often carries with it a lot of judgment, we can go from judgment to learning more about ourselves, having more clarity, clearer within, and then we see more clearly without.