Projection: When It's Not About You

Ever been confused by someone’s reaction to you?
That discomfort might not be about you at all.

In this episode, we dive into:

• What projection really is (and how to spot it)
• Subtle ways it shows up (e.g., "must be nice" comments or unfair assumptions)
• Why we often absorb others' projections as truth
• The cost of shrinking ourselves to keep others comfortable
• How to use the Three R’s Framework from The Reset Button:
  • Reflect: Notice what’s really happening
  • Reset: Respond with intention
  • Reinvent: Choose a new way forward
• A personal story: how I projected my childhood birthday trauma onto my son's party
• The power of learning to “observe, not absorb”

Takeaway:
Understanding projection helps you stay grounded, protect your energy, and stop carrying what’s not yours.

 📩 Share with someone who needs the reminder: sometimes, it’s not about them

Chapters

• 0:58 Welcome to The Projection Talk
• 2:08 What Is Projection?
• 4:43 Keeping Your Side Clean
• 6:22 The Three R's Framework
• 10:08 Personal Birthday Party Story
• 12:39 Observe Don't Absorb
• 14:09 Episode Closing and Connect

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show. I'm your host, cameo, and today I want to talk about something that we all experience from time to time, especially when we're doing the hard work of growing, healing, stepping into something new, aspiring toward big goals. Have you ever had someone react to you in a way that just didn't make sense? They get distant or defensive or critical, and then that leaves you questioning everything. Did I say something wrong? Should I have done that differently? It comes with self-awareness, sure. However, it also makes you start to shrink and second guess yourself and replay the whole thing in your head a million times, trying to figure out what happened. But here's what I want to offer you today. It's not always about you, even when it feels like it definitely is, and sometimes it is about you, just not in the way that you think.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Today's episode is all about projection. People cope by projecting. So let's break it down. What is projection?

Speaker 1: 1:49

Projection is when someone takes their internal struggle, their shame, their fear, their insecurity, their upbringing, their past experiences and puts it on to someone else. We all walk around with our own hurt right, our own stories, our own stuff, and most of us are just coping the best way we know how to. So often it's unintentional that someone's projecting onto you. They're offloading their discomfort without facing it directly. Sometimes it might sound like oh, must be nice, must be nice to have time to go to the gym. I guess it doesn't have to come with all of that attitude. So sometimes it might sound like this it must be nice to go to the gym. I guess it doesn't have to come with all of that attitude. So sometimes it might sound like this it must be nice to go to the gym and have time to do that. That sounded a little less full of attitude. Same idea, though right. It makes you on the receiving end of that feel like oh, how am I supposed to respond to that and why are you saying it like that? Either tone, right. It also might sound like you think you know better than everyone, or I see all of your exciting stuff that you're doing on social media and what's underneath. That is, usually I feel like I'm not doing exciting stuff. I feel behind, or I don't feel good in my body, or I can't find time to prioritize myself and if I can, I don't feel confident in doing so.

Speaker 1: 3:25

The truth is it takes real courage to face those things because we're triggered by someone else's success If it makes us feel our own self-doubt. We often might feel like someone's being cold, if they are maybe just overwhelmed, or we might be offended by a boundary because it pokes at some wound that we haven't worked on yet. That's the person projecting onto you, or when you find yourself projecting onto others. We're handing each other our own pain without really realizing it. This matters, because if we don't name projection for what it is, then we absorb it and then we shrink and that goes back to, you know, feeling like Whoa, what did I do? So, instead of making other people uncomfortable, we kind of hide, hide who we really are. To keep the peace, we apologize for things that aren't ours to apologize for. We tiptoe and feel like we have to walk on eggshells as to not upset someone.

Speaker 1: 4:32

There's this phrase that I love. It's about keeping your side of the street clean, and I mentioned it in my book. For those of you who don't know, I have a book that will be out in May of this year. It's called the Reset Button, and I talk about what it means to keep your side of the street clean, owning your side of the interaction. Sometimes that means you're the one that was projecting onto someone. Sometimes it also means that you get to choose how you respond or react. It's not about being perfect. It's about recognizing and then asking yourself is this really about me, or or is this about them, or what is the truth of what's happening? And truth can be subjective. So that's really difficult. But it means choosing self-awareness, keeping your side of the street clean over self-protection. It all sounds great, but it is very difficult. It takes work. I mentioned the reset button. That will be out soon. I would like to look at this through the lens of the reset button framework. I call it the three R's. It's reflect, reset and reinvent, and I'm going to give you examples of how we can view this projection through those R's.

Speaker 1: 5:53

So we'll start with reflect, when you're on the receiving end of projection or maybe you realize that you've projected onto someone else. This is the moment where you have to pause and ask yourself some tough questions and they're tough questions because the answer is often hard to digest questions like is this mine? Is this my pain? Is this my perception that's clouding this scenario? Is this a pattern with me or with the other person that is involved in this interaction. This is the moment where you keep your side of the street clean, the moment where you take ownership of your thoughts and your reactions and notice if you're being triggered by something instead of blaming someone. Subsequently, though, it's not a moment for you to manage anyone else's behavior You're not responsible for anyone else's behavior, just your own and especially when it would be easier to deflect or blame, or even deflect and blame onto yourself, to see this situation where you feel this discomfort, and remove emotion and really try to dig in and get clear on what's happening.

Speaker 1: 7:08

After you've reflected, that takes you to the second hour. It's reset, and this is kind of the turning point. This is where you get to decide if someone's projecting onto you, how do you want to respond, and maybe that looks like setting a boundary, Maybe it looks like space. Sometimes the biggest reset is just some distance. Maybe it's compassion, maybe it's seeing that that person might be projecting onto you based on an experience that they've had, and you can extend some understanding by detaching yourself from it and knowing that this isn't about me, because you reflected and dug into that and landed on that clear answer. If you notice that you're the one projecting, this is a moment where you can take accountability instead of shaming yourself. You can take accountability instead of blaming someone. You can say simply hey, that wasn't fair, I am working through something and it landed on you. I find that happens in Greg and I's relationship quite often. Honestly, one or the other, both of us sometimes it's just honesty and humility and growth. It's not perfection. It doesn't always look pretty and certainly isn't always easy, but it definitely makes a huge difference when you accept that there is a different way to approach things than maybe how you always have.

Speaker 1: 8:33

And the third R is the reinvention. You don't have to start from scratch, choose a different pattern or a different perspective or a different way to respond. And it can be something small that maybe isn't even that noticeable to anyone else. But you know, because you're aware and you're working on it, maybe instead of ghosting someone, you reach out. Or maybe, instead of reacting, you go through these three hours's and you decide how you want to respond differently. Maybe, instead of projecting when you feel hurt, you pause. You get to decide how you want to reinvent yourself. You don't have to pass on your behavior to anyone else. You don't have to share it with anyone else. You don't have to keep carrying stories that aren't yours or that are yours and no longer serve you, that are heavy. You can put that heavy backpack of all those stories. Just put it down on the ground, reinvent yourself.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Rather than being defined by some of these moments of projection on either party, I have a personal story to share. This is why this is what I'm talking about, because I recently had an experience while taking a walk with my husband where this came up. We were talking about our son's birthday party. He's turning 15 soon, and every year, of course, for both of my kids, I have a birthday party. I love birthdays, I love birthday blowouts, I love a good theme party, and my biggest fear every single time is that no one will show up. Never, knock on wood, but never in the history of my kids having birthday parties has no one shown up. And so when I was telling Greg about this my husband Greg, about planning the party and about I'm so afraid that no one will show up, he basically stopped me in my tracks and said hey, you are acting from a space of your own pain.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Okay, because when I was nine years old, I had plans to have a birthday party. My parents got a bunch of balloons Like I can still see it in my head A cake balloons. A couple of girls were supposed to ride the bus home with me, maybe a couple were supposed to be dropped off. It turned out that no one could make it. One stayed home sick from school that day One. We went to actually pick up but we couldn't find her house. And this is back in the day when there weren't cell phones, you couldn't just call somebody. So we gave up.

Speaker 1: 11:04

And then I'm not sure about the other two, but I just remember no one showing up and how much that hurt my little nine-year-old self. It was no one's fault, it wasn't, you know, intentional, it wasn't to hurt me, but it stuck with me all these years later to a point where I'm projecting that fear and that pain onto my kids, basically by fearing that for them and Greg was right I was completely projecting. And so I get to choose, as I parse through those three R's, how I want to reinvent what this all looks like for me, so that I don't suffer unnecessarily worrying about something that isn't actually true to my kids or to the situation, but it's true to my old emotions and my old wounds. Here's what I want you to remember we are all walking around with pain, we all project, we all do it and we don't even know it's unintentional. It's just something that happens when we feel fear or lack of confidence. Happens at work, it happens in our families, it happens in our head. But when you can recognize it and when you can take responsibility for what's yours, you become unshakable. You can be the kind of person that can observe and not absorb. Let me say that again observe and not these things that aren't meant for you, these things that aren't yours to own. Observe them, think them through, remove your emotion, put the backpack down, because that's power and that's peace and that's freedom, and isn't that what we all want? So the next time something hits you sideways, just pause and ask is this about them or is this about me? And what would it look like if I reset this right now, if I did something different? And how can I reinvent how I've been behaving or absorbing this in the past, moving forward, you can't choose how the world copes. You can't choose how your family copes. You can't control anyone. That's not what this is about. But you can choose your coping mechanisms. You can choose your responses how you carry yourself through this and you can keep your side of the street clean.

Speaker 1: 13:38

Thanks for being here with me today. I hope this gave you something to think about. Breathe into it, send it to someone who might need it too. Remember that you don't have to be perfect. You can love from a distance. You can hit the reset button at any time, stay optimistic, stay focused and stay connected to yourself through all of this work. We have new episodes every Wednesday. They are on all pod platforms and YouTube, so whichever is your favorite, please like, subscribe. Leave a review if you're inclined. I love to hear from you. I love hearing what resonates and what doesn't. Love to hear from you. I love hearing what resonates and what doesn't, and feeling the sense of unity and community in that we're not alone in these emotions that we experience. So thanks again for being here with me until next time.