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Posted: June 8, 2017 |
Projection: It Comes Up in All Relationships, and This is How You Deal with It I find psychological projection an absolutely fascinating phenomenon, and it just so happened to crop up in my life last night. Later when I was analysing the situation and my feelings about it, I luckily remembered some psychology research I had done that cleared everything up for me. I wanted to share my experience with you. Natz and I are doing long-distance for a few months, but we chat every day on Skype. Last night, we were talking about some things when Natz casually asked me if I was planning on going to the gym and bulking up a bit while I was away. Immediately, I felt this sense of pressure, like she was pressuring me to work on this area. I let it go and carried on with the conversation naturally, when she brought it up yet again, So, are you planning on bulking up a bit while you are over there? Again, I felt the pressure, but this time I replied with a snappy comment something like Why do you care so much? My mind automatically tried to scan for reasons why she would want me to go to the gym was she unhappy with my physical appearance at the moment? Replying to her like that made me upset, and I still had the feeling like she was pressuring me. Excuses ran through my mind I dont have time, and so on. What I didnt realize though, was that the pressure that I was feeling from her was actually a projection of my own disregarded drive. Its true that I had thought that this time I am spending away would be a great opportunity for me to focus on a few other things, including getting back into a peak physical state. I had fantasized about spending hours in the gym, and cleaning up my diet. This created a huge drive in me to work on this area. However, after I had been in my new environment for a few days, I found many reasons why it just wouldnt be appropriate for me to do this; I started getting a little sick, I was working late into the night and felt like there was an unlimited amount of work to do, and so on. So what happened to my drive? When you feel a drive strongly like that, rationalizing your way out of acting on it doesnt dissipate the drive you end up just repressing it. The drive is still there, but you dont allow yourself to feel it anymore, and you forget that you had the drive. You remember that somebody wanted to go to the gym (or paint the bedroom, or take out the trash), but you repress that is was you who wanted to do it. Along comes somebody else who brings up the task (Honey, are you going to take out the trash, or should I?), and you immediately project that drive that you had onto that other person (Jesus, would you give me a break? I said I will do it.) This person is a hook for your projection, and you start to create rationalizations for why your projection is real (Why does he keep bringing it up?; Its obvious that she prefers this or that we try to prove that the pressure is really out there.) These things probably dont have any basis in reality. Even if your partner really was pressuring you to do something, you wouldnt feel pressured to do it unless you were disowning your own drive, and projecting it onto your partner you cant feel anybodys emotions but your own. Heres actually a more relevant example perhaps: say youve just gotten into a relationship, but you know that youre very attractive to the opposite sex. You know this, but youre also really committed to your relationship. You decide that in order to honor the relationship, you must stop connecting as much with members of the opposite sex, especially when it comes to physical contact, etc. Instead of dealing with your feelings in an accepting and mature way, you just repress them, and force yourself to go through life pretending that your man or woman is the only member of the opposite sex around. In this case, the only thing thats going to result is those feelings of wanting to connect to the opposite sex showing up in your partner, and youre going to feel an unreasonable amount of jealousy in your relationship. In fact, its not so much jealousy, as a huge annoyance of your partner (why is he/she doing this to me?). This, I would imagine, is very common, almost classic, example of projecting. Of course maybe your partner is a bit too connecting with others for you, and you need to deal with that but if you are feeling a lot of emotion about it, it is probably because you are repressing that side in yourself.
Just to add to this, because you are projecting that drive onto your partner, you no longer feel that drive yourself, which makes you feel even more frustrated you feel that all of the pressure is coming from this other person, and you have no drive yourself. So in the grander scheme, you can probably see a whole lot of things in your life that could be projections (its difficult, but you can if you try). In fact, whenever you have a particularly strong emotional reaction to something that you see as wrong in someone else (in particular your partner, who can be the easiest hook for projections), it is probably a projection (look for yourself before you disagree out of hand). If you see sexuality (masculine or feminine) as evil, oppressive, or just out-dated, you will necessarily disown your own sexuality but its not going to go away just because you dont like it. The feelings and behaviours that you disown in yourself will begin to demand your attention, by showing up as emotionally-disturbing mannerisms in those around you. You become offended easily by people who display any signs of the traits that you are repressing, even if the behaviour is not overt (though it will seem like it to you).
This doesnt mean that you should go on a relentless mission to express anything that you might be repressing (in fact that would be a very bad thing), but you should take ownership for your feelings towards others, and realize they are probably projections of how you feel about yourself. How to Reclaim Any Projection (without even know that you are projecting)
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