"She met him on Tinder, they developed an
instant rapport, had interesting conversations, and finally agreed to meet for
a date at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday. On Wednesday She finished work earlier so she
decided to take a book and go to the coffee shop half an hour earlier. At 4:30
she ordered her coffee and went to her table and started to read. at 4:50 p.m.
she started to check her watch, then at 5:00, she looked around and no one was
there yet. 5:10 nobody showed up still, but she waited. by 5:30 she was out of
patience, then 5:45 she grew angry. Finally, at 5:50 the guy showed up with
a smile on his face and apologized for being late before he could explain the
reason for such a delay the lady was so angry that she stood up told him
angrily that he didn't respect her or her time and stormed out of the coffee
shop feeling angry and frustrated with this situation." If
I ask someone to assess this situation, most people will say that the lady
didn't do anything wrong. She was on time and waited for the guy who was almost
an hour late. She had "the right to be upset" but people might
disagree with the way she left the coffee shop. Similar situations happen
to us daily, we don’t question our emotions, nor their triggers. We go with the
motion of right and wrong not taking into consideration the complex psychological
nature of our reactions and how they are made.
Going back to the
story we can ask the question of why the lady was upset despite the fact that she
had free time, she even had a book and went earlier to the coffee shop. Her answer
was she felt disrespected. I follow with the question: why someone's time management skills
could indicate their respect for us or the lack of it?? Usually, the answer comes
in the context of “ because I feel…” and that the truth of it. Because we feel
disrespected and that comes from us, not the other person. Most probably the
truth is that the lady projected her feeling on to the guy, because of a deep-rooted old wound from her past where she felt unimportant to her parents or
fought for their attention; she had this programmed in her decision making and
reactions and she found the logical explanation to justify her reaction as appropriate
and blamed the guy for her anger. If this old wound created an illusion of value
(time = respect or love) this lady might be locked in a series of
disappointments because she keeps assessing her value to others by time and she
might feel like others are disappointing her and letting her down constantly while
she is involved in self-inflicted pain and unable to take personal accountability
of her own emotions.
I chose this story to
start my post to explain how small reactions we find logical and might be doing
every day is the key to our suffering. Namely this time the art of Psychological
Projection. Lately, I had an extraordinary experience that revealed to me my
own self-deception and I started to think about others and their techniques of self-deception.
In the past, I mastered the art of projection but after my CBT I got better, yes
I developed since then advanced self-deception techniques but I am at least
aware when I am projecting and how to deal with it. The best thing about exploring
projections is the fact the more you dive into it, the more you can heal old
hidden wounds or adjust unhealthy values. Projection happens when we blame others or life itself for how we feel.
Projection is saying we feel this way because he/she made us feel this way
without questioning the root of our feelings. Projection is avoidance, we don’t
want to be accountable for how we feel and we have a reason to avoid that.
Why is one of the
most powerful words. Why opens the door to everything, it enables us to
question the foundation of our existence and foundation of everything. I have
learned to ask myself “but why?” whenever I do something, whenever I feel
something, whenever I want something I ask myself “BUT WHY?” and I keep going
until I reach the core of everything.
Statement: I love cooking.
-
Why do I really love cooking?
Because I enjoy
making food.
-
Why do I enjoy making food?
Because I like to share
it with people I love.
-
Why do I like to share it with people
I love?
Because it shows how
much I care. It is the way I like to nurture others and care for them.
With this simple dialog
with myself, I transformed a simple statement to a deep psychological
exploration that revealed more than just a hobby. I love cooking because I grew
up at home where love is shown by how much we do for each other. That’s why for
me what I do for you is how I say I love. When I was a little I was sick and I
wasn’t eating much, therefore, whenever I say I want certain food my mom will
go at 3:00 am to the kitchen and defrost the meat and cook and at that moment I
felt the most loved which created part of the foundation for my expression of
love. The exercise of WHY? Can be used to dig into everything. It allows us to
transform our projection to healing. So let’s go back to the story of lady punctual
and try to transform projection.
Part 1: Acknowledging
the emotion behind the reaction:
The statement “ I am angry because he was late”
-
Why I am angry he was late, I could
have continued reading the book/I could have left after a certain time and rescheduled/
I could have started a conversation with the girl on the next table ..etc
Because I felt
disrespected.
-
Why did I feel disrespected?
Because when someone
doesn’t come on time it means they don’t care about you
Part 2: Living back
the memories:
-
Why do I feel that time is an
indicator of care or respect?
Because I grow up in
an environment where when I showed up late for lunch my mom would tell me that
I didn’t care about her and disrespected the family OR I grew up in a family
where my father spent all his time at
work to provide for us and when I asked him to play with me he would tell me
that all that he does is for us to have a good life.
I didn’t like that and I felt terrorized/neglected but I knew that they cared for me and that time they spent away was for us.
Part 3: Personal
accountability:
I know
that the guy triggered an emotion that was hidden inside of me. I should call him
back and apologize for storming out and propose another time to meet.
Although
the experience wasn’t pleasant but it allowed me to see beyond my reactions and
emotions. (Taking responsibility for my feelings and reactions. Build a strong
differentiation between projection and justified
reaction)
Part 4:
Embracing the change:
Next time I feel angry I should ask myself why. Am I really under time pressure? or Am I feeling uncomfortable for some hidden reason? Am I overreacting? Do I have anything else to do meanwhile? How I make this easier for me? Maybe I shouldn’t go early to appointments so I don’ grow frustrated ….etc (building strategy to face this situation and defuse the triggers).
Projection is a mechanism of denial, it is a tool to avoid personal accountability. Projection is a programmed defense mechanism that protects us from fears that are deeply rooted in the darkest part of our psyche. Projection paints our lives in confusion, let us run with hopeless illusions and be imprisoned by vicious cycles of habitual self-deception and destruction. The only way out is by extreme honesty and taking responsibility for our own life.
As Carl Jung said: "The most dangerous psychological mistake is the projection of the shadow on to others: this is the root of almost all conflicts"
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