We often project qualities onto other people.

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Sometimes those qualities annoy us.

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Or inspire us.

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And sometimes they even anger us.

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They can cause us to be judgmental about the other person.

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Or they can have us to not truly see the other person as they truly are.

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For when we place our opinions onto someone else we are actually just projecting our own feelings.

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When we have someone in our lives that triggers us or shows up with a quality we do not like, it might not be about that person at all.

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It could something else entirely.

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For the things we see in others that bother us the most are often reflections of ourselves.

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That trait that gets us upset or angry in the other person might just be something we don't like about us.

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Perhaps we feel the other person is being cheap, and it bothers us because we are not generous with ourselves.

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We might feel upset that they are ungrounded because we are not being present ourselves to what is in front of us.

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Sometimes we might actually be correct.

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The thing we see in the other person really is a quality they have.

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How to know if it truly is a projection is to feel whether it bothers us in some way.

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The stronger the emotional reaction, the more likely we are just seeing ourselves in them.

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When we offer a suggestion to someone about something we feel they need to work on, perhaps we can also look in the mirror and see how we feel about that same thing in ourselves.

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Do we do it too?

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Or do something similar in some way?

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To see where our own work is we can more closely look at where we see someone else's faults are.

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We can examine ourselves for the same things we criticize others about.

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Our projections are valuable clues for the things we are uncomfortable about ourselves.

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When we learn to see them not about the other person but about us, we have grown indeed.

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Being truly honest with ourselves about the feelings we have towards others is one of the most difficult things to do.

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And it is the most thing in our lives that is most worth it.

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Are you aware of the projections you place on others?

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Have you looked at them and what you have to learn about yourself from them?

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~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant

Host of The Conscious Consultant Hour