Hello!
Have you ever heard of “the repetition compulsion?”
Here’s my take on it!
I’m going to talk about projection in parenting and partnering.
I’ll talk about what it is, why we do it, and how we can respond differently to create healing!
1. WHAT IS PROJECTION?
The way I see it, it’s when there’s something in the present moment that reminds us of the past (that might be even something very small), and we project the past on to that moment.
I like the metaphor of an old fashioned movie projector. The movie comes from us. It’s something from the past where we DIDN’T experience being heard.
We project that movie on to the present situation – usually a person or group of people.
That’s most often our child/ren or partner!
We no longer see them as they truly are in the here and now.
Our son might be looking the other way when we ask him something.
The charged phrase might be, “you never hear me.”
We don’t see our son in that moment.
We have time travelled into an experience of us as 4 year old, not being heard when we are asking our dad to come and help us.
Or it might be our daughter repeatedly doing something that we’ve asked her not to do.
And when she keeps on going, the charged phrase might be, “she doesn’t care about me.”
And in that moment, we’re in the body sense of the 7 year old us when our mother kept on shouting at us.
And we are actually IN that movie. We’re living it.
We’re thinking the thoughts we thought.
We’re feeling the feelings we felt.
We have the needs we have.
We are wanting to say what we didn’t get to say.
WE’RE WANTING THINGS TO TURN OUT DIFFERENTLY THIS TIME.
This is projection.
What about being on the other side of projection?
That’s when your child or partner says something to you AND THEY ARE CLEARLY NOT SEEING YOU.
They might be saying that you always do something, or you never do something else, and in that moment you might feel a deep sense of discomfort in your body.
You might want to defend yourself or push back.
And in that moment, that’s often where we start up our own projectors.
What they are doing reminds us of something from our past that hasn’t been healed yet, and we start up our projector.
They become our parents, our teacher, our siblings. And just like them, we feel the feelings in the moment as if it were happening right now.
It really is like time travel. The movie is running. The thoughts, feelings, needs, words are all those ones that we didn’t get to have HEARD the first time around.
Over their face runs our movie.
We don’t see them, we see our movie.
They don’t see us, they see their movie.
And the sad thing is that often we don’t see what is going on.
And more hurt happens.
More not being seen.
More not being heard.
More not being understood.
And over time, these extra hurts build and build, so instead of seeing our partner or child, we see more and more of the movie.
The same often happens with siblings too.
So why on earth do we do this?
2. WHY DO WE DO IT?
I believe that we do it BECAUSE WE WANT TO EXPERIENCE SOMETHING DIFFERENT THIS TIME.
In other words, we’re doing it because we are wanting to heal.
We’re wanting to have heard what wasn’t heard.
We’re wanting to be heard.
We’re wanting to be seen.
We’re wanting to be understood.
We’re wanting our feelings to be acknowledged.
We’re wanting our needs to be met.
We’re wanting to hear what we didn’t get to hear.
We’re wanting to experience what we didn’t get to experience.
We’re wanting to experience CONNECTION AND COMPASSION.
I find it REALLY IMPORTANT to understand this.
Otherwise, it’s going to be easy to judge yourself when you feel rage when your son doesn’t tidy up his room or your partner doesn’t put the bins out.
It’s going to be easy to judge your child when they tell you they hate you or judge your partner when they’re clearly in their movie, rather than responding to you.
But if we can remember with COMPASSION that this is our beautiful psyche trying to heal what needs healing.
And that it’s their beautiful psyche trying to heal what needs healing.
Then we have the opportunity to respond differently.
So, how can we respond differently? What can we do instead?
3. HOW CAN WE HEAL OR HELP OTHERS HEAL?
If someone else is projecting you into their movie, the first thing you’ll probably notice is that you feel uncomfortable. Often that’s because you’ll sense that they aren’t seeing you.
That’s a signal to check in with yourself.
We might get tempted at that moment to go into our own movie.
Self-empathy, or compassion from your Inner Loving Mother can really help, “oooh you feel uncomfortable? You don’t like being talked to like that? I hear you and I’m listening.”
(If you go deeper into your own movie, then you might want to do an Inner Loving Presence Process, so you can heal your own hurt.)
At this point, I find it really helpful to set a loving limit, or what I also call a ‘Neo No.”
That’s simply a clear energetic limit that I’m not willing to become a participant in their movie.
It’s not angry or defensive or attacking, it’s simply a clear energetic unwillingness to take a role in the movie.
When we hold that energetic space, we can then choose compassion.
We can remember that they are trying to do it to EXPERIENCE SOMETHING DIFFERENT THIS TIME.
So we can GIVE THEM THAT DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE.
We can hear them.
We can see them.
We can give empathy to their feelings.
We can value their needs.
We can hear their words.
We can give them what they need to experience (if it feels apt for us to do).
We can do this with our children, and with our partners, and others.
We’re claiming our own sovereign experience to be who we really are in the here and now, and help this past hurt of their get healed.
We can be on their side.
We can help them.
What about if we’re the one doing the projecting?
One of the most helpful things we can do is get clear about our own emotional cartography.
This is what I talk about in my Inner Loving Presence Process Course.
The more we understand the movies that we run, the easier things get.
It’s like seeing our movie collection.
It’s seeing our themes.
For example, I know that if my daughter doesn’t look at me when I’m talking to her, that sometimes I can go into my movie of being a baby in the incubator.
And sometimes when my son is telling me all about the computer games he loves, I’m reminded of being a little girl when my dad was talking about physics.
The more we know our themes and our charged phrases, the more clearly we can see when we start our projector running.
There are two ways to work with this.
One is preventative – going in and healing these old hurts with whatever process you enjoy the most. For me, it’s my Inner Loving Presence Process.
The other is in the moment.
For example, if you see that you’re having a big reaction to your child and you’re no longer seeing them as your child, then you might want to say aloud something like; “This isn’t about you. I’ve got some big feelings coming up. I’m listening to them.”
Even saying words like that can remind us of the here and now, and that we are the parent and they are the child.
It can help us pause the movie, so that we can go and listen to the movie with an empathy buddy or our Inner Loving Crew, so we get to have our feelings heard and we get to say what we wanted to say, but not by and to our child!
And if we’re not able to stop ourselves, we can always repair what we did with our child.
If it’s with your partner, you might have regular conversations where you tell each other about your movies. Then when you start projecting, you might find you’re able to say, “Oh I’m feeling 5 years old right now and I’m telling myself you never listen to me. It’s like that movie I told you about. Can you help me here by not falling into my movie?”
The more we understand the movies of ourselves, of our partners, and of our children, and the more we can give ourselves and them the DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE, the more we claim our sovereign authority.
We SEE when we are projecting.
We KNOW that this is about US rather than them, when we’re projecting. We gain more capacity to stop the movie, and listen within instead.
We see when they are projecting.
We know it is about THEM rather than us, and we’re more capable of being a compassionate helper so that healing happens.
I wonder if this resonates with you?
I’d love to hear!
I invite you to enquire within. Perhaps you’d like to think about the movies that you regularly run.
Perhaps you’d like to think about the movies that your child/ren or partner or ex or parents or friends regularly run.
Awareness is the first step.
Having compassion for our amazing psyches is vital too.
And knowing that we all CAN heal and are constantly trying to heal can really help!
If you want to hear more, I made a podcast on this:
I’ve made some others recently too, including this one – another of my faves!
I’m also doing a showcase of my courses, with free ones on alternate days and sales of paid ones on the other days.
Today it’s my Aware Parenting Virtual Village, and it’s 50% off:
I share them each day on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks so much for reading. This is one of my favourite posts!
Much love,
Marion xoxox