The other day my husband made a mistake that ended up causing us quite a bit of stress and hassle. It wasn’t intentional or malicious in the least; just a clear case of missing something that needed to be attended to.
I was the one who caught the mistake and had to do a good amount of the cleanup. I was mad. Not calmly and politely mad. Just mad.
He apologized. I forgave him. But there was a messy middle.
I was reflecting on it later and wondering why I got so upset. Why hadn’t I responded with more grace and kindness? It was simply an oversight, and one anyone could’ve made.
Then I made the connection. We have a full and busy life, and I often feel overwhelmed by all of the demands. I drop the ball more often than I would like to admit. I forget to return a text, sign a reading log, or make an appointment. I am frustrated with how imperfectly I function in this season of life, mad about the mistakes that I make.
My anger with my husband was a little bit about him, but it was a lot about me. My anger at myself was spilling over onto him.
This is projection at its finest. Projection is the grown-up version of “you spot it you got it.” When we project, we ignore or deny our own thoughts, feelings, and impulses, and attribute them to others instead.
Projection is what happens when my 8-year-old is in a bad mood and yells at his sister for being grumpy. Projection is what happens when we feel self-conscious about something and believe everyone else is judging us for that very thing. Projection is being annoyed with our uber-competitive friend and ignoring our own intense desire to win.
I’ve heard people reject the concept of projection as silly psychobabble, but an awareness of this dynamic traces far back into history. In the Bible it says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye. How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3-4). The plank and the sawdust are made of the very same material; the things we see and are bothered by in other people are the very same things that live in us.
I’ve heard it said that about 20 percent of our reaction to something is about the situation itself and about 80 percent is about us, our projections and biases, our histories and ways of looking at the world. The exact percentages here aren’t the point; the point is that most of my reaction is about me.
When I have a reaction to someone, it is almost always because of who I am, how I see the world, my history, and my current emotional health and dysfunction. My actions and reactions are always my own, guided by my inner state.
The converse of this is also true. When someone has a reaction to me, it is because of who that person is, how he or she sees the world, and his or her emotional health and dysfunction. That person’s actions and reactions are his or her own.
It is important to note that projection isn’t always a one to one correlation. It’s not that we always manifest the exact same behavior that we are bothered by in others; it’s that the underlying principle is the same. For example, imagine a wife who is frequently angry with her husband for being late. She may argue that this couldn’t be a projection because she is incredibly punctual. However, her husband’s tardiness bothers her because she perceives it as inconsiderate. It could be that she is reacting against her own lack of consideration for others in a different area of her life.
Once we understand that our reaction is in large part a projection, we can examine ourselves and determine what we are projecting onto others. We can own the part of our reaction that is a projection. We can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the forces that are guiding our behaviors and emotions. And we can move more freely and authentically in our relationships with others.