While some of the above coping strategies can be more understandable to us, projection is worth looking at in its complexity. When we are projecting, we feel that other people in the world are responsible for how we think and feel, and for the events that befall us. Projection can be defined as imbuing another person, especially one close to us, with the qualities we can’t accept about ourselves (both positive and negative). The qualities we don’t like about ourselves cause the most trouble, and to expose this kind projection at work in our relationships we might notice what criticisms and expectations we have of our partner. If we can actually practice observing with self-compassion that we are perceiving aspects of ourselves, then we have a new understanding. We can see that negative qualities are being mirrored to us for a chance to heal them, especially if there is agreement for this to be supported by both people. By projecting our fears and anger on another, we can remain in safe denial and stay unconscious, but as the lyric goes, “harbors are not what ships are for.”

Another major aspect of projection is that we expect the other to fulfill us by embodying the traits we lack. This can include the need to balance the masculine aspects of outgoing, problem-solving dynamics with those of the emotional, intuitive feminine principles. “We try to make ourselves whole by linking up with a person who represents what we do not have [and] often demand from others what we cannot give to ourselves,” observe Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks in Centering And The Art Of Intimacy (1985). If we are not aware of doing this, we often do not allow the other person to become more complete in themselves for fear that the relationship will change and/or be over.

In our initial work with projection, it is important to allow ourselves to feel our feelings and to explore them. We can remember, in this process, to ask ourselves just how we learned to feel and see things in this way. We may ask what we are trying to get from the other that we did not get from a past relationship, or from life. Dismantling projection is contingent on each person having the courage to take responsibility for what emerges in the relationship. In this regard, we can understand the wisdom of the Hendricks’ advice in Centering And The Art Of Intimacy (1985) that, “When we first realize the enormous power of projection, how deeply it pervades our way of seeing and being in the world, our first response to it is often outraged denial…these feelings need to be acknowledged as we loosen our bonds to the old ways of experiencing the world.