Inspiration
Projection is an act in which you psychically try to throw out of ownership everything that you have judged as being despicable or unworthy of you, something you do not want. So you will project it. You will throw it up and out and let it land on whomever happens to be nearby.
What I learned
I have become pretty good at recognizing when I am projecting and asking the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking, as I have been studying this in A Course in Miracles. I really do not want to continue projecting. When I project I am in denial about what is going on in my mind. This makes no sense. Can I do any good by pretending something is not what it obviously is?
When I project I am making someone else guilty when in truth, my salvation depends on that someone else being innocent. While I am projecting my own stuff onto someone else I am hiding it from myself and so it cannot be corrected. When I am telling myself that someone else is guilty I am also telling myself that the cause of my unhappiness is outside of me and that I am weak and helpless to do anything about it. Could this do anything other than guarantee my unhappiness?
Projection is a way of keeping the ego thought system in place. It is a way of keeping my life just as it always has been. It is a way of keeping my brother in a perpetual state of guilt and of denying his innocence. It also perpetuates my own guilt because what I believe is possible for my brother I believe is possible for me. It makes healing impossible because of a refusal to look at what needs healing and therefore to fail to ask for healing.
An obvious projection: “The plumber cheated me of my money and now I am in a financial bind trying to get the house finished. It is the plumbers fault that I am feeling this stress. What a jerk he is, what a cheat.” I am trying to make the plumber responsible for my anger, frustration, and fear. Discernment tells me that I paid the plumber for work he didn’t do and that I am short of money to finish the project. Judgment tells me this is a really bad thing and causes the negative emotions. I don’t want to be responsible for this situation so I blame it on the plumber.
It seems reasonable to the ego. The plumber did this and it is not my fault. The ego always looks for someone to blame and says, “Doesn’t that feel better?” Then everyone around me agrees with me and helps me to keep the deception going in my mind. I am just a poor victim and blameless in the situation. I am also weak, vulnerable and helpless. I now have an underlying anxiety which is unfixable because I cannot bring myself to look at the cause.
When I chose to finally withdraw my projections and leave Sonny innocent, I was able to see that I choose everything in my life and therefore I chose this. From that basic premise it was easy to see how I set it up. Who told me to pay a person I barely know for a job he has not yet done? It was a clear invitation to the world to show me what it feels like to be a victim. At this point I have the opportunity to choose differently, to see that I am the one who chooses, and nothing is done to me without my consent.
It was a hard pill to swallow especially since I had such a good setup for projection. I could think of a hundred different reasons to see Sonny guilty and myself innocent. But I cannot be innocent if Sonny is guilty. And that is the crux of the whole thing. I need my brother to be innocent. Sonny was not honest, but that does not make him guilty of my feelings. It is not why I feel like a victim or why I feel afraid and angry.
Those are feelings I chose and have nothing to do with Sonny. He was just a handy way to justify feeling like a victim. Now that I have withdrawn my projection, I don’t feel those things. Why not? Sonny is still dishonest, so why do I not feel victimized? He still has my money and I am still hustling to get more, so why do I not feel victimized? The reason is that the facts of what happened did not make me feel bad. Feeling like a victim, and denying my power as a Son of God made me feel bad. This was my doing and not Sonny’s. As soon as I saw us both as innocent which is the truth, the consequences of victimhood vanished and I no longer felt angry and anxious. It was not Sonny who kept me in misery; it was my choice to project.
Every so often, when some other consequence of this situation arises, I will begin projecting all over again. As soon as I notice what I am doing, I withdraw the projection by asking the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking and bring me clarity. I paid dearly in dollars for this lesson but I have used it to such advantage as I practice over and over remembering the truth that I feel it was worth the price. This is especially when you consider that the money is just part of my illusion, but the lesson is forever.
All quotes are used by kind permission of the Shanti Christo Foundation. To buy a copy of this profound book visit their website at www.shantichristo.com. I invite your thoughts and comments.