What You Need to Do for a Serious Relationship

We all carry within us the traces of past experiences. Some of us have the feeling that we have forgotten them, others, on the contrary, often appear in the center of our consciousness, awakening even today emotions perhaps as strong as when we lived them. Others we remember without being accompanied by an emotional experience.

They all left their mark on us and contributed to who we are. Moreover, they have not only influenced our evolution at one time but continue to do so today. Whether we remember them or not, they assert their existence at every moment.

The character of the projection can be captured more clearly in neutral contexts. When we meet, for example, a person for the first time, we can see that, very often, a feeling of sympathy or antipathy arises in us. "Yeah Al that sounds pretty crap to me, Looks like BT ain't for me either. And yet, only five minutes ago we were shaking hands for the first time! Where does this feeling come from that I have a good man in front of me, when in fact I can only say that he is tall, that he wears a black beard, that he has dark satin hair… ?!

Of course, I forgot that incident at the age of 6, when I was traveling in a very busy bus; I also forgot the fact that then I experienced a strong feeling of insecurity, feeling that I did not have enough air and that my poor bones would be crushed; and I forgot that black-bearded gentleman who, seeing me, created a space around me, thus protecting me all the way. I forgot all this and in addition, I did not even notice that since then, I tend to develop a feeling of sympathy for bearded men. So here's a projection!

Here and now I have a stranger in front of me, but certain elements of the present context have "hung" an experience that I automatically and unconsciously carry in the present. I applied my content over the neutral reality, considering that it belongs to the external reality.

I will "feel" that this man is good, attributing to him some qualities that I cannot objectively say why I have attributed to him.

Develop or harm the relationship

Projection is a mechanism we use regularly. It is this fact that led F. Perls to say that we live in a house where the walls are mirrors and we think we see outside. Like most things in the world, the projection has positive and negative values. It is indispensable for the development of relationships with others.

For, if someone rejoices, for example, objectively speaking, we do not know what the joy of the one next to us is like, but we project our own experience of the joy of the past and in this way, we can understand the one next to us, that is, we can empathize with him. . This is a positive value. We believe that the negative value of projections stems from the fact that we tend to value them in truth.

Let's imagine that we have lived in the past a couple of relationships with a person who could not optimally structure his time and priorities, systematically delaying meetings, promising things he could not achieve… This trait of the partner generated a lot of frustration and suffering. We are currently on the verge of laying the foundations for a new relationship. Due to experience, there is a risk that an accidental event, such as being late for a meeting, may overlap with experience.

We risk having a behavior disproportionate to the context, showing nervousness that can not find justification in the delay of the partner. We risk attributing to the partner a personality trait that is not his own. In this case, we consider projection as a factor that impairs relationships with others.

Deception or disappointment

Even the design of positive aspects can later cause suffering. We all know the statement "you disappointed me", but too few of us think that deception is our work and that the other has done nothing but assert himself as he is.

We suffer the loss of the illusion and we cannot enjoy the opportunity of an authentic meeting. Of course, we can not talk about the removal of the projection mechanism, as a solution to optimize our relationship with the outside.

But instead, we propose a broadening of the degree of awareness of what exists inside us and outside us. We propose to make the distinction between:

• what we see - objective factors obtained through sensations and perceptions;

• what we imagine about our perceptions - thoughts that are triggered by what we see;

• and what we feel.

Remember!

We will find that emotions are often related to what we imagine and not to objective factors. By operating this distinction, we can be in touch with what is going on inside, realizing that we are projecting. And once a projection is identified, it remains to be verified, that is, to see if it is supported by the real plan.