Humanity is a giant cesspool of projection and fear. People are usually pointing fingers at everyone else saying, “It’s YOUR fault,” and “YOU make me…” and various other unconscious statements. Because of this, it’s easy to get lazy in our speech and fall into the pattern of everything being about everyone else and we lose track of ourselves, becoming unaccountable.
THEN…
We enter the “consciousness thinking” movement. We begin learning better coping skills, healthier communication styles, and empowering tools. We learn about things like accountable language (coming from an “I am feeling…” space instead of “you make me feel…”) We learn about feeling our own feelings, speaking clearly, standing up for ourselves, and being clear about boundaries. And let’s be real here, we actually learn that we NEED to have boundaries and so we begin setting boundaries everywhere and we do it defiantly, at times, like a two year old who has learned to say “no” so “NO!” is the answer for everything. We really become a pain in the ass in this “boundary recognition” phase.
THEN…
We uncover the power inside these skills and tools that we have learned and we can become very destructive and even more unaccountable than we were in the first place because we begin to use these tools as weapons. That is when things get really scary because we “enlightened” humans now become the destroyers, but we are amped up because we have all of these divine tools that we are wielding to hurt others.
The concept of “projection” is one of the most powerful tools to use for deflection purposes. When we learn about the “art of projection” – which is seeing in others what we refuse to see in ourselves, blaming or accusing them of doing something that we, ourselves, are doing, but are ignoring – we can begin to hide behind it, whenever anyone confronts us. For those committed to being victim, it is really super powerful because it becomes the reason that everyone is being mean to them. When Joe, the non-victim, says to Sally, the victim, that Sally is being lazy and not participating equally in the relationship, Sally, the victim, can very easily jump to her consciousness skills and say, “Yes, well, you’re just projecting your own shit on me,” which allows her to not even look at the possibility of truth within Joe’s complaint. It is a very powerful way that we can invalidate the person in front of us. As soon as we accuse another of projecting, we lose sight of our own accountability.
It’s tricky. Let me share an example of what I mean…
Recently, I was in a heated discussion with a friend and I was sharing with her that I was feeling angry because she was assuming I wasn’t doing something that I really was, something that she had asked me to do and I was honoring that. But, because she herself really doesn’t like to do the very thing she had asked me to do, she wasn’t doing it herself. We were going around in circles and I shared with her several things I had been experiencing in our relationship. Her reply was, “Could you be projecting your own stuff on me?”
Because I am willing to always look at myself first, I took her question as an invitation to look deeper. So I did. “Am I?” I thought. No. I wasn’t.
In that conversation, I was sharing with her my experience. I knew I was clear because the situation had been bothering me for a while, so I had actually done processing around it with my mentor. I had cleared my deflection energy, I had looked at and resolved what my issues were, and I had released any desire to project. I was experiencing the situation through my detached observer so that I could be witness to it without an emotional charge. And I was also in a space of sharing with her what I had been experiencing, without needing her to change anything. I was hoping she would be able to hear me and be willing to look at it from some other point of view, but she wasn’t. She had made up her mind that it was about what I was or was not doing and she made that clear when she turned that consciousness skill toward me as a weapon of deflection. With that one question, the proverbial finger came pointing at me and I witnessed her close off to feedback. I saw the energy of “this is your shit, not mine,” and she was done listening.
When you have skills of consciousness in your arsenal, it does not give you license to use those against another person. These skills are the most powerful tools we have right now and to use them as a weapon and a means of staying unaccountable is more destructive than if you had remained unconscious and unaware. It is a temptation, I know, to hide behind these skills and to throw them around as a means of “putting others in their place.” Hell. I have done it a time or two in my life.
However, I also know the damage that can be caused by choosing to enter war with these consciousness skills. I have been witness to the destruction of many relationships, including my own, as a result of unaccountability in interactions. I have seen – and I have felt – what happens when another uses these tools against someone they are supposed to care about. It is the ultimate of betrayals because you are taking something that is meant to make your relationship better and twisting it into the very thing that destroys it. The damage that comes from wielding a consciousness tool as a weapon is often times irreparable because these tools are meant to breed integrity, transparency, and connection by bringing us into total accountability. When used for the opposite effect, it is utterly destructive.
So, my Dear Profoundly Powerful Sensitives, if you feel yourself becoming energetically defensive, if you feel a desire to fight back and begin using the consciousness skills against your loved one, be on your game and be kind to yourself and the other by requesting a time out. Ask for a few minutes to gather yourself. Breathe. Take a step back. Clear your mind. Get acutely aware of where you are, what you’re experiencing, and choose your words wisely. And before you reengage with the conversation, step into radical accountability and listen through the other’s ears so that you can hear yourself first.
