Co-Founder + Coach, Conscious Leadership Group
Conscious leaders eat their projections. If you want to enter into the graduate school of conscious leadership, start noticing your projections. To understand projection, imagine you’re in a movie theater (I know, a novel idea).
As you look at the screen, an image appears. It looks like it’s happening “over there”. But nothing could appear unless it was first inside the projector. The projector is the source. The screen is just the surface where the image lands. Psychological projection works the same way. We look “out there” at other people and the world, and it seems like something is happening over there. What we perceive as external is often an internal truth being broadcast outward. We are the projector; they are the screen.
As Byron Katie puts it: “You have never met anyone but yourself. You have never met another person, only your stories about them.” Your stories are your projections—what you are placing on other people.
Recognizing the Mirror
Conscious leaders understand they’re living in a hall of mirrors. At first, most people resist this idea. They want to make life about the other person. That’s natural. That’s normal. But when you open to the possibility that everything you see over there is really something in you…. you may have an “Oh shit” moment. “All of that is me? Really?” And if you’re like most people, you’ll recoil in disbelief and disgust.
But if you stay on the path of waking up, you’ll eventually come to a place of gratitude—even excitement. You’ll begin to see that everything you’re projecting onto others is simply a part of yourself you haven’t yet seen, owned, and accepted. Through projection, life gives you a streamlined, direct path to healing yourself and integrating all your parts into a cohesive whole.
From Reaction to Reflection: A Personal Story
Let me illustrate. This week, I was with someone who constantly talked about themselves. Constantly.
No matter the topic, they brought it back to them. I was triggered. I had the thought, “How can you be so self-absorbed? So self-referential?” I made up all kinds of judgments. From the state of my consciousness —below the line–it really did seem like it was about them.
Then I remembered: I’ve never met another person. Only myself.
So I chose to play the game:
“What if they’re the screen and I’m the projector? What if what I see over there is really something in me?
What if I’m seeing my own self-absorption, self-centeredness?”
Three Steps to Eating a Projection
Eating projections begins with curiosity. Ask:
- Is this something I don’t yet see in me?
- Is it something I haven’t owned as me?
- Is it something I haven’t yet accepted or loved in me?
So I ask myself, “Am I open to at least the possibility that I have a self-absorbed, self-referential, self-centered part of me?” I ask this question in a gentle, kind way that supports curiosity and wonder. If I’m sincere, I slow down, breathe, and look for that part of me.
Almost always, I can find the part of me I’ve been projecting. In this case, I didn’t have to look far.. Even while “listening” to them — I was absorbed in my own thoughts, judgments, and reactions.
I was being self-referential, making it all about me and how they weren’t interested in me.
Bingo. Projection.
Step one: See it.
Step two: Own it.
“Yes, I really do have a self-centered part. In general, and in this specific situation.”
Welcoming the Banished Parts
If you’re like most people, you’ll find that after you see and own the parts of yourself you’re projecting, a contraction often follows. Resistance. Judgment. “I shouldn’t be this way. It’s wrong to be self-centered.” You’ll pull back from that part of yourself. You might see it and even own it—but you won’t accept and love it.
This is what keeps projection going. Until we can love and accept all the parts of ourselves— especially the ones we find despicable—we’ll keep projecting them onto others.
At a spiritual level, this is actually beautiful.
Spiritually, we all crave wholeness. Oneness.
And when we banish a part of ourselves, it doesn’t disappear– it reappears, again and again, through projection. It stays in our world so we have the chance to repair the rupture and bring it home to our integrated Self.
The third step—acceptance—is the step of integration. Once I see and own a selfish part of me, I ask: “Could I simply accept this part of me?” At this point, I’ve acknowledged and allowed it. Now, can I go one step farther and accept it? Give it a breath of loving compassion?
For most of us, that’s not easy. We banished these parts for a reason. The parts we have most disowned, and therefore project most onto others, were usually exiled early on. As children, we looked around and concluded: this part of me isn’t welcome. So we split it off…
In my case, I learned young that selfishness wasn’t welcome. To survive psychologically—to be loved—, I had to focus on others. So I buried my selfishness. I denied it.
But it didn’t vanish.
It just hid in the shadows.
And lived through projection.
I keep putting it onto others— then rejecting them, which is really rejecting me again.
Once I see that I banished my selfish part to survive, I can open to offering that part of me the compassion it deserved. I can become the loving caregiver who says:
“It’s OK. It’s good for you to pay attention to yourself and your needs. You don’t have to hide the part of you that focuses on yourself. That part is beautiful—an essential part of being human. I welcome that part of you.”
None of us had perfect caregivers. Many were deeply well-intentioned, but all were wounded. They couldn’t love all our parts because they hadn’t loved all of theirs. This isn’t a problem. It’s part of the human journey.
And that journey invites us to give to ourselves what we deserved but didn’t get. That’s taking responsibility for our own growth, maturing, healing, integration. Projection is a portal into that process.
Don't Forget the Positive Projections
By the way, projection cuts both ways.
It’s not just the “negative” aspects we project onto others, but the “positive” as well. When we admire–or envy– another’s creativity, power, confidence, insight, perseverance, resilience, love, or humility…we’re still looking at a screen. Those qualities live in us, too. We just haven’t seen, owned, or accepted them yet. Maybe we were told not to shine. To tone it down. To not be too much. So we split those parts off. But they’re still ours. And the process of reclaiming them is the same: See it. Own it.Accept it and love it.
What's Possible When You Eat Your Projections
This is how conscious leaders eat their projections. The more projections you eat, the more whole you become.And the more clearly you can see the world– not through the lens of your wounds, but as it is. This is the path to freedom. To connection, To authentic leadership.
Not by changing others….but by meeting yourself.
Further Resources
- Curiosity vs. Being Right video – Conscious leaders understand why they, and others, want to be right. They accept this threatened state and use curiosity to shift.
- Instructions for Doing “The Work” (Byron Katie) – What if the opposite of your story is at least as true? Use these simple steps to navigate your belief and free your mind.
- Commitment #2 Meditation – Curiosity – This meditation supports you in letting go of being right, and embracing the idea of curiosity.
