Reflections

All that is within us is mirrored back to us from the external world—our lightness, our darkness, our conflicts, our compassion.

Our mirrors come in many forms. Co-workers, children, parents—everyone we relate to—are in some way a reflection of who we are, as is the natural world, seen and unseen.

It is in our most charged relationships where there exists the most potential to dig in deep and begin to assimilate some of our projections. Yet the relationships that are most charged are often those in which we are most invested, and therefore vulnerable.

And where we are most invested and most vulnerable is too often where we project as a way to protect our egos from having to deflate in order to assimilate more understanding and acceptance of who we fully are.

Assimilating newly conscious material tests our capacity to hold the unknown, “to hold the tension of the opposites,” as Carl G. Jung would say. Being in a place of non-resistance to deeper understanding occurs only when we are willing to surrender our ego's needs to be safe, right, and static.

Our call is to nourish our dynamic and evolving selves. The projections that act as barriers to our relationships with our selves and others need to be digested once they have ripened to the point of recognition.

Often, by the time we are able to recognize a projection we are also able to see long-held patterns we have established around it. We realize the projection has become a belief system. We realize that we have needed it in order to know our role in the drama.

Letting go of a projection leaves us with having to redefine ourselves and become responsible for our own choices.

I think that most conscious adults understand this on some level. Yet how many of us still find that we hold expectations of others, in some form, for our psychological well-being? How many of us are still living with cultural expectations, such as the expectations of gender placed upon us by Patriarchal Society, or the expectations of Logos over Eros placed upon us by Newtonian Physics?

We live in a web of projections cast upon us and reflected back to us daily. If our intention is to engage authentically with our universe we must learn to distinguish “you” from “me” and “me” from “it” as we move deeper into our interconnected universe.


Light to you all,
Colleen