Episode 15 - Projection

In this episode of Decoding the Unicorn: the Podcast, I'll explore the quiet, often unconscious force that shapes so much of how we see the world: projection. When the facts are few, our minds rush in to fill the gaps—sometimes with empathy, other times with fear, fantasy, or fragments of our own past.

Whether it’s assuming someone’s coldness means they dislike us, or interpreting silence as rejection, or projecting heroism or villainy onto a person based on a sliver of their behavior—this episode reminds us that humility and curiosity are better guides than "certainty."

#DecodingTheUnicorn #DagHammarskjöld #ProjectionPsychology #MindfulLiving #EmotionalIntelligence #SeeClearly #InnerWork #HumanNarrative #SpiritualGrowth #SelfAwareness #MythVsReality #UnpackingProjection #StorytellingWisely #CompassionateCuriosity #LeadershipWithHeart

📚 Grab your copy of Decoding the Unicorn – the award-winning biography of Dag Hammarskjöld: https://a.co/d/2PlTHHL

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

projection, introversion, creative friendship, Liz Gilbert, Ann Patchett, social dynamics, introvert power, fragile bully, personal biases, solitude, privacy, rumor mill, celibacy, JFK, Neville Goddard

Welcome to the Decoding the Unicorn Podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Episode 15 of decoding the unicorn. The podcast today, I want to talk about projection. I was thinking about this recently because I had a situation where I caught myself doing exactly that, and I was able to stop the crazy manic spiral and take a step back and re evaluate. I remember this exact topic came up last summer, whenever I was interviewing the author, Dr Laurie Helgoe. You may know that she is the author of introvert power and also fragile bully. Both books are fantastic. I recommend them highly if you're not familiar. I would definitely advise you to check them out. But we had a discussion about projection, introversion, and it just got me to thinking, how many times in life do we have situations where we fill in the blanks according to our own biases or according to our own ideas, our own fears? And what can we do to stop that cycle before it gets too far gone before the train gets too far down the tracks away from the station. How can we pull it back and be more thoughtful if you've ever caught yourself in the same situation, stay tuned.

Just a reminder, you can find Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn, A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld on amazon.com. The link is available in the summary for this episode. And now back to the show!

So here's the reason why projection was on my mind. If you've ever read Liz Gilbert's book Big Magic, she talks about her friendship with fellow writer, Ann Patchett, and even though they don't see each other all the time, they have a really warm, congenial type of friendship. Liz talks about how they write old fashioned letters to each other, and when they happen to be at the same conferences or the same meetings, it's like old home week. And I met somebody recently that I kind of had this like, Oh, yay. I had this moment I was like a happy little puppy. My tail would have totally been wagging. I had this moment of like, Oh, yay. This could be like a Liz Gilbert Anne Patchet situation. This other person being in a somewhat similar vein of creative living as myself, she might be just perfect for this type of friendship. So I was super excited, and when we sat down and started trying to talk, it was odd in some respects, it was like a comedy of errors. I'm thinking of like the old Ricky Gervais comedies, like the British version of the office where Ricky Gervais is on the show extras, like, there would be these moments where something bizarre would happen. Ricky would you sort of look at the camera, like, okay. Or in extras, he would look at Stephen Merchant, who was playing the role of his agent, who wasn't very helpful. It would be like, Wow. Okay, thanks. Like that. So it would be like, Oh, well, how are you? How are things going? How's life? Fine. Okay. Are you working on anything new? No, I have seen any good movies lately, or heard any great music, anything that's really inspired you. No. Where does one go from there? And so initially, I was thinking of this friend that I had when I was in graduate school. He was a painfully shy extrovert. If you're shaking your head like I don't believe any such thing exists. There are such people. Just like I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm an introvert, but I'm not shy. I'll say just about anything. I'm pretty plain spoken and hot tempered about things. If you're a frequent tuner-inner you probably have already guessed that I keep this broadcast very G rated because, you know, it's dedicated to Dag, and it doesn't feel like the time or the place to be too brassy or bold if you want that you can tune in to my nighttime podcast, the con-sara-cy theories. I don't get into that kind of stuff here, but it's, it's just not difficult for me to open up a conversation with somebody new, because I'm not sitting there overly worried about, what does this person think? What if they don't like my shoes? What if I have spinach in my teeth? You know, if that's the biggest thing they've got to worry about in their life, then that's sad for them. It's really not a reflection on me. That's sad for them. So I had this friend in graduate school, and because. He was painfully shy, like he wanted to have interactions, he wanted to be in groups, but he he didn't know how to navigate it. He didn't know how to open up the dynamic and get a conversation started. So there were times that I would do that for him, and I would tell him, I will get the conversation going. I'll get the ball rolling for you, and then after that, I'm going to go home because I'm tired. I've worked all day, and I'm done my my social limit has been hit hours ago. I I'm exhausted. So I would get things started for him, once he fell into the conversation, and there was some, you know, social lubricant, if you will, he was fine. He would settle in and talk or sing karaoke or do whatever, and he would be fine. So I was kind of wondering, like, well, maybe this person is in that category. Maybe it just takes her a little bit of time to get warmed up. But it really, it was a lot like pulling teeth. And I'm thinking, how can this person be so creative and be putting forth creative works and then be so tight lipped, and it's like impossible to get any kind of communication or creativity out of this person. It was just awkward. And I knew it was like my dream kind of went wah wah. I knew that we were not going to be Liz Gilbert and Ann Patchett. It just wasn't going to happen. But after I left this encounter, that's when the projection started, and that's what really inspired this episode today, I had all these thoughts mingling around in my head, is she like this? Is she like that? Did you laugh too loud? Were you too exuberant? Were you too passionate? Should you have dialed it back? Did you not do a good enough job of mirroring her body language back to her like I was trying really hard to make it my fault, and I was also trying really hard to project different ideas or even different diagnoses onto her, and that's when I'm like, stop. I literally just I put my hands up and I said out loud, stop, you don't even know the situation here, and you're starting to project all kinds of ideas and notions onto this other person with no clue as to whether or not it's accurate. You're just kind of throwing darts at a dart board based on your own experiences, your own biases, et cetera. And I thought about the conversation that I had last July with Dr Laurie helgo. I wish I could have put the whole conversation into decoding the unicorn, because there's some brilliant information that I got from her. One of the things that she talks about is that introverts can be a great target for projection, and she explained it as if I don't know what your face looks like, I can put all of my fears onto that. She also talks about introverts being asked questions like, what's wrong? Or, why are you so quiet? Really? The person may just be in this reflective, contemplative space. They may need a few minutes to collect their thoughts. It's not that they're trying to be quote, unquote anti social or cold. They may just need a minute. And that was really when I stopped myself. Like, you don't need to project onto this lady just because you you don't know what's going on with her. You don't know why she's not fulfilling your dream. You're the one that's sitting here with this like, yay. We could be like Liz and Anne. Wouldn't this be fun? But she may have no such desire for that type of friendship, or she may already have somebody in her life that fits that mold for her, and she may be like, not you, and that's perfectly fine. This came up in the context of dag because there are elements of Dag's life that he kept private, and when people don't know why somebody wants to have their privacy. They don't understand why somebody values solitude and discretion. They start to make up all sorts of reasons, and those reasons can rapidly become nefarious. When we look at the whatever you'd want to call it, the rumor mill, the aspersions that have gone on about the legacy of JFK, for example, we're very, very often told that he was extremely active in the romance department. Again, I'm trying to keep it G rated, since this is a podcast dedicated to Dag, I don't want to get into a lot of lascivious dialog, but you get what I'm saying. We're very often told that he was hyperactive in that arena of his life, so much so that very often it's like JFK is reduced to a murder victim and somebody who was way too undisciplined when it came to the romance and the dalliances in his life. With Dag, we have the opposite kind of projection, because it's like, well, why was Dag celibate? Why wasn't he involved, whether it would have been a man or a woman, why wasn't he involved with someone? Why wasn't he sleeping around? That's odd. So on the one side of the spectrum, you have JFK, and it's like, No Shame on him. Naughty. He was bad. He was a bad boy. Those Kennedys were bad boys. Then you have somebody like Dag, and it's like, well, Dag was rich, or at least well off. He certainly wasn't a pauper. He was a good looking guy. He held a high office for several years. Why wasn't he? Why wasn't he doing those types of things? So we have the bad boy image, and then we have what's wrong with this guy, that he lived an austere kind of lifestyle? It's okay, apparently, if you are in the clergy, if you're a nun, if you're a monk, if you're a priest, and you say, I've taken this vow of celibacy, I don't want that element in my life. It's not something that's my priority. I want to focus on religion and being faithful to God or to Jesus or whatever. That's perfectly acceptable. But if you have somebody like Dag who has said, that's not a part of my life, that's my focus, that's not a part of my life that needs to be indulged. People go, what's wrong with him? Something is really bad wrong with him. And then the projections and the rumor mill get started. If I don't know what your face looks like, as Laurie Helgoe so wisely put it, then I will start pasting images on top of it. And it's not really our right to do that. It's like the old expression, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I saw that happening with myself, in this situation where I was like, yay. I want to have this Liz Gilbert, Ann Patchett dynamic with a fellow creator. This would be awesome. Well, that other person didn't reciprocate, or maybe she was at a point where she just didn't know how to reciprocate. And it's not meant to be at this particular moment in time. And that's fine. It's totally fine. The Earth is not going to spin off of its axis. Life will go on. The sun will rise tomorrow. I promise. At sunset, it will start to get dark, the moon will come out, like, life's gonna go on without this moment in time of me thinking, yay, maybe I'm gonna have this big, magic type relationship. And then it's like, Huh, well, probably not with her, and that's okay. So what I want to challenge you to do is, when you start making up these stories, you start telling yourself these stories. You start pasting an image on somebody else's face. You start in with the wheel of drama and of gossip and of projection. Can you stop yourself and say, Wait a minute, I'm making up all kinds of stories. I don't know what the situation is with this person. And ultimately, it's really not my business. If we were meant to have a close, tight friendship, then we would. And if we're not, that's okay too. It just means that somebody else who is desirous of the same thing and is compatible with me is out there. It's like the neville goddard idea that what you seek is also seeking you. You wouldn't have a desire for it if there wasn't some way of fulfillment. So there is a person out there that is like, you know what the same kind of friendship that you have your beacon calibrated to? You've got the light shining from the lighthouse. It attracted me in I want the same thing, and it can be very easy and effortless. It doesn't have to be like a conversation where you feel like you're pulling teeth to get the information out beyond yes, no, I don't know. Thank you, but we don't have to project we don't have to start making up stories. We don't have to start filling in the blanks if we don't understand why a person lives a particular way, why they like their solitude, why they may not fit into whatever mold that we had for them in our minds. Just some food for thought. I will see you in the next episode.

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