I recently met a woman whose husband was dealing with stage four colon cancer. She was very upset about how miserable he was after his chemotherapy infusions and thought he should be doing more work with holistic healers.
She found herself quite stressed until she realized SHE was the one that would have wanted holistic treatment had it been HER that was ill. Her stress was due to projecting her feelings onto him and then reacting accordingly.
How often do YOU do that? How often do you react as if someone or something else felt the same way you do when, in fact, they are perfectly happy just the way they are?
We don’t do this just in situations with illness. I know that sometimes I do it when dealing with our animals. I feel guilty about leaving the dogs home when I go somewhere, and I realize that it’s because I wouldn’t want to be left alone if I were in their position. I am projecting my feelings onto the dogs.
The truth of the matter, however, is that they are dogs, not people, and they may be upset at being left alone but then they go to sleep after a minute or so and that’s the end of it. Studies have shown that dogs have no sense of time, so they feel the same if you leave them for 5 minutes or five hours; they are always hysterically happy to see you. In fact, my office is downstairs and whenever I come upstairs for lunch, one of our poodles, Emma, jumps down and runs over to greet me. Her tail is going a mile a minute and, more often than not, she brings me a toy as well. It seems a bit extreme, but there I go again projecting my feelings on to her. *I* would be happy to see me, too, but not THAT happy and not THAT often!
Another example; Alzheimer’s patients. The loved ones of Alzheimer’s patients are so distraught about the situation, often because they feel sorry for them. Guess what? The patients themselves are usually just as happy as they can be in their own view of the world. Of course it’s sad that this has happened and it is terribly hurtful when your own mother doesn’t recognize you, but don’t feel sorry for them; THEY’RE happy and feel no pain because they don’t know what they have forgotten. We feel sorry for them because we would hate to be in that situation; there we go, projecting again.
“Okay, Dave, I’m projecting. What can I do about it?”
I think that awareness is the key; the most important thing is to realize what we are doing. As soon as we do, we can make smart choices and focus on what the other person feels and wants instead of what we would feel and want in their situation.
I never said it would be easy.
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