Stepping out of Projection and into Human Relationship
Photo Credit: Sebastian Pichler
Remember growing up and watching Cinderella, Snow White, or the Little Mermaid? Snow white singing some day her prince will come? Who doesn't love a tear jerking romantic comedy? As we grow up most of us have these images in our minds and beings that romance will sweep us off our feet, it will make us happy, fix what we feel is wrong in our lives, and we will live happily ever after.
The projections of Prince or Princess, God or Goddess that we project at our partners are strong. For many of us we believe that those projections are actually who they are and because of this we find ourselves disappointed, resentful, and in some cases feeling stuck in a relationship that we did not sign up for.
From an early age I found myself in relationship after relationship where I projected an image onto my partners and was constantly frustrated. Why could they not change to fit the image that I had of them?! It is natural to project and accept others projections, in fact it is inevitable in our teen years and twenties as many of us are not capable of differentiating projection from human. Inevitably there will be projection involved when we first meet our partners, however when we are aware of this projection we can consciously choose to engage in it and move into the relationship with a more human view of the process.
If there was a big flashing warning sign in this blog, here is where it would be. If we don't connect with something larger than us, whatever that may be (the Self, god/goddess, nature, the universe etc.), we will project that onto our partner. If your relationship with your Self is there, then your partner is free to be a fallible human being and you are free to connect with your Self. You see, we can lose ourselves. If our projection of our Self is outward we can lose our Self in that projection and this is a great danger, the ultimate sacrifice in romantic love.
When you connect with your Self your partner can come off of their pedestal. You can engage in the beauty of human relationship, paying bills, grocery shopping, make mistakes together, and that will be OK. Occasionally you will crash into each other and flow apart, all the while the relationship will grow deeper and stronger. The life/death/life cycle of relationship will be allowed.
Now, I get it. The butterflies, the electricity of projection, the love potion that we drink, that is captivating. It lifts us to heights unimaginable and brings us to our knees. It is holy energy, it is spirit and matter merging, it is intoxicating, it is hard to give up. We don't have to- it takes dedication and practice to connect to your soul, your Self, the god/goddess within to find this well of holy energy. It is there. To be able to free our partners of the constriction, expectation, and image that they will never be able to live up to, we must see them in all their humanness. The mess. The beauty of figuring out a broken dishwasher. Whatever. Once we let go of the projection we can decide if we actually love this human- maybe we will, and maybe we wont. Some of us may know this and stay with the projection because dropping it can be terrifying! It can mean the death of the relationship and many things that are familiar and that make us feel safe.
We must hold fast and fierce to our Self, our inner god and goddess, to nature, the universe. We must find that and return again and again in order to stay true to our Selves and to be free to be messy, beautiful, whole humans in our closest relationships.
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