Projecting: Does what you project still work for you?
A lot, just about everything, is in your head. Colors you see are colored in by your brain[1]. Also, not everyone sees the same shade of color you see[2]. Maybe that's why tastes differ?
So how did this come about? This was created so that we could survive. As a means of more easily distinguishing one object from another. Indeed, this increases contrasts
If a black bear is coming at you and everything is gray, you just can't see that bear coming at you. So by projecting the colors, the green trees, you see that black bear much easier.
So the colors project themselves (as mentioned in the first source). Then you can also create all kinds of illusions with this, like the one with the boxes.
And even shadow can be faked and can fill in your brain.
This is quite fascinating.
Your inner world creates your outer world. This has even happened with color. All around you may be gray, but so we project color.
We also filter out a lot of what we don't think is important. What we don't believe and what we can't perceive with our senses. Such as certain pitches or frequencies of light.
That's kind of interesting, too.
After all, what is real and what is not real? What can you influence with it and what can't?
So if you project almost everything, there are many opportunities for you. After all, what do you want to see in the world? What do you want to perceive?
So this comes from within and not from without.
What is projecting?
Scientists also indicate that social projecting means that you expect other people to behave the way you behave[3]. That they have the same norms and values and the like. Usually this also works as a strategy to predict what someone else is like. In doing so, this projecting does help you adapt and thus contribute to the bigger picture, but then what you project must work for you and indeed be similar to what other people project.
This even goes so far that when you are hungry or thirsty, you project this feeling to your environment[4].
But there is also already a natural inhibition. For example, women project their opinions onto other women, but not men. Men also stay within their gender to project certain opinions onto other people[5].
Fortunately, we can communicate to double-check this.
This may sound logical, because you see the world differently than others do. Your focus is on different things than other people’s. This may be due to your upbringing, your frame of reference, your beliefs, and your past—which you use to compare things to.
So the fact that you project almost everything literally is kind of interesting.
So this also has to do with what you put into it. The input is the output. Stuff in, stuff out. Good stuff in, good stuff out.
When you ingest something, you start to perceive it more in the world.
You might even think that everyone does it. When I was studying NLP, I thought everyone was familiar with it. That’s not really the case.
Hypnosis, on the other hand, is familiar to everyone. Unlike NLP. EMDR they don't know either. Psychology does, because that is also a subject you can learn at a university.
Your projections and such can make it seem like the whole world is involved. Like with the climate. But I think of the whole world, of those 7 billion people, only 10% are concerned with the climate. The rest are busy with whole other things. Because for the rest it is not the biggest problem at all. They are happy to survive that day or that month.
If you care about the climate, you won't have those regular survival problems.
Because worldwide, 90% of people have next to nothing. Who live on a few dollars a day. So most people don't have that climate problem. We have it, because we are dealing with it and being dealt with it.
You could name many more issues that are not a problem for many people. North Korea or Iran might be a problem for some people, but if that seems so to you, why is that? Because for most people it is not a problem at all. Maybe many people don't even know those countries. But that's again my perception.
So, your reality is your reality—not “reality.”
All our ideas and things we project onto it.
Are precepts real or a projection?
So, in many areas of life, you can ask yourself whether this is true. For example, the unconscious—or perhaps even conscious—rules you’ve set for yourself about how relationships work, how work works, money, life, yourself, death, birth, parenting, and puberty.
Many people think that adolescence is a fierce period of breaking free. I now have four boys in puberty and notice very little of it. Much less fierce than I was then, so with us those rules are apparently different.
But if something works for you, then it works and you don't have to do anything about it. So if your rules work for you then it's good.
But isn't that rule working for you? Then it's just a rule, it's just a perception. And then know that most people in the world don't give a f*ck about your rules. This is all in your head.
They don't care. Neither do my rules. Only their own rules interest them. That also gives room to think and do what you want. Life has no rules, you make them, you project them. Then at some point you can think that everyone thinks like that and that it is just the way it is and that is a very interesting question, whether it is true.
You can always think through if something is not working well for you to what can work well for you.
Also listen to this podcast:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/195236/1803592-werkt-het-nog-wat-je-projecteert?play=true
Projecting less to or about other people
Do you want to project less socially? Then it’s good to know that when you view your thoughts and behavior as part of your identity, you’ll project less about what other people think and do[6].
In the process, you can also tell yourself that the person you expect or think something of is not in the same social category as you. This also helps not to project what someone thinks of you, for example[7]. This is actually also what I did with the climate projection onto the whole world. Of course not the whole world thinks about that problem and not all people think that is a problem, you can think of this because not everyone is Western and rich.
But also within the Netherlands itself, because how do you know if your neighbor cares about the climate (or whatever)? Who has a very different life than you.
By changing your perspective on your social projections, you also change the framework within which you can make decisions about what you’re going to do. This can, for example, help you worry less about what other people think of you, and as a result, you might dare to take more risks.
Hypnotic Projection
Hypnotic projection is slightly different from social projection, yet very similar.
When you are under hypnosis, you can project yourself onto a screen in your mind. So the idea of you and what you are you start to visualize. Just as you can project your own ideas and precepts onto people you think are in the same social group as you.
But now you're going to visualize yourself on a screen. You can then be suggested to forget all sorts of things about yourself, so you can then project your identity back onto yourself (or into yourself). Or you can look at important moments in your life without all kinds of expectations, that is, that have shaped you the way you are, to reclassify them once and thus distort those moments, so that in that way you can distort or change who you are now.
This is a technique you can use to change what you focus on.
For example, a recurring problem in your life can be transformed in this way, or it can help you focus on what you’re doing right in your life each time. You can change the way you see yourself—and, consequently, the way you see other people[8].
Would you like to learn more about hypnosis and how it can help you change your perspective on life—or certain aspects of your life? Then join the free online masterclass on hypnosis.
Or sign up for one of our training programs.
Sources:
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/24940303?seq=1
[2] https://www.pnas.org/content/106/11/4567.short
[3] http://files.clps.brown.edu/jkrueger/journal_articles/KruegerAcev.pdf
[4] http://files.clps.brown.edu/jkrueger/journal_articles/KruegerAcev.pdf (p. 22)
[5] http://files.clps.brown.edu/jkrueger/journal_articles/KruegerAcev.pdf (p. 24)
[6] http://files.clps.brown.edu/jkrueger/journal_articles/KruegerAcev.pdf (p. 21)
[7] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr0901_3
[8] https://hypnosis-and-health.com/Experiencing_Hypnosis_-_Milton_H._Erickson.pdf