The World is Our Mirror: Triggers, Projecting, & Healing From Within
In the coaching world we have a saying: Perception is Projection. That's because everything we see, hear, touch, smell & analyze goes through our subconscious minds; that's deleting, distorting, or generalizing it based on our model of the world. If your mindset is operating from a wounded or limited model of the world, then you can see how that impacts your growth and healing. So wouldn't you like to know how you can navigate the world with better self awareness, get unstuck, and heal?
How Your Mind Functions
It’s important to first establish how our mind works so you know how to use your mind and not let your mind use you. Every second we are absorbing 2.5 million bits of data. This is through visual, auditory, kinesthetic, auditory digital, smell, and taste. That's a lot to process so our subconscious mind’s job is to take all the information and filter it by deleting some stuff, generalizing some other stuff, and distorting others. These 3 filters are based on our model of the world which is our beliefs, identities, values, and memories to name a few. If you have a limited model of the world aka negative mindset, fixed mindset, etc. What you see, or what's left of what you see, is the representations of the model of our internal world. Hence, the world being our mirror.
An example of this would be how I see entrepreneurship. When I see it, I see excitement and growth. Another person might see it as fear and uncertainty. Taking it a layer deeper, I look at launching a new course/certification as something exciting and I feel ready to go and be all in while another person would be fearful at the thought of launching a program creating negative self-talk amongst yourself. Another example I have could be; imagine us meeting someone. We meet them, they leave, and we both talk about what we noticed about them. I comment on their energy and you comment on what they’re wearing. Neither of us catch what we notice about the person because I deleted everything but her energy while you delete everything but her shirt. Perhaps, in my model of the world, people’s energies are important to me and in your model of the world people’s looks are important to you. Different models of the world result in seeing different things.
Because the world is our mirror, what you see externally is what you have internally. With this concept, it’s time for you to start becoming more aware of what you see. With that being said, the next time you judge someone, notice your judgements and triggers. Two ways to become more aware of the model of your world is through your triggers and your projections.
Getting Curious About Your Triggers
Being triggered happens when you have judgments about people, when something causes disruption within us, or a negative emotion. The deeper the wound the harsher the judgment. The more that you judge someone about something, it’s probably due to something you feel insecure about. Getting curious about your triggers shows you what you get to heal inside. It shows you how and where your internal world is limited and parts of you that need to heal.
An example I have about being triggered is, in the past, I used to get triggered by people copying me. It was a trigger that was NOT serving me to the point where I was getting too hung up on my content, actively searching for people who were copying me, and I’d go so far as to re-checking another girl’s page to see what content she was creating that was mine; I was consuming way more than I was creating. When I became curious about this trigger, it allowed me to reflect on why I was feeling the way I did when people copied me. I then realized that it was due to a lack of self-trust and confidence. It wasn’t about THEM copying me but rather how I felt about myself. Another example of a trigger I had was when I was working as a personal trainer at Equinox, I was triggered by people who didn’t work as hard as I did. I judged personal trainers who weren’t as busy as I was. When I got curious about this trigger, I realized that my worth was in my productivity. The more productive and busy I was, the more I valued myself. My value of the personal trainers I worked with was dictated by the model of my world during that time. I believed that people who were busy and productive were worth more because that’s how I viewed myself.
Triggers are there to show us the resistance and misalignment we have within ourselves. Anytime you get triggered, ask yourself: What has yet to be healed or acknowledged in myself that’s causing this trigger? I know all of you are here because you want to build more self awareness, heal, and become your highest self; in order for us to grow and to be our highest self, we have to be living at cause. Which means we are not the victim of our lives. We are not living in the effect of others. Anything we feel, think, and do is something we are accountable for. Get curious about your triggers and take ownership of them too.
Becoming Aware of Your Projections
Projection refers to unconsciously taking unwanted emotions or traits you don't like about yourself and attributing them to someone else. This is also known as shadow work. When you project onto people, you are projecting your shadow. If you find yourself feeling insecure and unworthy in a relationship, you find yourself projecting that energy to your partner. We often assume that we know what others are going through and how they’re feeling; this causes unintentional projections toward the person. From a coaching perspective, an example would be that when a client is going through something difficult and speaking to you about it, it’s important that you don’t project your own unhealed experiences onto them. What that looks like is, “When I’M struggling with this, I do…” -- This isn’t helpful and it takes away from their own lived experience. The intention of projections can evoke either a negative or positive feeling but the impact is what’s at stake.
An example I could give would be when I was at my mastermind’s retreat a couple of weeks ago and a girl was sharing her experience with the group. At the very end, I said, “Wow, that's so courageous of you.” -- She took a moment and said, “You know, that actually wasn’t so courageous of me, that was really weak of me. I was running away and trying to avoid my problems.” That prompted me to see how I was projecting onto her! Having awareness of what we project onto others will not only help us be more mindful of what we say but shows us what our internal world looks like.
When the Things Inside You Change, The World Around You Changes
Circling it back to the world is our mirror. When we embody this principle, we can be at more cause of our life; we are not living in victim mentality, we’re not blaming people, we’re not taking things personally. The world is a reflection of our inner thoughts, values, feelings, and beliefs. The more that we can heal from within, the different our world starts to look. The more you become more conscious and aware, the less that you get triggered by and the less you project. It’s not the circumstances of our life that create our experiences, it’s our thoughts about our circumstances that create our experiences.
Get curious about your triggers and projections and take ownership of them because when we do that, we can start to see the world in a different lens. We are able to shift our lives and see what we really want to see.
