Spending time outside improves our health and well-being. Natural environments can improve our mood, perception of pain, sleep patterns, and provide many other benefits. This can be as simple as sitting outdoors to more vigorous activities like rock climbing or rafting. It may be the simplest way to improve your well-being–just go outside and do something you enjoy.
What is Projection?
Projection, in most literature, is when someone attributes their own feelings and actions to another. “Projection happens when someone unconsciously attributes their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to another person. For example, your partner may feel jealous in your relationship but may accuse you of being jealous. In this example, your partner is projecting their jealousy onto you.”
From a felt energetic sense, I think of persistent projection as a co-dependent relationship. In the above scenario, blame tends to be placed on the one who is projecting. And there can certainly be scenarios where one person’s physical actions and spoken words are harmful and, in the same physical and spoken sense, unprovoked. However, from an energetic standpoint, a co-dependency needs to exist for the projection to persist. When someone projects their energy at you, if there is no energetic response or accommodation, the projection tends to stop. If, however, you adjust your own energy to accommodate the projection, the projection can continue.
What I share in this post are simply my perceptions from observing myself, others, and working with clients during Craniosacral Therapy and Energy Meditations. I believe everyone has a way of sensing the movement of energy within themselves and others. Deepening our awareness of this sense is a tool for better self-understanding, communication, and compassion.
Co-Dependent Projections
Projections require some type of energetic accommodation to remain in place. The image below represents a neutral scenario between two people. Neither is projecting energy towards the other.
The next image shows a scenario where the energy shifts and one person begins projecting their energy towards the other person. There is a felt sense to this projection. We can learn to become consciously aware of it.
If the other person does not adjust their own energy to accommodate the projection, the projection tends to stop.
However, if the person being projected on accommodates the energy, the projection becomes co-dependent and persists. This can look many different ways energetically. A common pattern I have noticed is for the person being projected on to pull their own energetic presence out of the area. This allows the projection by the other person to continue.
Nature Doesn’t Project
Spending time in a place where there are no projections allows us to better see and feel our own projections. Nature is a perfect place to experience this. When the environment does not accommodate for our projections, it is much easier to feel the energetic shifts within our own bodies. It also makes it easier to feel the thoughts or emotions that can naturally arise when our energy shifts. And to feel those thoughts or emotions as our own. A tree will not tell us how to think. A mountain will not tell us how to feel. They do not change who they are. In doing this, they set an energetic example of how we can be who we are as well.
The image below shows a neutral scenario with a person and tree.
The person projects energy towards the tree. However, the tree remains in its own energy and does not accommodate the projection.
The projection stops and the energy returns to neutral.
Noticing Projections
Noticing how we carry and move our energy is really fun. It can also be deeply revealing. Our Energy Meditations post shares some practices to begin noticing our own energy. Projecting energy onto another can feel exhausting and disempowering. And when someone projects on us it can feel invasive and may lead us to avoid the person or push energy back at them. Projections, however, are neither good nor bad. It is simply a form of energetic communication. Learning to connect with and notice our own energy and the beliefs, thoughts, and emotions that arise as the energy moves in and around our bodies is a powerful skill.
