Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors

Dec 14, 2022

The quest for Stepping Up to our Potential has many paths. The one I prefer centers around challenging myself to bring the full power of me to the table. This means facing fears, recognizing what’s really valuable about myself, having the courage to work through self-doubts, and being brave enough to confront and defuse triggers (upcoming). Wherever I aim to stepping up – however I choose to do it – I am stepping out of where I have been. This means covering new territory, and with new territory comes the opportunity for genuine self-discovery.

It’s this process of self-discovery that I’ve been working to foster in myself. From learning to ask What instead of Why to learning how to replace limiting negatives in thought and speech, every tiny new thing learned helps me navigate more effectively through the everyday world and supporting the new one which is coming into being with each step up.

Everything I’ve covered up to now has been leading into the lesson which has had the single biggest impact on my capacity for genuine self-understanding. It’s been the lesson THAT enabled me to step away from self-limiting beliefs, see the false foundations which earlier stopped me before I even got started, and fostered learning to embrace all that I am without judgement. What is the this single biggest lesson?

Learning to effectively recognize, work with, and integrate all the pieces of myself that I’d rather not see, acknowledge, or own.

Everybody, everywhere, has these pieces. It’s normal. Say that with me — it’s normal to have pieces of ourselves that we don’t or can’t see. What’s also completely normal is that those pieces want to be seen and recognized. The moment that they are seen and owned is the moment they start to be become integrated into the bigger picture of Who We Are.

There are many ways to help uncover these hidden pieces, but my personal favorite is by working with Projection. In psychological terms, a projection is a basic way of dealing with internal emotional realities that we cannot yet fully accept or understand by pushing those internal truths out into the world onto others. I call this the Hall of Mirrors. Everyone is always in a hall of mirrors. The trick is recognizing it and then learning how to see through the mirror to the person standing across from you.

The really great part? Projections only start showing up in our awareness when we are subconsciously ready to face them. Doesn’t mean they’re fun, and it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. It just means you’re ready, and it needs to happen.

Story Time

There was a woman in my office who just grated me the wrong way. She wasn’t on my team and I didn’t have to interact with her directly, but she very briefly sat in the cubicle beside mine. I never even saw her! But I heard her talking. It was enough. Every time she’d sigh dramatically, or reply to conversations, I could feel myself responding with baffling fury. Fortunately, by this point I had developed enough of an Observer Self that one day the question popped into my head: what gives? I don’t even know her name, and yet hearing her voice has me seething. Clearly, this response has nothing to do with her. So what am I responding to?

I had to do some soul searching to find out what was going on. The observer self’s job is to recognize emotional responses and point them out for us to consciously work with, and I usually start with giving the emotions permission to fully vent. What do I mean by this?

Essentially, this means finding a safe space in which I can give my emotions free reign to express themselves. Sometimes it’s screaming into a pillow, sometimes it’s feverishly writing, sometimes it’s talking to myself in the car while coming home, sometimes it’s giving my house a scrub down as I think. It does not matter what form your expression takes. It may even change, depending on the situation and your life. Just that it’s a safe place, preferably with just you. No audience, no peanut gallery, no external feedback, no censoring yourself.

In this space, it’s easy to start a negative feedback loop. Without external input to help keep us on track, perhaps consider teaching the observer self to pipe up with things like “you know that’s not fair” or some other statement which helps keep us on the road to self-discovery rather than the road to self-righteousness. You’ll have to figure out your own pattern and what works best for you on this front. The point is to be constructive, rather than destructive. If you find that at this point trying to engage solo is just not helping, then maybe it’s time to look for an impartial peanut gallery. Preferably someone with practice at this sort of emotional navigation who can help teach you how to steer through the choppy waters. A therapist, a really good friend, or maybe even an acquaintance that you’re not trying to impress. Whatever works.

So in my safe space, I’m giving my emotional reaction to this woman carte blanche to say whatever comes to mind. I’m more interested in truth than being politically correct, or a “good person”. Those filters have to come off in this type of exercise. This no-filter objective is another reason why being alone is preferred. In the ranting, I heard words like “know-it-all” and “overbearing” and “opinionated”, for starters. I let the emotions fully vent themselves, watching them play themselves out like I’m in the audience watching a play. Engaged, but not immersed in them. That’s the ideal, but it can take a while. Give yourself permission to grow into this exercise!

Now that I was armed with some words, I could start exploring the discovery. Ultimately, I realized that this person sounded like my worst concept of myself – the person I really did not want to be. I really did NOT want to own that I could be like that. My idea of myself was nice, compassionate, patient … not overbearing and opinionated!

Now is a good time to mention another new concept — emotional maturity. We’ve worked on emotional intelligence, which is recognizing and working with emotional states within ourselves and by extension those around us. But emotional maturity is what allows us to work with said emotions without unnecessarily escalating them. The venting exercise is a perfect place to begin developing this skill. I will encourage you to notice your progress as you grow from raging in the car to being capable having a calm discussion. True emotional maturity can take years to fully develop, but starting now is always worth it. I’ve learned that there were some topics which were far more emotionally charged or deep rooted than others, but with perseverance now I can usually either engage productively or recognize that I need to take a step back and breath before continuing.

Back to the illustration here. Ultimately, I had to fully own that I can actually be exceedingly opinionated and also overbearing, with snippy know-it-all appearing as well. Let me tell you, this was a very hard pill to swallow, but I had to own it. What’s really cool is that when I began owning these pieces, I could recognize them in action. Not only as they played out, but eventually recognizing when they came on deck and were about to be put into play. From here, I learned to recognize what triggered those responses, and why. They stopped being a liability and after a time I realized these stronger aspects of my personality were actuality the very qualities I needed in order to set healthy boundaries (formerly: opinionated) and have the courage to stand by them (formerly: overbearing). Wow! So by doing the work of owning this part of myself I thought I didn’t like, I ended up being a stronger person overall and instead of being negatives, I was to manifest them in their positive form. This was a huge step up!!

Even more interesting? After going through all this internal work, the next day I went into work … and had zero reaction to hearing that lady speaking. None at all.

The Point

I’m going to talk about these unknown parts of ourselves over, and over, and over again. Whether they are projections (which are my favorite) or patterns or another of the myriad manifestations, learning to recognize them in action and how to manage them after that was instrumental for me to even consider stepping up. What’s really interesting is that through learning to work with my own, I can now recognize when someone else is putting their projection onto me. There is so much freedom in being able to recognize when someone is trying to engage you … when they can’t even see you.

The reason I introduced the idea of the observer self before I talked about projections is that this observer self is instrumental in helping to recognize them. Just as the example I gave above, a projection is always disproportionate to the situation. It’s the observer self which has the level of detachment necessary to recognize “something isn’t right here, what is it?”

In the interest of training your observer self, pay attention to situations where the emotional response is immediate and intense. Here are some of the examples that I’ve encountered:

You instantly strongly dislike or like someone, even if you don’t know their name.
A situation shifts and you find yourself quickly enraged or seethingly jealous. Particularly look for these in arguments.
Look for instances where you feel defensive or threatened enough to start yelling or hitting even when the person you’re speaking to isn’t threatening or yelling.
You rapidly and deeply fall in love, and everything about the person is just wonderful and perfect!
Responding inappropriately. For example, I’ve told somebody “Have a nice day” and got snipped at with “Did you just call me fat?!” (true story!!!)

So again, pretty much every time the emotions are running super high with little to no ramp-up or external mitigating factors, you’re dealing with a projection of some form or other. The more intense the emotional response, the more important it is for you to deal with it.

For now, focus on recognizing when a projection is active. It can be at work, with family, friends, pets, at the grocery store, on Twitter, anywhere. Once some part of you, ie that Observer Self, has the flashbulb recognition moment, then you can start moving on to the next steps. It’s this flashbulb moment that allows us to see the mirror for what it is, and in that tiny blink perhaps you can have the realization that there’s someone behind the mirror that you aren’t even seeing.

I’ll let you in on a secret. You never run out of projections. Ever. No matter how skilled you get at recognizing, managing and integrating them, there will be more. The benefit is that once recognized, they become a useful tool for you — rather than a run-away train desperately trying to get your attention.

Once you can somewhat effectively start to recognize them in action, take some time to consider them when no longer in the midst of it. As with my story, I wasn’t examining my responses while still sitting next to the lady. I did it on the ride home or in my journal. While I will tell you that keeping a journal is immensely helpful and a very powerful tool, if you don’t currently keep a journal and aren’t inclined to start, then find some other way to do this internal work. The more you own it, the more it can help you step up faster and stronger.

After a projection is recognized and considered, then start actively engaging it by allowing your emotions to fully vent in a safe space and in a safe way. The biggest ones are tough to do this with, but they are also the most bang for the buck. I’ve said it before, personal issues don’t resolve — they evolve. Projections are the same. Recognizing one piece, it evolves so you can find the next piece.

The great news is that every projection – whole or pieces – that you engage and work with brings you closer and closer to recognizing your true potential. There are things I’m doing now that were literally inconceivable to me before I began owning my many (many, many) projections. If you can’t see yourself at least somewhat clearly, how will you truly know what you’re capable of? I guarantee, you’re capable of a whole lot more than you currently imagine!

TL;DR

What we encounter of the world is a reflection of our internal state, so much so that we rarely even see the person standing across from us for who they are. Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors. When you have the strength to start owning how much we live in a Hall of Mirrors, then you can begin the process of owning your projections and thus stepping into your power.