Sunday, November 28, 2010

Projecting our self-hatred onto others

I have a dear friend who reads my blog every day. She looks forward to it and questions why I haven't written if I skip a few days. She and a few other friends have inspired me to write more frequently. I don't feel that I am writing just for myself; I feel that I am writing to them as well. By the way, I was delighted to find that I have one follower whom I don't even know (see left underneath my picture.) She inspired me to add a "followers" section to my blog. If you do in fact follow my blog I'd love to know who you are. Then again if you are too embarrassed to let it be known publicly that you follow my blog, I also totally understand that.

Which brings me to something that has been on my mind for a while: watering down what I write in order to be understood and to remain acceptable to the mainstream. My dear friend who reads my column religiously has asked me to write so that everyone can understand it. Sometimes my posts are very clear to her. They are simple and touch her heart. Sometimes they are confusing. I've struggled with this for a while but have come to the conclusion that I need to write whatever is coming up for me without censoring it. Some of the things that come up for me are far out, as I am not afraid to go into deep dark places in my psyche that others have not yet traversed.

For example this last week I have become in touch with a deep sense of self-hatred. Self-hatred is the main ingredient of every ego and of all suffering. But this is not a light topic and is not discussed in "normal" circles. However we all feel self-hatred. Some people are aware of how much they hate themselves and how unworthy they feel. For others like me, who are arrogant, it is more difficult to get in touch with our self-hatred because it is projected out to everyone else.

I realized recently that I have been projecting all my self hatred onto a friend who is very similar to me. The friendship ended because admitedly I wasn't a loving friend. I kept trying to fix all the things that were wrong with her. The good news from this painful mess is that I got to see that all the issues that I had with my friend were my own issues.

Check it out for yourselves. Pick a person whom you despise. If you don't despise anyone, then just pick a person who really irritates you. Write down all their faults--why you can't stand being with them. Don't hold anything back. When you feel done go back and read everything you wrote. My guess is that you have all the qualities that you hate in that person. You are projecting your own self-hatred onto them. (The good news is that when you admire someone else, you are also projecting your "good" qualities onto them.)

If this doesn't make sense to everyone reading this post, that's cool. It might not make sense to you consciously, but it might make sense to you on a different level. If this makes sense to you, so much the better. Seeing how we project the qualities we don't like onto others becomes a step away from victimhood. Instead of blaming the people out there for causing us misery, we can take responsibility for our own stuff. And once we take responsibility for our stuff, we can begin to heal it. That is the good news.

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