Stop Being a Hostage of Negative Projections

It was about 3:30 am in the morning when I awakened, as I often do these days.  My pillow affords me seeing, even without lifting my head, the golden and blue lights of the city in the distance.  This morning though it was strikingly different as a very low cloud had nestled over the rooftops preventing me from seeing hardly any of the outlines that had already been burned in my retina.   The lights were only dimly visible at best, and blurred.

I started to think about how life is often hidden and shrouded from our view.  We all want to fly through life with a clear vision of where we are going, or at least where we will be landing, but life is life and difficult to see far beyond.

At times we think we are in perfect control happily riding along the avenues of life, convinced that this new path will lead us to the ultimate happiness or riches, only to be thrown in a dark abysses, be it despair from a broken heart, uncertainty, indecision, or our best thwarted efforts.  We come out traumatized for sure, thrown off the rails we once felt so secure.

This scenario happens to us all, despite our best laid plans.   None of us can really foresee with any great precision into the future.  We do our homework and draw up the best blueprints of how we want our life to work out.

When we are dumped into the turbulent seas of unjustness, it can be a temptation to throw up your arms in disgust, cursing life as it unfolded and gird your limbs with anger and revenge.   Some adopt a defense of becoming overly vigilant, bitter,cynical and very distrustful in general about everything.

If you came from a childhood where you were abused or neglected, these disastrous events often serve as a validation of your basic view of life as being withholding, abusive, unsupportive,  and  plain cursed.  It is as if you develop antennas that are constantly searching for the worst case scenarios.

This can be a veritable trap that can further contribute to you having even more unhappy events come your way.  If you are always looking at the dim side of life, convinced that nothing is going to work out, you are setting yourself up to negative blueprinting.

This negative blueprinting can lead to all sorts of negative behaviors that can be obstructive and destructive to advancing and reaching your goal.   Primarily I am talking about projections, which actually is your attempt to defend yourself from an outcome; because you have decided in advance that someone will not like you, or that life will not give you what you need and want.

Your critical projections are like a writer who has already finished the story in a bad way!  What if your own negativity influences the outcome? What if your negative convictions lead you to acting different from someone who does not have them?  Looking for failure is a set up to fail!

Let me present some samples of how your own negative projections can influence how others might react to you.  Let’s say you have already decided that your new friend who has invited you over for a party really does not like you.  There you are at the door as she opens it and greets you, but is abruptly interrupted by another guest and turns away from you, not at all because of dislike, but because of distraction.

In your mind you now have proof that this person does not care for you.  You have already attributed a critical view of yourself to her brain, without even giving her a chance. So who is the critical one here? Perhaps the truth is this person does like you, and for the rest of the evening does not understand why you do not approach her and why you are being indifferent to her.    When she approaches you , you may have a tendency to show indifference or even reply in a snappy way. This person may then feel strange or puzzled about your reaction.

Repeated interactions such as these can indeed lead to negative impressions not only from you, but the other person too.  Eventually distance sets in and the relationship falters.   Whether this occurs in a professional work setting or personal life, the dynamics remain the same.

Getting patients to let go of  trying to defend themselves with their varied negative projections is difficult.   The argument always fall back to history of betrayal.  Betrayal happens to almost all of us sometimes in our life, more than once.  They constantly argue that It is too risky for them to give up distrust and risk being betrayed again.

It reality it comes down to a matter of decision if I am going to be controlled for the rest of my life my an unfortunate situation or other circumstances that were out of my control.  Discernment may be a constructive fruit of a failure, but never blanket and continuing distrust.

To be born in this life is being thrust into the unknown.  We may not have been in control of our childhoods, but as adults we can make a conscious effort to design and look for a positive outcome.   It does not mean that betrayal will not happen again, but our mental weaving and looking forward to a successful outcome can only send out the very best intentions for the universe to meet.

Constantly being flooded with distrust, and anxiety erodes and weakens us.   Life is  at times unjust and unfair to good people.  There are lessons to be learned though from these unfortunate circumstances.

The most powerful card in the Tarot is also the most spiritual.  It is the Fool, who with a smile on his face jumps off the cliff with faith, catches a few raspberries on the way down, and lands with complete faith and confidence.

For those who have the gift of faith of  a divine presence, a higher power  or as I call God, we can let go and persevere with our faith that life will work out for us in the end.  None of us are ever really alone.  We just can’t see through the fog that surrounds us, so we ask for help in prayer,  letting God be in control and be our autopilot.