A woman judges her father and father-like authority figures for being “so wrapped up in themselves that they can’t see anyone else.” Joe asks: how is that not true about you? She’s so focused on wanting to be seen by these men that she can’t see them as full people. She judges them for the exact thing she’s doing.
“How is that not true about you — that you’re wrapped up in yourself so much that you can’t see others?”
The mechanism goes deeper: she judges them for not asking directly for what they want (instead using indirect compliments and power moves), while she herself isn’t asking directly for what she wants either. When Joe points out that her not asking directly means she’s also not seeing others clearly, she says: “I don’t want to feel that.”
When they do the thing she judges — “obviously Joe, it is way worse than when I do it. I’m a better person than that.” The humor reveals the absurdity, but the pattern is universal. Whatever we most harshly judge in others is usually a mirror for something we can’t see or accept in ourselves.
Related Concepts
- What triggers you in others is something you don’t like in yourself
- Wanting to be seen prevents you from seeing others
- Wanting to control others’ perception of you is absurd
- Resisting parts of yourself creates more of that behavior