Every time you’re triggered, you’re projecting a disowned part of yourself onto someone else. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be triggered or that you’re wrong — it just means the projection is also happening. Calling someone “so arrogant” is itself an arrogant act — presuming to know their reality. Seeing someone as a thief while not recognizing theft in your own actions is the shadow at work.
The positive version is equally important: idolizing someone’s brilliance, wisdom, or capability that you can’t see in yourself. Joe notes that every person has their own form of brilliance, so putting someone on a pedestal is a strong indicator of disowned positive qualities.
Joe offers three integration questions: (1) Write down four things that trigger you most — in what ways are you judging or disowning that part of yourself? (2) Who do you admire and put on a pedestal — what parts do you admire and how do you not own that aspect? (3) What’s looking out behind your eyes? — and he encourages sitting in that question rather than answering it.
Related Concepts
- What triggers you in others exists in you
- Admire what you crave in others
- Jealousy masks rejected parts of self
- There are four distinct types of projection
- Every trigger reveals an unaccepted part of yourself