When living through a projection, we don’t merely see evidence that it’s true — we actively create the world that confirms it through three mechanisms. First, attraction: we draw in people and experiences that match the projection. Joe attracted people likely to emotionally abandon him. Second, manipulation: when feeling unheard, instead of saying “I feel unheard,” he’d get angry — “you’re not hearing me!” — which pushed people away further. Third, selective evidence: he’d see the people who abandoned him but not notice all the people who didn’t, or who wanted to stay but weren’t allowed to.
On an emotional level, what’s happening is that the emotion that wasn’t allowed to be felt all the way through is looking to recreate circumstances so that it can finally move all the way through. Once it does, the circumstances stop getting recreated. This is the mechanism underlying the “golden algorithm” — the repeating pattern that only breaks when the unfelt emotion is finally welcomed.
Brett adds a powerful metaphor: target fixation. Like a motorcyclist looking at a ditch and steering into it, or a parachutist staring at the tree and hitting it — fear of an outcome makes us focus on it, which makes us see evidence for it, which makes us miss alternative paths, and the feared thing happens.
Related Concepts
- Avoidance creates the pattern it fears
- We recreate pain to finally welcome it
- Confirmation bias from emotional avoidance
- There are four distinct types of projection
- Fully falling in love with the avoided feeling is the quickest way to stop a negative pattern