YOUR PERCEPTION OF ME IS A REFLECTION OF YOU

A new client was receiving their second massage from me and said, 

“You’re tough, aren’t you?”.

I was curious about what qualities they saw in me in that moment to create that perception. I wasn’t doing anything to suggest ‘toughness’. I was massaging, nurturing, healing, supporting - quantities of love, care and feminine grace. 

I also became curious about what was within them to cause a view of me based on no personal knowledge of me. 

I believe we are all mirrors of one another, a reflection of something deeply embodied or deeply unseeen within, that gets projected outward and shown back to us.

Did my client perceive me as tough because they’ve lived through adversity and developed a resilient heart?

Or was there fear, powerlessness or lack of courage within their heart that was triggered by my presence? 

I remember standing at a bar waiting to be served once, and a strange man who was significantly shorter than me, stood beside me and said “You’re very intimidating”.

My behaviour or actions were not intimidating - my presence alone created that perception in his mind. His perception was a reflection of something within him. 

The truth is, he was intimidated. His mind convinced him of a false truth that he projected onto me. 

Our perceptions of others are a reflection of what is within ourselves. 

If you perceive me to be beautiful, funny, kind, compassionate, creative or (insert any other positive attribute you might see in another) you can only perceive that because these qualities live within you and your heart is open to receiving perceiving these qualities. 

If you perceive me to be overbearing, selfish, nasty, stupid, unkind or (insert any other negative attribute) you can only perceive that because these qualities are within you; or there is a limitation within your self perception that is being reflected back to you and you are projecting.

Unless we see, with loving kindness and a compassionate heart, that we are all love, that we’ve all suffered, and that we are all the same, we will project, judge and label another based on our own inner blindspots.

To see clearly into the nature of our Self, to the conditions and lens’ we are looking at the world through … that’s it. That’s the work to be done. To free ourselves of projection, to see ourselves in our Truth, and to see others in that way too.