“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
—Mark Twain
 

ne of the most helpful awareness practice tools that can aid us in relationships is projection.

Projection is nothing more complicated than, “what you see is who you are.” When you begin to pay close attention and do some deep spiritual work, you’ll realize how much of an assumption it is to believe that there’s an objective reality “out there” in which something is “true.”

Take a room full of people, and you’ll see that they all have their own ideas about what “truth” is. This truth ranges from what is good taste, what styles are favorable, what’s moral, what’s important in life, etc.

You can narrow that down to just two people, and you’ll begin to see the same phenomenon. Maybe it’s your life partner or a family member. You’re not the same, right? It’s really quite fascinating (or startling!) to get it that you don’t objectively see life.

For the sake of spiritual practice, if you start to look inward, you’ll realize that all it takes is YOU to begin the contradictions. One moment you’re identified with a happy-go-lucky spirit, and in the next, you’re identified with a strict, by-the-books spirit. You can feel close and connected to people in one moment and want to hit them in a rage in the next. In this way, “what you see is who you are” can help you determine who you’re identified with inside of you – which aspect of your personality is up in any given moment.

Complicate all of this further by throwing in some voices that interject opinions, judgments and self-hate into the mix, and you’ll see that “you” are in flux as much as (if not more than) life is. Nothing is stapled down or “real,” and who you think you are is a complete and utter fiction made up by the narrative that goes on in the background of your consciousness.

In fact, when people get present to how much of an influence the voices have over their lives, they’re typically left stunned and speechless. You see, the voices translate the world we experience into the meaning we carry around with us. They are our full-time simultaneous interpreters.

The idea of the voices as simultaneous interpreters became the inspiration for a cartoon I drew while I was at the monastery, (included below). This cartoon offers a graphic representation of how life is filtered by our projections, beliefs, assumptions, and voices.

If you’ve ever been in situations where you’ve repeatedly drawn the same conclusions that seem real, chances are good you’re buying into a story that The Simultaneous Interpreter is telling you. This insight is a golden opportunity to take a step back and question the authority in your head. Understand that everything you experience is a PROJECTION coming from YOU and the only thing you ever get to experience is YOURSELF.