Pre-Election Jitters: WHAT IS PROJECTION? Let us stop, and notice our noticing . . .

Three, oops, only two and a half  days until the mid-term election that in one way or another, for good or for bad, will alter the course of our history.

Have you noticed that the atmosphere of the mass mind has altered to the point where each of us is constantly stimulated to react in the strongest of manners to whatever is going on? And that, rather than notice our reactiveness, we tend to let it take us over, so that we either love or, especially, HATE something or someone in the outside world?

This has certainly happened in my world. And, living in an academic town, you can imagine how all the progressive, liberal leftists are “triggered” by anyone, like me, who isn’t instantly and totally against Trump.

Rather than allow this polarized, infectious, lightning-infused atmosphere to infect me, I choose to work with the feelings that arise internally. This is not easy to do. Whenever I feel strongly, I am tempted to act out the feeling, by instantly (and unconsciously) concocting an idea to cover it, which I erroneously think is identical to the feeling, and then am further tempted to claim out loud that I either love or hate whatever or whomever the idea refers to. So, instead, I would rather recognize that it was my strong feeling that I then unconsciously allowed to be hijacked by an idea which I was then tempted to use to try to make myself feel better, by either loving or hating someone or something in the outside world.

I notice this tendency to hatred, especially, in the political scene now, and especially on twitter. The atmosphere there is seriously poisoned by hatred. Frankly, it appears to me that those who loathe one thing or another, one person or another, do so to make themselves feel superior to the one they loathe. But all they do, in reality, is betray how they have projected a strongly felt process that is going on inside themselves onto the outer world! This psychological mechanism of projection has been coming into the limelight lately, by Qanon. And thank goodness for that, because until we understand how the unconscious works, “projecting” out whatever is inside us that we do not want to see or feel, then we are condemned to continue our warlike behavior.

Alternatively, we can move into the observer position, of our own selves! I.e., develop a  double consciousness, where we are aware of being aware. The first awareness is the deeper one, and it doesn’t judge or attempt to discriminate; it is detached, serene, simply attuned to all that is without the need to make it better, or make it worse, or stamp it out, or take it over. This deeper awareness is all-encompassing; in fact the more we attune to this larger awareness, the more it expands! This awareness is not confined to the body, or the personal self; this awareness is the interconnectedness that holds all peoples, species, feelings, thoughts, planets, solar systems, galaxies, atoms, etc., in suspension as one mysterious interwoven field, utterly still and empty and paradoxically, utterly full of life, aliveness — both, at once!

So, let us simply continue to notice the wild and crazy zinging inside that has infected the entire human atmosphere. Notice it, and if we can hold that noticing, that awareness, long enough and strongly enough, without needing to “act it out” through projection of what is in reality going on inside us, then it does change, believe me, it does begin to dissolve, to  to transform: and then . . . WWG1WGA!