The Power of Projections: Owning Our Reality and Reclaiming Authentic Relationships

We’ve all been there—caught in a heated moment with a partner, friend, or family member, convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that *they* are the problem. “You’re doing this to me,” we think. “This is who you are, and this is what’s happening. This is reality.”

It’s a cycle we know all too well. We’ve been conditioned to believe that what we experience is the ultimate truth. And, understandably, we try to convince others to buy into that narrative. But what if, more often than not, what we think is *their* reality is just a reflection of our own?

This brings us to the concept of **projections**—a phenomenon most of us participate in, usually without even realizing it.

How Projections Shape Our Reality

When we project, we’re unconsciously taking something that belongs to us—an emotion, belief, or story—and assigning it to someone else. Often, this comes from unhealed parts of ourselves, wounds that have lingered from past experiences. In the therapeutic world, this is referred to as **transference**. Essentially, we’re carrying our emotional baggage into our current relationships and expecting others to play roles in our internal dramas.

What makes projections so tricky is how real they feel in the moment. When we say, “You’re an asshole for doing this to me,” it feels like an absolute truth. We become so deeply invested in convincing the other person that our perspective is *the* perspective. And when they resist, we dig in harder, determined to make them see reality as we do.

But here’s the hard truth: what we’re often experiencing isn’t an objective reality at all. Instead, it’s a reality created by our unhealed wounds, our unmet needs, and our unresolved traumas.

The Role of Trauma in Projections

Whether it's big T trauma—those life-altering events we associate with severe distress—or little T trauma—the more subtle, cumulative experiences of hardship—we’ve all carried trauma in some form. And when trauma goes unhealed, it tends to shape the way we interact with others.

One of the key ideas we come back to is that *everyone* lives in some degree of trauma mind. As therapists, we often hear clients say things like, “My husband did this to me,” or “My wife is making me feel like that.” It’s a form of deflection, and though it can be challenging to hear, we have to drive the conversation toward personal responsibility.

The reality is that trauma often distorts the way we perceive the world. It places a filter over our eyes, coloring everything we see with the hues of our past pain. When we project, it’s usually not the other person who’s the problem—it’s the unresolved stuff within us that needs our attention.

Personal Responsibility: The Key to Healing

There’s a theme in somatic therapy, particularly in traditions like Pathwork, that focuses heavily on **personal responsibility**. It’s about owning our projections, taking accountability for our emotions, and recognizing the ways in which we shape our own experience of reality. We can’t change the past, but we can change the way we respond to our present circumstances.

Owning your projections doesn’t mean accepting blame for everything that goes wrong in your life. Rather, it’s about acknowledging that how you experience someone else is largely filtered through your own internal landscape.

For example, if we walk into a relationship expecting to be hurt because we've been hurt before, chances are we’ll find evidence of that expectation, whether it’s truly there or not. Our projection becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In our experience as therapists, this is often one of the hardest hurdles for people to overcome. There’s such a strong resistance to seeing that our internal world creates our external conflicts. But once we begin to take responsibility for our projections, we open the door to more authentic and fulfilling relationships.

Moving Beyond Blame

Blame is one of the most powerful manifestations of projection. When we blame someone else for how we feel, we’re essentially handing over the reins of our emotional life to them. We’re saying, “You’re in control of my experience. You’re the reason I’m suffering.”

But the truth is, no one else has that kind of power over us unless we allow them to. The moment we stop blaming others and start looking within, we reclaim that power. We begin to see that our emotions, reactions, and triggers are ours to deal with. It doesn’t mean we’re excusing bad behavior or accepting mistreatment, but it does mean we’re stepping out of the victim role and taking charge of our own emotional world.

The Gift of Somatic Work

In somatic therapy, we engage not just with the mind, but with the body—where so much of our trauma, projections, and emotional experiences are stored. Through body-based practices, we help clients become more attuned to the ways their unresolved emotions show up in their physical sensations and reactions.

It’s in the body that we can start to unravel the tight knots of projections, blame, and transference. By becoming more aware of how we carry our past into the present, we can begin to release those old stories and step into more genuine, present-moment interactions.

What Happens When We Own Our Projections

So what happens when we take responsibility for our projections? First and foremost, we stop giving our power away. We stop relying on others to validate our version of reality and begin to trust our own inner wisdom. And as we stop blaming others, we create more space for empathy, understanding, and real connection.

Relationships become less about proving who’s right or wrong and more about mutual growth. We can listen without needing to defend ourselves. We can speak our truth without needing to convince the other person that they’re wrong.

And most importantly, we can love without the heavy baggage of our past weighing us down.

Final Thoughts

Projections are a natural part of being human, but when left unchecked, they can wreak havoc on our relationships. By bringing more awareness to how we project and blame, we can begin to take greater responsibility for our own reality and start to create healthier, more authentic connections with others.

It’s not easy work, but it’s the kind of work that leads to lasting change. When we commit to seeing ourselves clearly, without the distortion of blame or projection, we create space for deeper healing—not just for ourselves, but for the people we love as well.

Click here for the video clip that inspired this post.