Episode 075 | WHY Perception is Projection

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Sally@performancepartnershipworldwide.com

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to episode #75 of Elmar´s Tooth Talk: The missing link to total health.

Waohh, my previous podcast “How Your thoughts determine Your Life” must have hit a nerve with many listeners.

We have received so much and fantastically positive feedback with many asking for more of that kind of stuff.

As we say in GIN: Your Wish is Your Command.

In today’s episode we discuss why Perception is Projection.

What’s in it for you in this episode:

WHAT perception is projection means
WHAT are our Five senses?
WHY Happiness is a choice?
The Sixth Sense
WHAT is the benefit of perception is the projection
Is the grass really greener on the other side?
WHAT is the key to happiness

The idea of Perception is Projection was introduced by Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. The famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology and along with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, Carl Jung is also known as one of the three fathers of psychology.

Obviously, I’d love to say I am related to him. However, so far, I am still to find this genealogical connection.

What perception is projection means

The phrase perception is projection means that you cannot perceive anything around you that is not you. Let me say this again.

Perception is projection means that you cannot perceive anything around you that is not you.

We come back to this in just a moment.

Why Happiness is a choice?

Now, you may not want to hear it but feeling happy is actually a choice. We choose to be happy, or we choose not to be happy.

What do you think and feel?

Does it feel like you’ve got a choice most of the time?

For many happiness seems to be dependent on external situations such as whether or not good things happen to you, or not so good things happen to you.

Understanding the process that our mind goes through to create happiness and unhappiness is the first step in being able to be in control of your emotional state.

So, how does it all work?

Well, it all boils down to how we filter the information that we take in through our five senses and how we represent that information to ourselves, with our internal representations.

Our Five Senses

We have five senses. These five senses are:

Visual = The pictures we see
Auditory = The sounds we hear
Kinesthetic = The sense of feeling for example when we touch something or being touched
Olfactory = The sense of smell
Gustatory = The sense of taste

Since we use these senses to receive and observe information, anything that our five senses are not able to grasp we are not able to observe.

The Sixth Sense

However, there is a sixth sense which is more developed in some people than others.

The Sixth sense is our ability to perceive the unseen world.

It also includes our ability to understand the subtle cause and effect relationships behind many events, which are beyond the understanding of the intellect.

Extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, premonition, intuition are other words used to describe the sixth sense.

We know that through our five senses we receive a huge amount of data every second.

Information overload

According to the Hungarian psychology professor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi we are bombarded by about 2 million bits of information per second, and latest research says it is more likely to be around 11 million bits.

However, your brain can only cope with about 134 bits of information.

And on top of this my 134 bits of information is different to yours, because I delete, distort and generalize differently to you based on all my internal filters

That means that we have to lose an awful lot of information in order to be able to process our experience, so we filter it.

Information filter

So, then it is all about how we filter the information that we take in through our senses and how we represent that information to ourselves, to our internal representations.

These internal representations then represent our reality.

What we do to filter the information is we delete some of it, we distort some of it and we generalise, to save time.

Think for example of the word elephant. Did you create a picture in your head of an elephant? What did your elephant look like? Was your elephant small and cuddly, or was your elephant a giant aggressive stampeding monster?

When we thought of an elephant we generalised, we have templates in our minds of how to interpret our words, these templates are based on our past experiences and save us from having to find out all over again what the word means.

This means our existing internal representation determine how we perceive things which in turn influences our mental state i.e. the way we feel.

This mental state influences our physical state i.e. our physiology which in turn influences our response.

We all may have a different internal representation of the same event because there are several factors that are responsible for filtrating data in our minds.

These factors include our values, beliefs, attitudes, and we all have different values, beliefs and attitudes.

So, the point is everything that we perceive outside of us regarding events and people is actually a projection of what we perceive inside of us, or it is already inside our own filters, values, beliefs, and attitude.

The benefit of perception is the projection

So, what is the benefit of perception is the projection for you? Well, by observing others you can learn a lot more about yourself.

When you see positive attitudes, these attributes are part of your inner world, similarly if you encounter negative emotions, these emotions are also reflections of your inner world.

According to Carl Jung “We tend to take our most unconscious material and project it out onto people and events around us.”

These are so unconscious that our consciousness is not aware of them.

But when you projected them onto the events and people around you these emotions come into your consciousness and can become a part of your learning.

Now you are aware of them. Now you can think and contemplate about them. Now you can change them.

It is the same with News. It is just news – and only the frame or mindset you are in that makes it good or bad.

What this also means is that it is impossible for us to perceive something that we are not.

So, when you look across to your partner, friend or client and you say to yourself, “They are fascinating,” then that’s you.

And if you look across to your partner, friend or client and you say, “They are a nightmare,” that’s also you.

So, whatever you perceive in someone else or something else is entirely your own projection.

Is the grass really greener on the other side?

NO, the grass is not greener on the other side.

When the projection is unconscious, you think it is someone or something else’s fault that things are the way they are.

The challenge is to realize that pretty much everything is you.

This recognition is very powerful no matter you are dealing with your kids, partner, clients, or customers.

If you have negative emotions about someone or something, it is most likely that this is a projection of yours.

What is the key to happiness?

The key to your happiness, therefore, is to realise what is going on in your head.

What internal representations are you generating in order to make you feel unhappy? What are your thought processes?

Once you have discovered the reason for your negative state, then you can consciously decide to change your internal representations, make them positive for you. If you have positive representations, then you will create in yourself a happy state.

That is why happiness is a choice.

Start making conscious positive choices today.

Start your success story today.

If you want to dive deeper into this topic my friend and NLP trainer David Shephard has just started a 10-week free Zoom class on Perception is Projection, email Sally@performancepartnershipworldwide.com for more information.

I leave you with what I think is a brilliant quote from Zig Ziglar.

Success is not what you have done compared to what other people have done. Success is what you have done compared to what you could have done.

In this sense, thanks for joining in and bye for now.