You may have heard the saying ‘Perception is Projection’…This saying is based on the work of Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, who is considered one of the three fathers of psychology. This concept is that if it is not in us, we cannot see it in others.

We all have filters inside of our unconscious mind based on our experiences and our internal representations. How we judge people, behaviors and experiences is based on our prior knowledge of similar experiences, people or behaviors and how we internalized it previously. We begin forming this filters and distortions from our very early formative years. Every experience after that stacks on top of our previous experience filters and continues to shape our filters.

What this means, is that how we see things will constantly change. As we learn new things and have new experiences, we will experience things differently.

We see people’s behavior and we ‘assume’ it ‘means’ something. The meaning we assign their behavior is based on our prior experiences and what it would mean if we were behaving that way. The beauty of understanding this, is to realize that we really don’t know the true meaning of others’ behaviors. Therefore, we can actually choose to give it any positive meaning we want to, if it serves us better.

Today’s Tip:
When someone is doing something that you perceive as negative, you can actively choose to give it a different meaning. If someone is not returning your call, or not answering the phone, you can chalk it up to them just being busy, instead of thinking they are ignoring you. If someone’s tone is flat, you can figure maybe they are tired…it doesn’t need to mean that they are upset with you..