Tarot for Change by Jessica Dore

Author:Jessica Dore [Dore, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Two of Cups

Projection is the unconscious transfer of one’s own thoughts, motivations, desires, or feelings to another person. It can be both beneficial and problematic. For instance, it’s a lot more common to go into a relationship projecting a fantasy of what we hope to see onto the other person than it is to go in actively looking at who that person truly is and then determining the viability of a match from there.

The Two of Cups holds an image of two people staring at each other, as if looking into a mirror. The mirror metaphor speaks to the ways that what we see when we look at another person is so often generated by our core beliefs about relationships: our minds are always pattern matching, seeking evidence that the dynamics we learned in childhood are how it is in all relationships thereafter. Think about how often, when it comes to gripes you’ve had with partners, the same could be said verbatim about issues you’ve had with a parent or caregiver. “You always make it about you,” “you never listen to me,” “stop trying to control me.” Think about how often it is that the “you” you’re referring to is actually the person whose job it was to take care of you growing up.

Projection doesn’t only happen in arguments and moments of discord. When a relationship feels harmonious or blissful (I sometimes think bliss—especially early on in relationships—might be a dead giveaway that projection is happening) it’s not that we’re not projecting, it’s just that our fantasies happen to be compatible and exquisitely well-timed. It’s when we break from others’ projections of us, or they break from ours, that things get hairy and often ugly; feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and disappointment emerge. We’ve projected our earliest unmet needs onto a partner, and for a while they appear to be able to meet them. But then they break from that script, diverge from the psychic blueprint we’d laid over them, and now the honeymoon’s over. Hearts grow frightened and contract, relationships dissolve, people part ways.

Psychologist Edward Teyber wrote that one of the primary psychological tasks in early marriage counseling is to help couples relinquish their projections and distortions about each other. To get to know who each other really is, to behold what is there and not hover merely inches apart from each other, reaching out our hands but never really touching. I don’t have any marriage counseling experience, but here’s the wisdom I gathered from Teyber’s comments: Be curious. Ask questions. Watch your assumptions. Take the time to explore what you’re hoping for based on your deepest yearnings from childhood until today, and then seek reality in what’s being offered as much as possible.

Another way that projection happens is when feelings basically move invisibly from one person to another. Person A “projects” a feeling—like rage or shame that they’re not able or willing to claim—onto Person B by behaving, usually unconsciously, in a way that will stimulate those same feelings in the other person.

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