Shadows, Projection and Dolphins: How to acknowledge what you carry & be guided back home

Sarah shared a beautiful 🌿Message from Nature while I was gone, and wouldn't you know, she wrote about first impressions the very week I was learning, in real time, just how fast my own can be.

I just got back from the Bahamas, where I was assisting with a Dolphin-Accompanied Therapy program—a room full of gifted Cranio-Sacral therapists, families, and dolphins doing some of the deepest healing work I've ever witnessed. 

It's so easy to form a snap judgment about someone before we've taken the time to truly understand them. That judgment comes from lightning-quick processing deep in the brain, an evolutionary survival mechanism perfected over eons. 

Once you're safe, your inner guidance system relaxes, and all is well. But under stress, it doesn't relax. You stay in that hypervigilant state, scanning.

I was, if I'm honest, under stress. I hadn't assisted a full program in a while, and some hearing loss makes it hard for me to catch words in a crowded room, especially with people using their "therapist voice." 

I was working alongside some of the best Cranio-Sacral therapists in the world, too. That tension made the hearing harder, which made the nervousness worse, which is its own small, icky loop.

In my stressed state, I reverted to some of my snap judgments about a few of the therapists: they’re bossy. A friend gently offered another way to see it: they're all big personalities. 

True! And that helped me soften, but still…

It took a full program of being assigned to work beside those exact therapists, every day, along with the healing power of dolphins, for my heart to finally open. 

I began to notice my own hardness in the room. 

I wasn't conscious of the walls I'd put up, or how differently each person there was carrying their own tensions and histories into the space, same as I was carrying mine.

Then, coming home, sitting with my husband, I couldn’t help but notice how differently he'd kept the house while I was away and how badly I wanted to change it to how I do it. Slowly, I came face to face with myself: Uh oh, I'm bossy.

That's the mirror. 

That's the magic and the sting of projection. What we haven't acknowledged in ourselves, we hand to someone else to carry.

It's never fun meeting your own shadow. For me, it’s a small sinking feeling, a little nausea, and the realization that no matter how much inner work you've done, there's always more road ahead.

Here's a 3-Minute Tiny but Mighty Practice to help you turn the mirror gently toward yourself:

• Think of someone who's mildly irritated you lately, even in a small way.

• Name the quality in one word (bossy, careless, cold, whatever it is).

• Take a breath, and ask, without judgment: where does a little of this live in me too?

• Place a hand on your heart and say, "I see it, and I’m okay. I'm still magnificent."

That's it. You don't have to fix anything right now. Just noticing is the whole practice.

The truth is you are a magnificent, unique, splendid human being, right along with every place you still struggle to get it right. 

If every snowflake is one of a kind, imagine how extraordinary you are, here with your consciousness and your 37 trillion cells (give or take a few), exactly the way Nature intended you to be!

The Mirror and the Shadow: A Gentle Introduction to Projection

We’ve all felt it. That small sinking, the mild discomfort of recognition. When we notice something we don’t like in others, we are often left with this universal feeling.

We know we’re passing judgment… And that doesn’t really feel great. But this moment is not a failure; instead, it’s an invitation.

An invitation to look deeper into ourselves because typically what irritates us in others is a map of what lives unacknowledged inside of us.

What is the Shadow?

Carl Jung defined the term ‘the Shadow’ as the parts of ourselves we learned were unacceptable and tucked out of sight. You know the things. The ones you keep way down inside of you, sometimes repressing so hard that you almost forget they’re there.

These form early. The messaging you receive as a child about which parts are too much or not enough. The parts that someone else decided shouldn’t be seen by the world.

You don’t lose these parts. They don’t disappear simply because you don’t acknowledge them. You just stop seeing them in yourself and instead start seeing them in others. Those are the traits that annoy you when you see them in someone else because they’re the traits that live within you that someone told you were bad.

What is Projection?

Projection is the unconscious act of placing something we can’t yet own in ourselves onto someone else to carry. It’s something that happens without much work or thought from us, usually naturally and without us realizing.

We can tell it’s a Projection by how intense of a reaction we feel toward it. When someone irritates you or upsets you far more than the situation actually warranted. If you notice this occurring, instead of feeling guilty, it’s often a sign you should get curious.

Often, when we get curious and honest with ourselves that when we realize that the trait that annoys us most actually belongs to us. That’s why we often feel so much discomfort around it. This is the mirror.

The Gift Inside the Mirror

Projection doesn’t occur to cause shame, embarrassment, or guilt. It’s actually information. 

Life is a mirror. When we don’t acknowledge something that’s true to us, it still sticks around and holds power over us. It impacts us because it still exists. When we can turn that mirror gently toward ourselves, that’s when we can work with the Shadow and truly find our way back home to ourselves.

The question to ask is not, “Is this all my fault?” but instead, “What is this showing me that I’m ready to see?” The mirror is information.

When we integrate a shadow quality, it stops costing us energy, it stops feeling heavy to carry and becomes a resource. It becomes something we can work on.

Shadow work is not evidence that something is wrong with it; it's actually evidence you are growing. And what is life if we aren’t growing?

Reflection Questions:

1. Think of someone who has mildly irritated you lately. If you had to name the quality in one word, what would it be, and where, honestly, does even a small version of that live in you too?

2. When did you first learn that a particular part of you was too much, not enough, or better kept hidden? How has that early message quietly shaped the way you move through relationships today?

3. What might become available to you (in your relationships, your sense of self, or your inner life) if you were able to meet that hidden part of yourself with the same compassion as these words: I see it, and I'm okay. I'm still magnificent?