How To Stop Projecting Your Insecurities Onto Other People

[Lill]

This reminded me of a conversation I had with a therapist when I was in my late 20s. I can't quote his exact words because our conversation was in Norwegian, but he said something along the lines of: "If you deny someone the chance to get to know you solely because you believe the way you see yourself is the only truth, you have stolen their opportunity to get close enough to make up their own mind." I am in my early 30s now and haven't revisited this in a while, but watching your video made me realise that it is time to do some more work on this. Thank you!

[austinsmith]

hahahhahaha i'm not projecting you're projecting

[celiohelder]

Someone on Reddit recommended Heidi’s videos on attachment style. I must say: I have been binge watching your videos since and the amount I’ve learned with them is astounding. I cannot say thank you enough for explaining highly convoluted concepts in such palatable way. It’s been truly helpful and I wish you all the success and visibility you deserve.

[MultiCappie]

Your channel is criminally undersubscribed. You are the best communicator of psychological concepts I have ever heard.

[nobodynowhere]

3:25 "Am I projecting, or am I right?" A question I never would have even thought of in my 20's is now a question that keeps me up at night in my 30's.

[lilianehiendizon]

“The act of love is the act of being seen as who we are and accept as who we are”

[KatlynHaydon]

Heidi, I hope this isn’t too much pressure because I don’t mean it that way, but I think you kept me from making some very permanent decisions regarding my own existence. I thought I was just broken. Thank you.

[vidheyaprem]

Yoo no Kidding!! A week of Heidi’s videos everyday!!
It’s time to level up super fast with double damage 🎉

[nosiphodywili]

We are great at praising others. But we never look at ourselves with the same eye... We need to stop being so hard on ourselves. ❤

[flyingmonkey]

When you are surrounded by condescending, passive aggressive, narcissistic gaslighters… getting told that they weren’t insulting you but that you’re projecting your insecurities is a fun time.

I’d cut them out of my life, but I’m related or married to them.

[meredithjoy]

This is how I ruined my relationship with my ex fiancé. I projected my insecurities about my body onto him, even though he only ever tried to tell me otherwise and he always acted otherwise too. So I self sabotaged the whole relationship because I wouldn’t believe his words and his actions, I just believed so much that it was an objective truth that I was ugly. I needed to hear this video to help me better make sense of what I’ve already realized. I’ve never seen someone else talk about this, so thank you!! I hope I can be more careful now to look for 1) actions 2) words that actually confirm my beliefs, and to otherwise, allow myself to be rejected or accepted. I wouldn’t allow myself to be accepted in the past :(

[TSAONGAF]

Heidi is just a bottomless chest of wisdom treasure ❤

[aicerg]

I loved the "rough around the edges" to describe someone. I think it's cute, and embraces the fact that some of us aren't conventionally attractive, instead of making it taboo. I like it for myself.

[solarqueen]

My grandma came into my (clean) room, saw a few pieces of folded laundry not put away, and told me that a man will never love me if i am so dirty. I thought "what a c*nt, who says something so hurtful to their grand daughter?" And then i realized that she has a deep trauma around being not lovable unless she takes very specific actions. Instead of getting angry, i realized that even though she has a very clean room people STILL don't love her. And i think that is punishment enough.

[KimMaverick]

For the longest time I was incapable of accepting compliments of any kind and this is precisely what was holding me back. I was so preoccupied with my self perception that I treated anyone who complimented like they were an idiot. I still feel insecure about most things but I learned to mirror back whoever compliments me, to make them feel good. After years of that as a conscious practice, I now appreciate compliments and even occasionally believe them.

[melliemu]

Doing some contemplation recently I had some insights similar to those in this video. I was thinking about how I used to assume "everyone" hated me and I thought: "Did everyone actually hate me, or did I hate myself and assumed everyone agreed with me?" Was very eye opening. Thank you for this video, you are a blessing Heidi.

[jordanlara]

Instantly burst into tears when you said your friend didn’t want you to think they were a loser 😢

[avp]

I've recently had a devastating experience where a person did in fact confirm that they thought I was what I was insecure about. Since then I just can't stop projecting it onto everybody I meet or actually retrospectively projecting it onto people from my past. This feeling of having your worst fears confirmed is really hard to deal with

[eadamic]

This was unexpectedly one of the hardest videos I have ever watched, in the most positive sense! It is all good though, because I needed a slap this morning. I have been self-sabotaging my own life for at least 15 years and have ruined countless possible relationships over that time which have spiraled down into a horror show of bitter resentment exactly through the processes that you explain so well. I can remember 3-4 absolute reality-shattering experiences where I have seen my own idealised version of reality be disproved right in front of my eyes, and can relate so well to the pain of suddenly realising that reality is not the way that I thought it was and that actually I was just excluding myself the whole way along. I eat the menu instead of the food in life, battling my own ideals of myself instead of simply enjoying actual reality.

[infinitedurr]

Very well articulated, as usual, Heidi. The only complication with this is that in this day and age, a lot of the external rejections that people deal with are via ghosting or implicit withdrawal, rather than explicit articulation of why they’re rejecting you. It becomes very confusing to tease apart what is projection versus what is a ghosting type of rejection.