April 16, 2025 • 15 mins
Ever been confused by someone’s reaction to you?
That discomfort might not be about you at all.
In this episode, we dive into:
- What projection really is (and how to spot it)
- Subtle ways it shows up (e.g., "must be nice" comments or unfair assumptions)
- Why we often absorb others' projections as truth
- The cost of shrinking ourselves to keep others comfortable
- How to use the Three R’s Framework from The Reset Button:
- Reflect: Notice what’s really happening
- Reset: Respond with intention
- Reinvent: Choose a new way forward
- A personal story: how I projected my childhood birthday trauma onto my son's party
- The power of learning to “observe, not absorb”
Takeaway:
Understanding projection helps you stay grounded, protect your energy, and stop carrying what’s not yours.
📩 Share with someone who needs the reminder: sometimes, it’s not about them
More Cameo - Word up!
Sign up for The Weekly Reset Newsletter!
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https://www.instagram.com/cameoelysebraun
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2083952/support
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show.
I'm your host, cameo, and todayI want to talk about something
that we all experience from timeto time, especially when we're
doing the hard work of growing,healing, stepping into something
new, aspiring toward big goals.
Have you ever had someone reactto you in a way that just
(00:24):
didn't make sense?
They get distant or defensiveor critical, and then that
leaves you questioningeverything.
Did I say something wrong?
Should I have done thatdifferently?
It comes with self-awareness,sure.
However, it also makes youstart to shrink and second guess
(00:49):
yourself and replay the wholething in your head a million
times, trying to figure out whathappened.
But here's what I want to offeryou today.
It's not always about you, evenwhen it feels like it
definitely is, and sometimes itis about you, just not in the
way that you think.
Today's episode is all aboutprojection.
(01:11):
People cope by projecting.
So let's break it down.
What is projection?
Projection is when someone takestheir internal struggle, their
shame, their fear, theirinsecurity, their upbringing,
their past experiences and putsit on to someone else.
We all walk around with our ownhurt right, our own stories,
(01:35):
our own stuff, and most of usare just coping the best way we
know how to.
So often it's unintentionalthat someone's projecting onto
you.
They're offloading theirdiscomfort without facing it
directly.
Sometimes it might sound likeoh, must be nice, must be nice
(01:59):
to have time to go to the gym.
I guess it doesn't have to comewith all of that attitude.
So sometimes it might soundlike this it must be nice to go
to the gym.
I guess it doesn't have to comewith all of that attitude.
So sometimes it might soundlike this it must be nice to go
to the gym and have time to dothat.
That sounded a little less fullof attitude.
Same idea, though right.
It makes you on the receivingend of that feel like oh, how am
I supposed to respond to thatand why are you saying it like
(02:20):
that?
Either tone, right.
It also might sound like youthink you know better than
everyone, or I see all of yourexciting stuff that you're doing
on social media and what'sunderneath.
That is, usually I feel likeI'm not doing exciting stuff.
I feel behind, or I don't feelgood in my body, or I can't find
(02:47):
time to prioritize myself andif I can, I don't feel confident
in doing so.
The truth is it takes realcourage to face those things
because we're triggered bysomeone else's success If it
makes us feel our own self-doubt.
We often might feel likesomeone's being cold, if they
(03:11):
are maybe just overwhelmed, orwe might be offended by a
boundary because it pokes atsome wound that we haven't
worked on yet.
That's the person projectingonto you, or when you find
yourself projecting onto others.
We're handing each other ourown pain without really
realizing it.
This matters, because if wedon't name projection for what
(03:37):
it is, then we absorb it andthen we shrink and that goes
back to, you know, feeling likeWhoa, what did I do?
So, instead of making otherpeople uncomfortable, we kind of
hide, hide who we really are.
To keep the peace, we apologizefor things that aren't ours to
apologize for.
We tiptoe and feel like we haveto walk on eggshells as to not
(04:01):
upset someone.
There's this phrase that I love.
It's about keeping your side ofthe street clean, and I
mentioned it in my book.
For those of you who don't know, I have a book that will be out
in May of this year.
It's called the Reset Button,and I talk about what it means
to keep your side of the streetclean, owning your side of the
(04:24):
interaction.
Sometimes that means you're theone that was projecting onto
someone.
Sometimes it also means thatyou get to choose how you
respond or react.
It's not about being perfect.
It's about recognizing and thenasking yourself is this really
about me, or or is this aboutthem, or what is the truth of
(04:49):
what's happening?
And truth can be subjective.
So that's really difficult.
But it means choosingself-awareness, keeping your
side of the street clean overself-protection.
It all sounds great, but it isvery difficult.
It takes work.
I mentioned the reset button.
That will be out soon.
I would like to look at thisthrough the lens of the reset
(05:11):
button framework.
I call it the three R's.
It's reflect, reset andreinvent, and I'm going to give
you examples of how we can viewthis projection through those
R's.
So we'll start with reflect,when you're on the receiving end
of projection or maybe yourealize that you've projected
onto someone else.
This is the moment where youhave to pause and ask yourself
(05:33):
some tough questions and they'retough questions because the
answer is often hard to digestquestions like is this mine?
Is this my pain?
Is this my perception that'sclouding this scenario?
Is this a pattern with me orwith the other person that is
(05:55):
involved in this interaction.
This is the moment where youkeep your side of the street
clean, the moment where you takeownership of your thoughts and
your reactions and notice ifyou're being triggered by
something instead of blamingsomeone.
Subsequently, though, it's nota moment for you to manage
anyone else's behavior You'renot responsible for anyone
(06:16):
else's behavior, just your ownand especially when it would be
easier to deflect or blame, oreven deflect and blame onto
yourself, to see this situationwhere you feel this discomfort,
and remove emotion and reallytry to dig in and get clear on
(06:36):
what's happening.
After you've reflected, thattakes you to the second hour.
It's reset, and this is kind ofthe turning point.
This is where you get to decideif someone's projecting onto
you, how do you want to respond,and maybe that looks like
(06:58):
setting a boundary, Maybe itlooks like space.
Sometimes the biggest reset isjust some distance.
Maybe it's compassion, maybeit's seeing that that person
might be projecting onto youbased on an experience that
they've had, and you can extendsome understanding by detaching
yourself from it and knowingthat this isn't about me,
because you reflected and duginto that and landed on that
(07:20):
clear answer.
If you notice that you're theone projecting, this is a moment
where you can takeaccountability instead of
shaming yourself.
You can take accountabilityinstead of blaming someone.
You can say simply hey, thatwasn't fair, I am working
through something and it landedon you.
I find that happens in Greg andI's relationship quite often.
(07:42):
Honestly, one or the other,both of us sometimes it's just
honesty and humility and growth.
It's not perfection.
It doesn't always look prettyand certainly isn't always easy,
but it definitely makes a hugedifference when you accept that
there is a different way toapproach things than maybe how
you always have.
(08:03):
And the third R is thereinvention.
You don't have to start fromscratch, choose a different
pattern or a differentperspective or a different way
to respond.
And it can be something smallthat maybe isn't even that
noticeable to anyone else.
But you know, because you'reaware and you're working on it,
maybe instead of ghostingsomeone, you reach out.
(08:25):
Or maybe, instead of reacting,you go through these three
hours's and you decide how youwant to respond differently.
Maybe, instead of projectingwhen you feel hurt, you pause.
You get to decide how you wantto reinvent yourself.
You don't have to pass on yourbehavior to anyone else.
You don't have to share it withanyone else.
(08:46):
You don't have to keep carryingstories that aren't yours or
that are yours and no longerserve you, that are heavy.
You can put that heavy backpackof all those stories.
Just put it down on the ground,reinvent yourself.
Rather than being defined bysome of these moments of
projection on either party, Ihave a personal story to share.
(09:09):
This is why this is what I'mtalking about, because I
recently had an experience whiletaking a walk with my husband
where this came up.
We were talking about our son'sbirthday party.
He's turning 15 soon, and everyyear, of course, for both of my
kids, I have a birthday party.
I love birthdays, I lovebirthday blowouts, I love a good
(09:30):
theme party, and my biggestfear every single time is that
no one will show up.
Never, knock on wood, but neverin the history of my kids
having birthday parties has noone shown up.
And so when I was telling Gregabout this my husband Greg,
about planning the party andabout I'm so afraid that no one
(09:52):
will show up, he basicallystopped me in my tracks and said
hey, you are acting from aspace of your own pain.
Okay, because when I was nineyears old, I had plans to have a
birthday party.
My parents got a bunch ofballoons Like I can still see it
in my head A cake balloons.
A couple of girls were supposedto ride the bus home with me,
(10:16):
maybe a couple were supposed tobe dropped off.
It turned out that no one couldmake it.
One stayed home sick fromschool that day One.
We went to actually pick up butwe couldn't find her house.
And this is back in the daywhen there weren't cell phones,
you couldn't just call somebody.
So we gave up.
And then I'm not sure about theother two, but I just remember
(10:40):
no one showing up and how muchthat hurt my little
nine-year-old self.
It was no one's fault, itwasn't, you know, intentional,
it wasn't to hurt me, but itstuck with me all these years
later to a point where I'mprojecting that fear and that
pain onto my kids, basically byfearing that for them and Greg
(11:03):
was right I was completelyprojecting.
And so I get to choose, as Iparse through those three R's,
how I want to reinvent what thisall looks like for me, so that
I don't suffer unnecessarilyworrying about something that
isn't actually true to my kidsor to the situation, but it's
(11:23):
true to my old emotions and myold wounds.
Here's what I want you toremember we are all walking
around with pain, we all project, we all do it and we don't even
know it's unintentional.
It's just something thathappens when we feel fear or
lack of confidence.
(11:44):
Happens at work, it happens inour families, it happens in our
head.
But when you can recognize itand when you can take
responsibility for what's yours,you become unshakable.
You can be the kind of personthat can observe and not absorb.
Let me say that again observeand not these things that aren't
(12:09):
meant for you, these thingsthat aren't yours to own.
Observe them, think themthrough, remove your emotion,
put the backpack down, becausethat's power and that's peace
and that's freedom, and isn'tthat what we all want?
So the next time something hitsyou sideways, just pause and
(12:33):
ask is this about them or isthis about me?
And what would it look like ifI reset this right now, if I did
something different?
And how can I reinvent how I'vebeen behaving or absorbing this
in the past, moving forward,you can't choose how the world
copes.
You can't choose how yourfamily copes.
(12:55):
You can't control anyone.
That's not what this is about.
But you can choose your copingmechanisms.
You can choose your responseshow you carry yourself through
this and you can keep your sideof the street clean.
Thanks for being here with metoday.
I hope this gave you somethingto think about.
Breathe into it, send it tosomeone who might need it too.
(13:15):
Remember that you don't have tobe perfect.
You can love from a distance.
You can hit the reset button atany time, stay optimistic, stay
focused and stay connected toyourself through all of this
work.
We have new episodes everyWednesday.
They are on all pod platformsand YouTube, so whichever is
(13:38):
your favorite, please like,subscribe.
Leave a review if you'reinclined.
I love to hear from you.
I love hearing what resonatesand what doesn't.
Love to hear from you.
I love hearing what resonatesand what doesn't, and feeling
the sense of unity and communityin that we're not alone in
these emotions that weexperience.
So thanks again for being herewith me until next time.
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show.
I'm your host, cameo, and todayI want to talk about something
that we all experience from timeto time, especially when we're
doing the hard work of growing,healing, stepping into something
new, aspiring toward big goals.
Have you ever had someone reactto you in a way that just
(00:24):
didn't make sense?
They get distant or defensiveor critical, and then that
leaves you questioningeverything.
Did I say something wrong?
Should I have done thatdifferently?
It comes with self-awareness,sure.
However, it also makes youstart to shrink and second guess
(00:49):
yourself and replay the wholething in your head a million
times, trying to figure out whathappened.
But here's what I want to offeryou today.
It's not always about you, evenwhen it feels like it
definitely is, and sometimes itis about you, just not in the
way that you think.
Today's episode is all aboutprojection.
(01:11):
People cope by projecting.
So let's break it down.
What is projection?
Projection is when someone takestheir internal struggle, their
shame, their fear, theirinsecurity, their upbringing,
their past experiences and putsit on to someone else.
We all walk around with our ownhurt right, our own stories,
(01:35):
our own stuff, and most of usare just coping the best way we
know how to.
So often it's unintentionalthat someone's projecting onto
you.
They're offloading theirdiscomfort without facing it
directly.
Sometimes it might sound likeoh, must be nice, must be nice
(01:59):
to have time to go to the gym.
I guess it doesn't have to comewith all of that attitude.
So sometimes it might soundlike this it must be nice to go
to the gym.
I guess it doesn't have to comewith all of that attitude.
So sometimes it might soundlike this it must be nice to go
to the gym and have time to dothat.
That sounded a little less fullof attitude.
Same idea, though right.
It makes you on the receivingend of that feel like oh, how am
I supposed to respond to thatand why are you saying it like
(02:20):
that?
Either tone, right.
It also might sound like youthink you know better than
everyone, or I see all of yourexciting stuff that you're doing
on social media and what'sunderneath.
That is, usually I feel likeI'm not doing exciting stuff.
I feel behind, or I don't feelgood in my body, or I can't find
(02:47):
time to prioritize myself andif I can, I don't feel confident
in doing so.
The truth is it takes realcourage to face those things
because we're triggered bysomeone else's success If it
makes us feel our own self-doubt.
We often might feel likesomeone's being cold, if they
(03:11):
are maybe just overwhelmed, orwe might be offended by a
boundary because it pokes atsome wound that we haven't
worked on yet.
That's the person projectingonto you, or when you find
yourself projecting onto others.
We're handing each other ourown pain without really
realizing it.
This matters, because if wedon't name projection for what
(03:37):
it is, then we absorb it andthen we shrink and that goes
back to, you know, feeling likeWhoa, what did I do?
So, instead of making otherpeople uncomfortable, we kind of
hide, hide who we really are.
To keep the peace, we apologizefor things that aren't ours to
apologize for.
We tiptoe and feel like we haveto walk on eggshells as to not
(04:01):
upset someone.
There's this phrase that I love.
It's about keeping your side ofthe street clean, and I
mentioned it in my book.
For those of you who don't know, I have a book that will be out
in May of this year.
It's called the Reset Button,and I talk about what it means
to keep your side of the streetclean, owning your side of the
(04:24):
interaction.
Sometimes that means you're theone that was projecting onto
someone.
Sometimes it also means thatyou get to choose how you
respond or react.
It's not about being perfect.
It's about recognizing and thenasking yourself is this really
about me, or or is this aboutthem, or what is the truth of
(04:49):
what's happening?
And truth can be subjective.
So that's really difficult.
But it means choosingself-awareness, keeping your
side of the street clean overself-protection.
It all sounds great, but it isvery difficult.
It takes work.
I mentioned the reset button.
That will be out soon.
I would like to look at thisthrough the lens of the reset
(05:11):
button framework.
I call it the three R's.
It's reflect, reset andreinvent, and I'm going to give
you examples of how we can viewthis projection through those
R's.
So we'll start with reflect,when you're on the receiving end
of projection or maybe yourealize that you've projected
onto someone else.
This is the moment where youhave to pause and ask yourself
(05:33):
some tough questions and they'retough questions because the
answer is often hard to digestquestions like is this mine?
Is this my pain?
Is this my perception that'sclouding this scenario?
Is this a pattern with me orwith the other person that is
(05:55):
involved in this interaction.
This is the moment where youkeep your side of the street
clean, the moment where you takeownership of your thoughts and
your reactions and notice ifyou're being triggered by
something instead of blamingsomeone.
Subsequently, though, it's nota moment for you to manage
anyone else's behavior You'renot responsible for anyone
(06:16):
else's behavior, just your ownand especially when it would be
easier to deflect or blame, oreven deflect and blame onto
yourself, to see this situationwhere you feel this discomfort,
and remove emotion and reallytry to dig in and get clear on
(06:36):
what's happening.
After you've reflected, thattakes you to the second hour.
It's reset, and this is kind ofthe turning point.
This is where you get to decideif someone's projecting onto
you, how do you want to respond,and maybe that looks like
(06:58):
setting a boundary, Maybe itlooks like space.
Sometimes the biggest reset isjust some distance.
Maybe it's compassion, maybeit's seeing that that person
might be projecting onto youbased on an experience that
they've had, and you can extendsome understanding by detaching
yourself from it and knowingthat this isn't about me,
because you reflected and duginto that and landed on that
(07:20):
clear answer.
If you notice that you're theone projecting, this is a moment
where you can takeaccountability instead of
shaming yourself.
You can take accountabilityinstead of blaming someone.
You can say simply hey, thatwasn't fair, I am working
through something and it landedon you.
I find that happens in Greg andI's relationship quite often.
(07:42):
Honestly, one or the other,both of us sometimes it's just
honesty and humility and growth.
It's not perfection.
It doesn't always look prettyand certainly isn't always easy,
but it definitely makes a hugedifference when you accept that
there is a different way toapproach things than maybe how
you always have.
(08:03):
And the third R is thereinvention.
You don't have to start fromscratch, choose a different
pattern or a differentperspective or a different way
to respond.
And it can be something smallthat maybe isn't even that
noticeable to anyone else.
But you know, because you'reaware and you're working on it,
maybe instead of ghostingsomeone, you reach out.
(08:25):
Or maybe, instead of reacting,you go through these three
hours's and you decide how youwant to respond differently.
Maybe, instead of projectingwhen you feel hurt, you pause.
You get to decide how you wantto reinvent yourself.
You don't have to pass on yourbehavior to anyone else.
You don't have to share it withanyone else.
(08:46):
You don't have to keep carryingstories that aren't yours or
that are yours and no longerserve you, that are heavy.
You can put that heavy backpackof all those stories.
Just put it down on the ground,reinvent yourself.
Rather than being defined bysome of these moments of
projection on either party, Ihave a personal story to share.
(09:09):
This is why this is what I'mtalking about, because I
recently had an experience whiletaking a walk with my husband
where this came up.
We were talking about our son'sbirthday party.
He's turning 15 soon, and everyyear, of course, for both of my
kids, I have a birthday party.
I love birthdays, I lovebirthday blowouts, I love a good
(09:30):
theme party, and my biggestfear every single time is that
no one will show up.
Never, knock on wood, but neverin the history of my kids
having birthday parties has noone shown up.
And so when I was telling Gregabout this my husband Greg,
about planning the party andabout I'm so afraid that no one
(09:52):
will show up, he basicallystopped me in my tracks and said
hey, you are acting from aspace of your own pain.
Okay, because when I was nineyears old, I had plans to have a
birthday party.
My parents got a bunch ofballoons Like I can still see it
in my head A cake balloons.
A couple of girls were supposedto ride the bus home with me,
(10:16):
maybe a couple were supposed tobe dropped off.
It turned out that no one couldmake it.
One stayed home sick fromschool that day One.
We went to actually pick up butwe couldn't find her house.
And this is back in the daywhen there weren't cell phones,
you couldn't just call somebody.
So we gave up.
And then I'm not sure about theother two, but I just remember
(10:40):
no one showing up and how muchthat hurt my little
nine-year-old self.
It was no one's fault, itwasn't, you know, intentional,
it wasn't to hurt me, but itstuck with me all these years
later to a point where I'mprojecting that fear and that
pain onto my kids, basically byfearing that for them and Greg
(11:03):
was right I was completelyprojecting.
And so I get to choose, as Iparse through those three R's,
how I want to reinvent what thisall looks like for me, so that
I don't suffer unnecessarilyworrying about something that
isn't actually true to my kidsor to the situation, but it's
(11:23):
true to my old emotions and myold wounds.
Here's what I want you toremember we are all walking
around with pain, we all project, we all do it and we don't even
know it's unintentional.
It's just something thathappens when we feel fear or
lack of confidence.
(11:44):
Happens at work, it happens inour families, it happens in our
head.
But when you can recognize itand when you can take
responsibility for what's yours,you become unshakable.
You can be the kind of personthat can observe and not absorb.
Let me say that again observeand not these things that aren't
(12:09):
meant for you, these thingsthat aren't yours to own.
Observe them, think themthrough, remove your emotion,
put the backpack down, becausethat's power and that's peace
and that's freedom, and isn'tthat what we all want?
So the next time something hitsyou sideways, just pause and
(12:33):
ask is this about them or isthis about me?
And what would it look like ifI reset this right now, if I did
something different?
And how can I reinvent how I'vebeen behaving or absorbing this
in the past, moving forward,you can't choose how the world
copes.
You can't choose how yourfamily copes.
(12:55):
You can't control anyone.
That's not what this is about.
But you can choose your copingmechanisms.
You can choose your responseshow you carry yourself through
this and you can keep your sideof the street clean.
Thanks for being here with metoday.
I hope this gave you somethingto think about.
Breathe into it, send it tosomeone who might need it too.
(13:15):
Remember that you don't have tobe perfect.
You can love from a distance.
You can hit the reset button atany time, stay optimistic, stay
focused and stay connected toyourself through all of this
work.
We have new episodes everyWednesday.
They are on all pod platformsand YouTube, so whichever is
(13:38):
your favorite, please like,subscribe.
Leave a review if you'reinclined.
I love to hear from you.
I love hearing what resonatesand what doesn't.
Love to hear from you.
I love hearing what resonatesand what doesn't, and feeling
the sense of unity and communityin that we're not alone in
these emotions that weexperience.
So thanks again for being herewith me until next time.
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