The Pause Between “Maybe They’re Right” and “Maybe They’re Not”
On absorbing, deflecting, and what accountability really feels like
Last night over dinner at my mother-in-law’s, I found myself in a conversation that helped me put words to something I’ve been circling for a while:
How to tell the difference between someone caring and someone projecting.
I was talking with someone close to the family, someone humble and kind, the type of person who laughs off compliments and apologizes for everything.
There’s something about the way he acts that feels almost too familiar.
Like I’ve seen someone apologize for taking up space like that before.
We were talking, and he told me about the things he’s tried. He’s the type of person who signs up for classes in whatever he’s curious about. Comedy one month. Martial arts the next.
He’s aspirational in this very simple way.
He wants to do something, so he goes and does it.
Whether it's scattered or intentional, he's out there doing it.
And I admire that.
Then he told me how sometimes people in his life will comment on his passions. On the way he jumps into things.
They say it like it’s a concern.
Like it’s for his own good.
When he said that, something in me flinched.
Because I had just written about this.
About how “for your own good” can be a disguise.
The takeaway in that column was this:
When advice shames you, it usually reveals more about the person giving it than about your behavior. That's projection.
So I said to him, maybe their critiques come from a place where they never got permission to try.
He rushed to defend them.
“They’re nice. They say it out of love.”
The way he said it looked exactly like what it was.
Someone covering a wound before it could be seen.
I told him: real advice, when it comes from love, leaves you feeling more confident about who you are.
It might challenge you, but it does not leave you embarrassed about who you are. If you walk away feeling fundamentally flawed, that’s worth noting.
At the same time, this conversation isn’t permission to dismiss every uncomfortable comment as projection.
The word “projection” gets used as a shield now.
Sometimes that shield blocks needed reflection.
A person can speak from their own unresolved history and still say something worth hearing.
The delivery doesn’t always cancel out the message.
And sometimes the criticism that stings the most is the one with the most truth in it.
So before you label something as projection, sit with it:
Ask whether there is a pattern you recognize in yourself.
Discomfort alone does not prove the other person is wrong.
Listening to him, I saw what I’d been circling.
There’s a difference between owning your flaws and hiding behind the language of growth.
People who perform self-awareness admit fault without remorse. There’s an exasperated sigh.
An “I know, I know.” A vague promise to work on it next time.
The language sounds right. The behavior stays the same.
Highly self-critical people operate in the opposite direction.
They absorb blame quickly.
They apologize before processing whether the criticism fits.
They treat every flaw as evidence of a deeper defect.
So having faults isn’t the point.
What matters is your first instinct when they’re pointed out.
Do you shrink immediately?
Or do you dismiss the comment as projection before you’ve examined it?
Do you sit with the discomfort long enough to ask whether there’s something true in it?
Or do you move on because looking inward feels harder than labeling the other person?
Projection is real.
Avoidance is real too.
Discomfort by itself isn’t evidence. What you do after is.
And that’s when I told him:
Having faults doesn’t make you the problem.
Refusing to look at them does.
Most people avoid that mirror.
It’s easier to make someone else feel small than sit with your own discomfort.
But you’re not doing that.
You’re doing the opposite.
People who are truly unbothered by their faults don't try to fix them.
You do.
And while you’re doing that work,
pay attention to whose voice you’re doing it for.
Most people mean well.
Some don’t.
And some genuinely can’t tell the difference between caring and projecting because nobody ever showed them how.
But you still get to decide what you do with what they say.
Not everyone who speaks into your life deserves to stay there.
When someone’s words make you shrink instead of grow, listen to that feeling.
Because the question was never really about whether they meant well.
The question is whether their voice deserves a place inside your head.
And this is why inner work is so important. How can you decide what is projecting and what is actual advice if you do not know your deepest desires and passion :) but we are so tangled inside. It takes a lot of work :) great post
Not all advice is wisdom. Sometimes it’s just someone handing you their unhealed story.
Projection speaks from unresolved emotion. Advice speaks from integrated experience. The difference isn’t in how confident it sounds, it’s in how self aware it is.
That’s why introspection matters. If you don’t know your own wounds, fears, and patterns then you’ll mistake someone else’s baggage for guidance. Self awareness is the filter.