I was sitting outside at a cafe in Costa Rica when a well known life coach said to me, "Projection is our power."
I tilted my head like a dog hearing its toy being squeaked, looking at her in desperation to have what she had. Knowledge on life that was greater than mastering a routine or regurgitating a self help book. She knew physiology. She knew how the human body works.
I was about to set off on one of my very first expeditions and thought I understood perspective and the way it affects the human brain.
That statement alone showed me how much my ego was limiting my ability to learn.
She went on to explain that the way you perceive what is in front of you is a direct indication of what is going on within you. Every person, every experience, every opportunity, every challenge that comes your way is a disowned part of yourself. This is a tool if we understand how it works.
Overly intrigued and immediately humbled, I then made her explain everything she knew about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
That conversation did not last two coffees. It lasted almost two years. Integrated into a life of living full time in the jungle, studying nervous system regulation, and beginning my own investigation into what science says about the way we see our potential.
Our brain does not see reality.
What we see, hear, feel, and interpret is filtered through the nervous system. A record built on everything we have experienced in the past.
What this means is you are, in the most literal biological sense, seeing life through the lens from a record written before you were old enough to choose it.
But new experiences, environments, and people push us beyond that focal length. They force us to understand what someone else was built on. To encounter a version of reality our nervous system did not generate and to let that disrupt us enough to update the record.
Because when the brain encounters something new, it has two choices: reject and retreat to what is familiar, or integrate it and expand.
This is where a lot of us get held back. Because the nervous system can only expand when it feels safe enough to do so.
For example, you could have an amazing opportunity for a promotion but your body doesn't feel safe enough to take on the new pressure or responsibility for a new level of abundance. Simply because of negative impacts that may have happened in the past. Your body is trying to protect you, even if your mind says "I know I want this and can," or if you were like me and think "There's no negative impacts tied to this."
You cannot consciously name what your subconscious is running.
What I found in jungles, in research labs, in conversations with indigenous healers, and in the work of neuroscientists who have spent their careers studying this is that projection is indeed our power — but regulation is what makes projection conscious.
A dysregulated nervous system projects from its wounds and fears. A regulated one projects from its potential and highest possibilities.
The more you train your nervous system to feel safe, the more it will feel comfortable to take on.
Goingannawhere. Get Regulated through The Nature Method.