I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why we feel the way we feel about ourselves. A lot of it comes down to introjection, introjection is when we take on the expectations and projections of others, communicated to us in many ways both verbally and non-verbally. A lot of these introjections will come from parents, other family members, kids at school and as we get older friends, romantic partners, co-workers etc.

An example (taken from Psychology today)

Sam is 4 years old and dressing himself fairly well by now. Today, his mother is in a hurry and doesn’t have time to lay his clothes out for him, so she hurriedly tells him to go put on some “nice” clothes. She’s going to have to take her with him to lunch with her two best friends—single women with whom she used to work.

So, Sam, really excited to do it all on his own, picks out the loudest shirt and the coolest blue jeans he can find. He puts them on proudly and hurries out to show Mummy how fast he can dress in “nice” clothes.

Sam comes into the room to show off his clothes to Mummy. But Mummy is already aggravated and is really upset now to see the clothes he’s chosen. She waves him back to his room with a face of utter disgust.

Sam, now defeated, decides that he doesn’t really know how to dress after all, so he just takes off his clothes and sits in his room waiting for Mummy to come dress him. By the time she gets there, she’s furious, because now not only has he not chosen correctly, but now he’s just sitting there looking at her like he’s “dumb” or something. Now Sam feels even worse. He can’t dress himself and he’s really kinda dumb. It must be true—Mummy said so.

This might seem like a fairly common occurrence in a busy household, and we all know how hard it is sometimes to get our kids (or even just ourselves) out in the morning. However if similar judgements and rejections happen often enough, then the child, in this case Sam could end up feeling defeated, Sam as a child, doesn’t understand that his Mum wants to look “put together” for her friends, all Sam understands is that she didn’t like his choices and thinks he is stupid, these thoughts will now become incorporated in to Sam’s view of himself, which will go on to become part of his identity.

Kids are so intuitive and receptive, so they pick up on not just what is said, but the body language used, and kids accept their parents/caregivers as mirrors and accept their words as fact. What we receive in from those we depend on is massive, have a think about what has been projected on to you?