What is projection?

Projection is seeing the world through our experience. I can only know my thoughts and my feelings. I can't know yours in the same way. So if I look at you and say to myself, "She is very happy today, very friendly," I am basing that experience of being happy and friendly- either my experience of being happy and friendly right now or in the past.
Projection doesn't mean that I'm never going to know anything about you since I can only know myself. You may or may not be happy and friendly today. If you are, then my projection is "correct" in that my experience of happiness and friendliness coincides with yours. If you're not, then I am mistaken. But the point is not whether I am "right" or "wrong" about you. It doesn't matter. What matters is knowing that when I perceive someone else as happy and friendly, or sneaky and dishonest, or loyal and loving, I am perceiving myself. I cannot know what I have not experienced. I cannot perceive goodness, or anger... in you without having known it in myself.

When projection has awareness, it brings us back to the truth of ourselves. We see our contradictions, our strengths, our weaknesses- we see that we are everything we thought was "out there". And when we are able to see that, when we are able to see that we are everything, it is because we are looking from the center of our being. We are looking from our True Nature, the biggest truth of all.

This is an excerpt from "That which you are seeking is causing you to seek" I love gaining more understanding around this. I have found it especially helpful when I am not feeling so great about myself but am seeing the beauty in others. I take a moment to reflect and remember that to see it means I possess it!