Everything That Irritates Us About Others Can Lead Us to an Understanding of Ourselves
Carl Jung once said:
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
This quote has a way of stopping you in your tracks, doesn’t it?
So much of what we react to in others, the behaviors that annoy us, the qualities we judge, the people who make us bristle, often reflect something deeper within ourselves. Sometimes these are old wounds, unprocessed emotions, or patterns we learned long ago.
Why Do We Project Onto Others?
It can feel safer to focus outward than to look inward. If I’m busy criticizing you, I don’t have to acknowledge my own shame, fear, or vulnerability. This is what therapists call projection: we place our own denied or uncomfortable feelings onto another person.
This is human. And it makes sense.
Our Early Family Blueprints
We all grew up in a system: a family, a culture, a community that taught us, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, how to relate to others. We learned how to get love, how to keep ourselves safe, how to gain approval.
Maybe you learned to guard your heart because no one showed you how to safely express your needs. Maybe you learned to people-please, to shrink, to avoid conflict, or to build walls around yourself. These patterns often become our blueprint for connection, and they can stick with us well into adulthood.
When someone in your present life triggers you, it’s not always about them. It can be your nervous system flashing back to those early relational blueprints.
Barriers to Letting Love In
The truth is, so many of us want love, safety, abundance, and connection. Yet we struggle to receive it. Why? Because we’re still carrying those guards. We’re still responding to others from old patterns, patterns that once protected us, but now keep us from feeling the love and care we crave.
Healing means noticing those guards and gently working to soften them.
It takes self-compassion to say, I see why I do this. It makes sense.
It takes courage to ask, Is this guard still serving me?
It takes vulnerability to slowly let others in, the people who have earned the right to witness you fully.
How Therapy Can Help
In my practice as a sex and trauma therapist, I help clients explore these exact themes. We look at what gets in the way of accepting love, pleasure, and trust. We trace those patterns back to their roots, the childhood experiences, the family dynamics, the unspoken rules, so you can begin to rewrite them.
When you heal those early blueprints, you open up space to receive. To accept love. To let abundance flow in. To allow yourself to rest in connection, rather than guard against it.
That’s the gift of this work: you learn to move from protection to expansion.
So the next time something (or someone) irritates you, pause. Get curious. Ask yourself:
What is this showing me about myself?
What might I be protecting?
Is there an old wound asking to be seen?
Because those moments of irritation? They can become your greatest teachers, leading you home to yourself.
If you’re ready to explore these patterns, you’re welcome to reach out. Whether through EMDR, trauma therapy, or sex therapy, I’d be honored to walk alongside you on your healing journey. I offer services in person in Edmond, and virtual services throughout Oklahoma.