Other-selves and projection

[Minyatur]

I'm going to offer you a musical analogy. Right now, you two are playing a very busy piece with a lot of counter-point. The moments of tensions are those moments when your patterns result in a dissonant harmony. Often this happens when two opposing notes are sounded together.

How can you improve on such a composition? There is a lot of focus in music on the "active" elements, notes, tones, rhythm, pulse, beat, all of these things.

However, I'm sure you've heard the saying, "you have to listen to the notes that aren't being played".
In between all the notes and activity is the passive element - silence, rest, SPACE.

Space is such a crucial element to music, not just to create a composition, but also for creativity to flow, and I think these musical principles can be applied to all areas of life.
Space is that time to breathe, time to listen. It sounds like you both could consider more about space.

A friend once suggest to me to "include more space" in my meditations. Maybe you'll find that fruitful as well.

Just to add to this, last summer I went on a road-trip and my favorite portion of the road trip was clearly the part where the starry sky could best be seen. One night, I was trying to analyze why the starry sky has such a deep effect upon myself, how it is what I've known in my life to emulate most a sense of peace and serenity within myself. Pondering why it could give this sense of serenity and peace, I was thinking that it can bring us back to our nature that is somewhat both empty and full. How we can gaze above and kind of see the empty that is filled with infinite things, yet these infinite things stand with a lot space in-between them and I thought that is something that is much lacking to the human experience. We constantly gravitate so close to one another, so much that we struggle to become centered within ourselves, becoming completely at the mercy of a ceaseless dramatic dance. Some people even have come to fear to be alone, constantly projecting this avoidance of themselves unto others.

One of the lessons I've had in this lifetime was admittance of not being the answer to someone's else life issues. So I do think sometimes the right choice is simply give someone the space to stop projecting unto yourself and in turn also give them the space to be able to center themselves with their own selves.