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In this article, projection operators are used for obtaining a natural drift vector field decomposition that clearly exhibits the workless, the dissipative and the locally destabilizing forces acting within any nonlinear multivariable system equipped with a given positive definite storage function. A simple input coordinate transformation, which is shown to always exist, places the system into a Passivity Based Control Canonical form (PBCCF). Such a canonical form is ready for a direct application of the “energy shapping plus damping injection” controller design method.