You’ve heard it before – comparison is the thief of joy. In this post I am not talking specifically about our bodies (although this is of course a MASSIVE one) this is comparison across the board, across all areas of our lives, career, relationships, family, friends…everything.
You’ve probably experienced it many times in your life. You get a new jacket that you think is amazing and you feel a million dollars in it then you go and meet your friend who has a more luxurious, better fitting, more stylish new jacket and suddenly yours feels cheap and ugly and that you look crappy compared to her.
As soon as we start comparing ourselves to others we often start to think we have less than, that we are not as good as them, not as lucky, not as abundant, less loved. We don’t often look at other people and think how wonderful it is that they seem happier than us right?
We usually can’t help this – even if we want to. It is in our conditioning, from growing up in a society where we are always trying to ‘keep up with the Jones’. But all that happens when we do this is that we feel bad about ourselves. Suddenly we look at our lives, or bodies, and think ‘crap, I wish I had her life rather than mine, I wish I had her body rather mine’.
It makes sense that a quick way to make yourself instantly happier is to stop comparing yourself to others right? I know you’ve heard this before, the trickier thing is how do we do this…I’m going to share with you two simple actions you can take right now to stop ‘comparison-itis’…let’s dive straight in.
The best, quickest way to stop comparing yourself is to change the kind of media you consume i.e. detox your social media. By that I mean unfollow anyone who you compare yourself unfavourably to. That girl who you think has perfect hair? a better looking partner than you? straighter teeth? has more friends? unfollow, unfollow, unfollow.
Remember you can always follow them again in the future. This is just a temporary measure to change the type of images and information you are consuming. The beauty of social media is that you are in charge of the content you see. You can choose who you want to follow so take responsibility for that and choose accounts that spread love, happiness and acceptance. Accounts that share messages or values that are important to you. And cute animals if that kind of thing floats your boat!
Cleansing your social media is one thing, but what about people in real life who you can’t ‘detox’ from?
Here comes tip number two. When you come across someone who you compare yourself negatively to send them good wishes. If jealousy comes up, send them love or kindness instead. Send them good will, send a prayer to them if that is something you resonate with.
The point here is to change your negative reaction or negative emotion into something positive. Rather than seeing someone and then reflecting back on how unworthy you are in comparison, instead you are going to keep looking towards them and send them good energy.
You might then come up against your own critic saying ‘why are you sending that person who “has it all” good vibes?’ To that you can respond to yourself by asking ‘well why can’t I send those good vibes to myself instead then?’ It’s an amazing question to pose to yourself – which covers two huge themes – Why don’t I love myself? and why do I value others more highly than myself? If you want to go deep with this sit and journal on those questions.
The point of this exercise is to pattern interrupt. Where normally we would start comparing ourselves and spiral into a self-hatred/pity party instead we are going to send positive vibes. This is not healing the root cause, that needs to be done through your individual work or working with a coach or therapist. But it is stopping you in your tracks and will help you stop comparing yourself negatively to others in the moment.
The idea is not to ‘pretend’ we didn’t just compare ourselves negatively but instead to recognise, accept and then introduce a new narrative into our minds. We are reconditioning our instinctive responses to others we see as better than us.
In doing these two things you will have made a great leap forward in stopping the many negative comparisons we make on a daily basis. Let me know how you get on with these in the comments below! If you’d like more support please please reach out, you do not need to struggle on your own, just drop a comment below or email me here sasha@sashafardell.com
Lots of love to you xxx