Today I’m-a tap into that nasty little inner dialogue that has us questioning … well just about everything that’s going on in our sweet little lives. Life is good, you’re happy, you have a beautiful group of friends, your job is going well, your family are being their loving and supportive selves, maybe you have a loved one (manfriend, ladyfriend, pet or otherwise) to cuddle at night, you’re eating healthily and exploring mindful connections to your diet and lifestyle and this all contributes to a case of the happies. You smile, you beam, you feel powerful and inspired. Then you run into someone (real world or virtual world) who has something you want – whether material like a rockin’ new jeep (‘She bought a jeep?’ Yes, the bitch did.); personal like a rig that would have Jessica Biel asking for tips; professional like the job you’ve been hankering for; spiritual like someone who just oozes peace and calm and makes you feel like you’re struttin’ on this earthly plane banging pots and pans. Whatever it may be, you go from hero to zero in 5 seconds flat. “Started at the top, now we here” kind of feels. We have all been there. Doubt sinks in, comparison courses through our veins and we feel incomplete and broken and maybe even angry.

WHY?

I ask this almost rhetoricaly because there is no answer. Both you and I know the absurdity and absolute BS that this whole little cycle is based upon. We know the old adage ‘what goes on behind closed doors’ rings true. We know that the ‘grass isn’t greener on the other side’. We know ‘you always want what we don’t have’. But, just for a second, let’s explore why. Because this awful cycle is just so dang detrimental to our health and happiness that by exploring why, and becoming aware of it, we just might shed some light on the underlying influences to our responses and calm the eff down. And celebrate our fabulousness along the way. Huzzah.

Jealousy is an outwards process, whereby you focus on something external to blame for your lacking or someone else’s gains. For example, you see someone on insta (because, hey, it’s where we all lurk right?) who seems to have it all. Bangin’ body, cute hubby, the discipline to not eat a whole cadbury’s block in one night, a job of service and one that brings home the vegan, nut free, gluten free bacon (money, this is a humoured analogy for money), perfect house, a couple of dimpled little bubbies that didn’t even leave a trace of their 9 month habitation on her now washboard abdomen … you get the picture. For some of us, we see that and automatically go into attack mode. Searching for a fault, a flaw, in this muse of modern day perfection. ‘Oh shit, the kid’s got a head on it. Yikes.’, ‘I could get a car like that too if I slept with endorsers’, ‘I hear she’s a massive bitch anyway’. We become external comparers, trying to tone down or rationalise these out-of-control external factors to make ourselves feel better. We deconstruct and, essentially, annihilate this woman’s essence and pick her apart until we’re satisfied that we’re equal again. Remember that childhood story of the beautiful, sparkly Rainbow Fish? Well, we just scaled poor nemo. But, hang on, with all this focus on one’s imperfections and ‘negatives’, then don’t we in turn just reiterate to ourselves when we behave and think like this, that we too are imperfect and flawed? ‘Well if they suck, then I suck too’.

For some of us, like myself, we don’t actually experience the pangs of jealousy like a lot of people report. We don’t place external blames on the image we have presented to us – we internalise and we punish ourselves. Let’s use the same example above (because she sounds so fabulous, why would we not) and explore the differences. An internal comparer directs that blame inwardly. ‘She’s so beautiful and I have a face covered in pimples and blemishes’, ‘her husband just dotes over her and mine won’t even make the bed for me’, ‘I hate my job, hers looks amazing’. There’s no external judgement, we are halfway there really because we still are celebrating their triumphs, but we go terribly wrong when we tell ourselves that as a result of others magnificence, we are dog shit. You may not tell yourself this explicitly or directly, but these programs and stories that we tell ourselves when we downplay our own extraordinaire just reinforces to ourselves again and again that we are worthless, and that is just so not true. I promise you.

Imagine shifting this perspective, and focussing of our fellow sisters’ radiance, her success and achievements, her inspiring work. It may in fact turn out that in the company of their light, ours shines a little brighter. By celebrating her successes, it shows us what is also possible for ourselves. We needn’t criticise her ‘have nots’, we cheer on her ‘haves’ and in doing so we actually are giving ourselves a little cuddle and saying ‘we can//will have that too’. Doesn’t that feel better? There’s room to move and there’s love where there was hate. Cosy up in the spaciousness of this novel feeling, and remember it. It sure feels better than the negative nelly attitude we were exuding before.

In life, we will breeze through some aspects and crumble in others. And so will everybody else. We were all blessed with the most precious and individual spirit, completely unique to us, and by trying to force that spirit to manifest in the physical world as anything less than authentic is just silly. It really is darling. It’s a waste of your beautiful energy that could instead be used cementing your place in this world. I can’t be you, you can’t be me and we can’t all be Angelina’s. So let’s declare right here right now, that from this moment we will celebrate our strengths, acknowledge and appreciate our weaknesses, and realise that it’s the delicate and universally inspired interaction of both our light and our dark, which makes us who we are. No more sister bashing, no more self bashing, be loving and kind to yourself and to others. Celebrate the good, and acknowledge the value in the bad, and then just express yourself authentically and wholly in this rich tapestry of life.

Blessings and a vow of no more comparison x

Images found: here | here | and here