“Comparisons are odious” is a phrase I was brought up with. For a long time I have understood the wisdom behind this; I know that if I compare myself with other people there is usually some kind of pain involved. What I am only just learning, however, is why I seem compelled to compare and what to do about it!
Over the last 18 months or so I have read a LOT, worked a lot on my personal development, meditated, used EFT, sought support with various issues and joined groups. All of this has helped me start to understand, for myself and in my own way, when my ego is in charge and when I am more in tune with my real self. I’ve been following a spiritual path which encourages awareness of ego for a long time, 23 years to be precise, and I am aware that my ego is a part of me which is concerned with appearance, status and competition. It is an essential element of my personality but it needs to be kept in its place and not allowed to control my life. My ego can cause me to suffer if I perceive myself as a “failure”, and there is also pain associated with achieving and being “better than”.
More recently, I’ve been reading Brene̕ Brown on shame, and I’ve found out a little about how shame is connected with judgment, and how it controls and paralyses us. We can learn to be ashamed about something from society, from our families or from our own experience, or sometimes a mixture of all of these. I can sense that if I am suffering from shame, my ego loves it; it wants me to suffer so much that I turn to substances or behaviour which will harm me
My ego also has a solution to feelings of less-than which doesn’t work. That is to try and feel more-than. I know I do this, and I also hear people talking this way all the time. “You may not be as slim as her but you have a prettier face”; “Ok you’re single but you have a fantastic career”; “Don’t listen to their criticism, you are a better person than them”. I could go on and on but you know what I mean. This doesn’t work. Feeling better-than is also painful; it keeps us in ego and, crucially, separates us.
I can feel compelled to compare myself in a number of areas. I suspect I am like many women in feeling sensitive about my body image and my housekeeping; the urge to judge my body and my home against those of other women is often strong. I am also susceptible to comparison over my career and financial status.
Right now, at this time of year, I struggle with everyone going on holiday. For the past few years I haven’t been able to afford to go on holiday and my circumstances make it awkward to go away anyway. I had a lot of difficulty getting away to Dubai earlier this year on borrowed money to see my father after his severe stroke. The irony is not lost on me – I can’t budget for a week somewhere nice in England, but I get to jet off to Dubai and spend three and a half days in a hospital room!
Anyway, what generally happens is that people I know chat about where they are going on holiday, and this lasts right through Summer until about September. Until recently, I knew that this made me feel uncomfortable but I didn’t know why. Having gained some clarity, I now realise that I’m not feeling uncomfortable out of envy (most popular holidays are not what I would choose anyway – two weeks on a beach sounds like purgatory to me) or self pity (I have lived abroad and travelled to all sorts of interesting places in the past, and fully expect to travel a lot more in the future) but shame. I feel ashamed that I don’t have the resources to go on holiday, that I can’t compete, be nearly-as-good-as or just-the-same or better-than. When this feeling comes I am smaller, quieter, less-than.It’s the failure sensation.
So what can I do about it? For years I’ve worked on letting go, being present, changing my ideas and beliefs, and all that has improved the quality of my life tremendously. But I needed a practical tool to deal with this specific situation. Then I read a quote – can’t remember the rest of it or who said it – telling us to be a witness not a judge. Eureka moment! Of course I have heard and read this sort of thing a thousand times but sometimes the right words come at the right moment and find their way straight into my core. And that is what happened this time. I will have plenty of opportunities to test this strategy, as it’s still only May, so we’ll see what happens. It won’t be perfect but I love to deal in small improvements. Just going in the right direction a day at a time.
So the next time the holiday conversation comes up, my intention is to watch my feelings, watch the situation and then refuse to enter into the competition. If I don’t compete, I can’t fail.
