Getting off the Carousel of Comparison.
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It feels like I’m trudging through deep mud.
I can see the solid ground I need to get to, I just can’t get my legs to move fast enough. They are held down by too much thick, dark and sludgy earth. I’ve been feeling this for weeks, and it has slowly crept its way into my bones, where it feels like it may never leave me.
I’ve been here before, many times. I know I can get through it. I know if I push hard enough that I can make it back to me, to the me who’s always positive and can constantly feel the love and happiness that fills her heart.
There are so many things that may propel me out of this state. Seeing something on TV that puts into focus just how amazing my life is, or a crystal meditation that brings me back into balance, or maybe a cuddle and a I love you from one of my children. With me it never seems to be a gradual process like the one that brought me here, it seems more like waking up suddenly and finding my equilibrium restored.
When I feel my normal self and look back on these periods, they never seem as bad as how they do when you’re slap-bang in the middle of one. So until then I just keep wading through, trying to smile at everyone and everything, remembering to give thanks even though at times I feel like screaming, “Is this it? Is this my fucking life?”
And most important of all, I show myself more love, I tell myself over and over how loved I am, how worthy I am, how enough I am, and know in my heart that one day soon I’ll believe it once again.
I think what has set off this episode is that I’ve been so busy doing that I’ve forgotten to just be. I am someone who needs to just be often. It helps me feel connected to my higher self, it helps me feel more in tune with my intuition. I always feel so much gratitude for the beautiful life I live, but when I’m too busy doing, I soon start to feel the disconnect.
So much of the doing has meant that I’ve been in contact with people who don’t bring out the best in me. People who tend to bring out the side of me that compares. “My home isn’t as big as hers,” “Why doesn’t my hair look as good as hers?” “Why couldn’t I be a stay-at-home mum?” “Why does their marriage look so much more passionate than ours?”
On and on these comparisons go until I want to scream and wail at the Universe for giving me so much less than others. It’s all material and it’s all relative, I know that. But still, in my less rational moments, I feel the injustice deeply.
Society, in the western world, has a big part to play in this. Our society likes us to feel like this, thrives on the ease with which we compare ourselves, because when we compare, and find ourselves and our lives lacking, then we are more likely to consume.
If we didn’t feel lacking in comparison to The Joneses next door, would we really need a new car so much? Would our own not last us a few more years? If that friend we haven’t seen for 20 years wasn’t putting pictures of her glamorous holiday in Bali all over Facebook, wouldn’t our trip to Spain lying by a pool all week be enough?
I know once I’m on that carousel of comparison and not enough, it speeds up so quickly that I find it difficult to get off. I start to live in my head instead of living from my heart. I’m sure the people around me notice the difference. I feel as if I have become someone else, and it isn’t someone I like very much either.
But I know I have to love her. I have to love her because that is what she’s desperate for. I will show her the love that will light the way so she can find the way out of her darkness.
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Natalie Donohoe is an advocate for happiness and joy. She firmly believes that is what we came to this planet at this time to experience. She wants to inspire others to find out what happiness means to them, through her story. Natalie loves her life, and wants others to experience the same fulfillment. She believes we are all love! You can follow her on Twitter or her blog, or alternatively see more of her writing here.
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