Recap of Parts I & II
In Part I I talked about comparisonitis as being a conditioned behaviour. Firstly, we are conditioned by a society that places merit on external validation, on recognisable achievements and awards. And secondly, by the beliefs, ideas and expectations imposed on us by our parents, peers and teachers, particularly when we are young and most impressionable.
In Part II we learn that comparisonitis is also a poverty mentality. We view the world through a lens of limited resources: time, money, people, opportunities. This prompts us to make comparisons: why do they have more than us, how does she manage to win clients and I can’t (we have the same qualifications), why does she get the job and not me, why do things seem to land in her lap and she doesn’t even have to work for it or ask for it? The lack mentality also extends to how we see ourselves: we believe we lack the intelligence, ability, knowledge to achieve the success and happiness we desire.
In this third part, we will first talk about how love is sometimes unwittingly used as a conditioning weapon leading to comparisonitus and also what things we can do to overcome the debilitating and disempowering phenomenon of comparisonitis.
A Pernicious System of Conditioned Merit and Love
As we’ve learnt in Part I, we’re often a product of parental and societal conditioning (I’m no exception). We are so used to working on an external reward system. And that reward system can even be non-materialistic; in other words, it can be linked to love and acceptance. We strive to do better, because then we get the attention, the love and approbation from others. When we feel that we are starved of love and attention and others are being favoured over us (siblings, classmates, colleagues, etc), this heightens the perceived need to compare and prove ourselves.
This is a pernicious system of conditional merit and love. It will inevitably backfire. When we don’t quite make the grade or meet the expectations of our parents, peers, educators and bosses we start to feel a bit rubbish, we upbraid ourselves and pull our energy down into a noose of pejorative self-talk. The result is that we start to love ourselves less, start to feel less than worthy and amplify a sense of disconnect between who we feel we are right now and who we desire to be.
This completes the vicious cycle and we plunge into further comparisonitis and perfectionism. Perfectionism is illusory by the way, there is no such thing as perfect, other than that we are perfectly imperfect.
I have witnessed the same thing with my clients. One particular client, a high achiever like myself and who is very competent in her field of training and learning, came to me because she was finding it hard to accept that others, whom she had previously trained, were getting interviews for jobs she herself had applied for. Only in her case, she wasn’t having any luck in securing job offers or even interviews for that matter. All doors were being slammed shut in her face. When we explored this, there were many issues around self-worth, which in turn were linked back to her mother’s treatment of her. She had been emotionally rejected from an early age – love had been conditional or not present at all.
The challenge then becomes: do the “inner work” around showing compassion and forgiveness of others for their actions and behaviours (which are also conditioned) and then around self-acceptance and self-appreciation to acknowledge that we are intrinsically valuable and worthy. So when my client worked with me on the emotional causes of this comparisonitis, she started to believe in herself again. And hey presto, when she changed her view and version of herself, thereby improving her energy resonance, her external world started to shift in alignment of that altered energy state. She began to experience more opportunity, more positive events occurring in her favour. Within a very short timeframe she secured a new temporary contract of work, which then led to a full-time contract. She’s still looking to launch her coaching business as a sideline venture, and I’ll be at her side to make this a reality.
How To Release Comparisonitis
- Self-reflection and journaling what you’re feeling and thinking on a day to day basis and how you can re-frame and re-construct those thoughts and feelings can be powerful. However, it is a self-reliant practice: you need to do the inner work and depend on your own insights, gut instincts and intuition.
- Meditation – listening to guided meditations on self-worth, self-love and abundance mindset can assist too. Please check out my free self-love meditation – free to download. But again, you need to really connect to these and learn to relax the mind and your belief systems.
- Gratitude Practice – gratitude does a number of things. By focusing on good things in our lives, even the most taken for granted benefits of living in a developed society: the gifts of breathing in a free society, having a roof over our heads, food on the table and limitless running water, we start to feel better. Positive hormones (serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin) flood our cells and neural network and they begin to lift our mood. Our improved mood builds our energetic vibration and we start to attract more good things and opportunities for abundance in our lives (the Law of Attraction working in our favour). You can write down what you’re grateful for in a gratitude journal or notebook or you can express them in a prayer format (or both).
- The Energy Alignment Method is a powerful tool that I use with my clients. With this simple and effective 5-step system, I gently coax them to release their negative beliefs and habits, conscious and unconscious, that no longer serve them. Similarly, I can help you rewire and empower yourself to expect and manifest a different, positive outcome as I have done with all my existing clients.
Take Action / Be Willing to Change
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