Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 97
This week I wanted to talk a little bit about comparison.
Every so often on a coaching call, I find someone talking about how they have caught themselves comparing themselves to somebody else, and then they feel quite a lot of shame or embarrassment about it and tell themselves that they should know better than that and they shouldn't be doing it. And I wanted to provide a little bit of kindness and compassion and take a step back from that judgment and just look at some of the reasons why we might compare ourselves to other people, even if we know that it might not be in our best interest to do it at the time. This might not be as irrelevant for you. You might be someone who's like, oh, I don't, I used to do that. I don't compare myself to other people anymore. But bear with me for a moment, stay with me for the few minutes of the podcast, because I bet there are places in your life where you do compare yourselves to other people just a little bit, even if it is just as simple as going. "Life would be easier if I had the amount of money that Beyonce has..." that kind of level of comparison, rather than "I bet it would be easier if I was Doris in the office."
So I just wanted to sort of reel it all the way back to genetics and history. Going quite far back here, people, to look at why we compare ourselves to other people. And one of the main, very clear reasons that we compare ourselves to others is that for hundreds and thousands of years, our very survival depended on it. When we were roaming around out there in the wild with a bunch of people who we might call our tribe, our family, our particular community that we were in at that time, noticing how we fitted in or didn't fit in, to other people, and where our place was in that structure, gave us quite a lot of information about whether we were going to be accepted or rejected, and therefore whether we were going to eat, whether we were going to get water, whether we were going to be able to mate, whether we were quite literally going to be able to survive.
And for most of human existence, this has been a really good safety mechanism for us to work out whether our lives will be a viable option for us. And that's, frankly, mostly what our brain cares about. It just wants you to be alive. And so it's going to lean on the habits that it's learned most over the whole of history that has enabled us to keep on breathing and drinking water and eating and all of the stuff in between getting warmth, feeling, connection and community.
A lot of that has been determined by comparing ourselves to the people around us and working out what is safe, what is dangerous, what is acceptable, what is going to get us more of the things that we want, what might stand a chance of losing us, and what we don't want.
So comparison's really, really natural. It's a really superhuman response, and it's also been really useful up until now. It just so happens that there are bits of our brain that might find the level of comparison that we have nowadays, I don't know if you look like that person on Instagram, for example, are probably not that useful to our very survival, but our brain hasn't quite caught up with the modern technology that we're bombarding it with all the time.
So rather than telling ourselves, we shouldn't be doing this, I should know better. This is silly. You know, I'm not that person. This doesn't align with my politics. And yet we're still doing it when we compare ourselves to others, is there any space here where you could go, oh, look, I am doing that? That's kind of normal. There's maybe some people who've spent a few billion dollars going into that algorithm to try and make me compare myself to that other person, maybe so I'll buy things rather than shaming ourselves for the feelings that we're actually having, looking at the fact that we're doing this stuff. And that's probably quite a natural reaction.
Because from there, we can then peel back a layer and go, okay, now that I've acknowledged that I am doing that, how do I want to treat myself when I notice that I'm comparing myself to other people? What would offer me some kindness here? What is this comparing myself to other people, alerting me that I feel that I'm lacking, or I feel a little bit insecure about, or perhaps an area where I feel like I could. Could do with a little bit more love, quite frankly.
Also, looking at these levels of comparison and where we're comparing ourselves to other people, it's a really fertile ground for looking at what we imagine that person that we're comparing ourselves to has that we don't, and where is an opportunity for us to be able to create that for ourselves?
So, if I link it back to the Beyonce analogy right at the beginning, you might think, well, I want Beyonce's round of money. Clearly, that would be brilliant. But actually, what do you think that level of money would give you? Would it give you a sense of happiness? Would it give you a sense of safety? Would it give you a sense of comfort? Would it give you a sense of ease? What is it that you think the money that you're to feeling that you're lacking right now? Because that's the thing that we can work on.
So rather than going, okay, I will put myself on the Forbes list. You can go. Okay. Actually, do you know what it is? I feel that I'm lacking a sense of security. That this has alerted me to. Where is it in my life where I can see? Are there any areas I can make myself feel more safe? Are there any areas of my life where I do feel safe that I can look to build upon? Are there any areas in my life that make me feel unsafe that I want to try and step away from or try and transform? It is the emotion that we're seeking behind the thing that we think other people have that we can spot in ourselves, that we can either try and move towards or we can try and move away from.
This is the very methodology that I teach in www.selfcareschool.co.uk But just as an initial brainstorming session for yourself, noticing where these cravings come up for you can teach you a lot about yourself and your own personal drivers to see where you might feel personally, like some areas of your life could do with a little bit more kindness and a little bit more comfort.
I hope that this has enabled you to offer a little bit more gentleness if you find yourself comparing yourself to anybody else in reality or online. And I hope that if you would like to learn any of the stuff about how you can apply this stuff to your own life, or how you can uncover what you do next, to give yourself some of the things that you've been seeking, that you'll come and join us over at www.selfcareschool.co.uk
I hope this has been useful and I look forward to speaking to you next week.
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