I’m sure you’ve read all about how “comparison is the thief of joy”, and you’re probably more than familiar with all the reasons you shouldn’t do it. You probably even have the quote “Compare to despair” saved in a bookmark somewhere, but none of it has actually stopped you from doing this.
You’re not alone!
We do this, us humans. We compare. But I have to tell you a beautiful side effect that has come from me working to release this scarcity mindset we’ve all been raised to believe in. As I’ve studied, practiced and expanded my abundance consciousness around money I have started to notice how that effects every other area of my life as well.
For example, the other day I was listening to a Podcast wherein two very intelligent people were discussing recent events. These are people with multiple University degrees, Masters and PHD’s and I have to admit to you that normally when I listen to these types of conversations it is very triggering for me.
It is triggering for me because I feel stupid in comparison. I’m just gonna come right out and admit that from go. It is a wound of mind that comes from my family history, from our roots in poverty, and personally from my choice NOT to go to pursue higher education, but instead have a baby with my love at 19 years old, and not go back to school til later for a short stint in community college and a certification in Applied Art & Design.
Normally what would happen in this instance, is my critic would come up and start berating me in the background of my mind, comparing me to these people, and what I could and should be and know. This would all happen quietly under my radar, so normalized I’d hardly notice it, and by the time I was done listening I would feel like utter shit and not fully understand why.
But what happened this time was very different. This time I listened and thought:
“Wow, they think so differently than me. That’s amazing. How amazing that these people absolutely love this world of nitty gritty facts and figures. How incredible there are people like this who love to delve into systems and structures and all of these details (that would make me insane!) – how amazing they have a mind that was made just for that and that it is their passion!
And how amazing there are people like me too, who are dreamers, and visionaries, and leading edge thinkers who imagine new realities and speak the language of emotions rather than purely logic — and how cool is it that their talents and gifts benefit me, and other visionaries and thought leaders benefit them! How cool is it that all these opposite types come together in such beneficial ways to compliment each other?!”
This shift in view is partially to do with my own self-worth work of course, but an equally big part of it is no longer believing in scarcity. Because when you live in scarcity mindset, you have to believe there’s only room for them, or you. So when I lived in that place I would have to either shut them down, or shut me down. And personally I always chose me. I would compare myself to them and come up inferior – instead of just DIFFERENT. Instead of honoring my strengths and theirs. Instead of seeing there’s room for BOTH types, and our own individual gifts, and there is room for ALL types with ALL kinds of different strengths and gifts.
Scarcity tells us there’s only so much, and there’s only one way, and there’s only one RIGHT, and there’s not enough for all. And it’s a lie.
That day my abundance mindset took over that old familiar road I would have gone down. It said: “how gorgeous that there is room enough for both, how gorgeous that there is room enough for all of this, and how gorgeous how it all comes together!”
And so instead of shutting the Podcast off, or shutting myself down, I stayed on long enough to have several aha moments that literally changed my life, just. like. that.
Something that was actually very facts and figures based they said hit home on a very emotional level, and it healed a generational pain for me in that moment. And I would have totally missed that if I had decided I wasn’t good enough to listen to it.
So I’m here today to tell you that the opposite of comparison is LOVE.
Because when you’re not comparing you’re ALLOWING enough room for you and for everyone else. You’re making space for both/and (instead of either/or – which is scarcity thinking). You’re ending the war of right and wrong, best and worst, good and bad, worthy and unworthy. You’re ending that war in you, and when you end it in you, you become a living example of the peace you want to see in the world.
The actual opposite of compare is “contrast”. Did you know this? To compare is to look for similarities (and then apparently to despair or disparage if you don’t find any! Oy). But to contrast is to look for differences. I personally think it’s always a good idea to look for, and honor, BOTH.
Don’t you think? Our differences can actually bring us together even stronger, it is an absolute lie that sameness is harmony and peace. Scarcity thinking and fear bore that lie and it’s time we change it, and it starts with you and me.
It’s time to deeply know and LIVE the truth that there is enough and that you are enough, and to stop shutting ourselves and others down with the lie that there isn’t.
I can’t decide that for the world, but I can decide it for me. And it ends for me, right here and now. I will no longer support that system and feed into its madness by way of my belief in it.
Think of it as an energetic vote you’re casting at the ballot box of your own future, and the future of the world. There’s a measure that calls for abundance of resources for everyone, or scarcity (limited resources which must be haggled and fought over and dispersed) – which box are you checking?
We DO have the power to create a new world. Both our own world, and the collective world we share. But it will always start right here, inside. No external change can hold if an internal shift has not happened.
So that’s where we begin.
As my mindset has shifted to abundance, my world has shifted in its wake. I never in a million years could have imagined my life could feel this beautiful if you’d have asked me 5 years ago. It is not perfect, or free of challenges by any means, but it is sweeter and freer than I ever imagined it could be. All I had to do, was keep following the call. And that’s all you have to do too, one little step at a time.
xo
Sunni
If you’d like my help in following that call, I’d love to have you… check out my Feast or Famine No More Course & Membership and see if it feels right for you »
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