Comparison Syndrome.
We’ve just come out of COVID-19.
Like anything that keeps us shuttered in and excluded from real-world happenings, it sucked. I’d love to let you into our house of covid-related maladies - the symptoms, remedies, timeline and suffering, but I won’t.
Because none of it matters. As a covid-virgin, I used to scramble to know as much as possible, seeking answers from the experienced:
“Were you sick?”
“How long did it last for?”
“How bad was it?”
Etc etc etc.
When we were bogged down with the virus, my husband set out to find out the real deal from friends and neighbours, hoping to better understand our predicament. It reminded me of a habit all of us fall prey to: Comparison Syndrome.
It’s a fear response.
A human tendency to peer into the world of others and size up against, to arrive…nowhere. We were scared about the unknown of COVID-19, so wanted to compare our experiences to those around us. Normal. Valid. But it did nothing to help our healing process aside from take us away from the present moment, and replace it with another sprinkling of dread.
Comparison syndrome comes up a lot in my work - for myself and for teachers I work with. On a shaky day, I can quite easily circle back to self doubt and see only inadequacy when looking at other teachers (in them and myself!). A common fear amongst new teachers is a fear that their practice is not advanced enough to start sharing the work. Their poses are not refined enough. They believe they are flawed, too imperfect to start teaching.
Often, it can be an excuse. We find safety from a position of lack, justifying a halt in momentum with the belief that we are unworthy and not yet ready. We become smaller, envious and closed off, rather than curious, generous-hearted and gutsy.
In his book, Secrets of The Yoga Sutras, PR Tigunait PhD translates sutra 1.33 to:
“Transparency of mind comes by embracing an attitude of friendliness, compassion, happiness, and non-judgement toward those who are happy, miserable, virtuous, and non-virtuous.”
My extremely simplified unpacking of this is: life is a hell of a lot easier and happier when we stop wasting time looking at what everyone else is doing.
The words of various teachers and mentors have stuck with me over the years.
“Stay in your lane”, “you can look sideways but don’t stare”, they advised. One teacher once reminded me that trying to look into the subconscious mind of others (which is what we do when we criticise and judge) is not allowed.
Comparing darkens our outlook.
It limits out potential.
It takes us away from compassion for others, which is usually a reflection of the lack of compassion we feel for ourselves. It takes us outward, where many of us live most of the time, away from the beauty of who we are.
Inward is where we often need to go, with a whole lot of love and compassion in this moment in time. From here, we find the courage and present moment awareness to share we share our gold outwardly with the world.
Love, Leanne xoxo
*Full respect those with underlying health issues, where understanding covid and its risks is necessary.