Judgement and Comparison ... how I stopped my habit

OK so this blog is something that I never expected to be writing about. But it was just there in my head and I couldn't ignore it. 

It's all about learning to manage my ikky 'comparison and judgement' habit. I've never shared it here on my blog before because well, it's a bit embarrassing to admit, but I figured it was time to be totally transparent.... so here goes!

It's possibly my biggest flaw and downfall. It trips me up when I least expect it to and it causes me the most hurt and harm. It makes me jealous of others and feeds the lower energies of my ego. I HATE it!

I've struggled with this for most of my life, and I wanted to share my experiences of it to help anyone who might feel and do the same as me, so you don't feel so alone and hopefully help you along on your path of being happy and content in your own skin and life. 

We live in a world where women are judged for EVERYTHING they do, say and wear; from celebrities to our 'friends' on Facebook, and as cringe-full as it is to admit - I have a habit of doing it alllll the time. Or at least I used to - it's something I'm working on! The same goes for comparing myself - Comparing my life to that of my 'friends' on Facebook or the trendy yoga girl on Instagram I follow.

Because we now have access to such a range and wealth of images, magazines, blogs, vlogs, people's daily lives (thanks Facebook!) and such, we literally have hundreds of people that we are able to compare ourselves to or judge whenever we are feeling a little low, a little lost or when something bad happens to us. 

It's pretty much one of the most damaging things you can do. Trust me, I've done it most of my life.

For me it started from being a young child, trying to fit into the world. A world where I felt very, very insecure about who I was because I felt different, so I did everything I could to fit in. 

This meant meticulously comparing and measuring myself up to other people and adjusting myself to make me 'acceptable' and 'likeable' to those around me. I'm a very good intuitive analysis!

And it's a habit I've carried on throughout my adult life. A habit that so hard to break. A habit that's one of the main reasons I kept myself hidden and small for such a long time. A habit which prevented me from following my dreams.

You see, because I was always trying to fit in, I lost touch with who I was and this made me unhappy. I've blogged before about doing what YOU love and following your purpose. You can read more about that here.. It's such an important topic for me. It fires me up and I urge you to read that blog, because each and everyone of us has the right to be following our life purpose (and trust me, we ALL have one).

I believe most of us at some point, lose touch with who we truly are through life experience or trauma. And instead of learning and growing from that we end up in victim mode, unhappy and pushed further from our authentic, true self, far, far away from who we are. Just like I did.

And being out of touch with who we truly are (aka: being happy and fulfilled) makes us unhappy and more likely to be focusing on other peoples lives rather than our own. 

What I mean by this is: our life experiences shape our beliefs about ourselves and our traumas kick out of us our authentic, happy self, and we go into victim mode. Now, because we have so much information about other people at our finger tips, it's easy to start comparing our lives and judging other people. By no means does this make us feel better about ourselves. Not at all. But we still do it right?

In short, if we are unhappy in our own lives, maybe we are a little bit 'lost', we don't know who 'we' are -  we start critiquing others, judging them makes us feel a bit better about our crappy life.

For me, this was the case and up until very recently, I still had a hard time knowing who I truly was, what made me happy and what I should be doing with my life, because I had this childhood habit of desperately wanting to fit in, never stopping for long enough to listen to my inner voice, never stopping to do what I loved, never filling my own self up, never nurturing my own desires, needs and wants. Never. Just doing whatever it took to fit in. I was so scared of being made fun of, or having no friends!

What I've learned...

In short, everyone has a story. Everyone has a past.  Everyone is battling something you know nothing about. 

No one's Facebook profile is a true reflection of their lives. No ones public persona is a true reflection of how they FEEL inside.

No one, apart from my close friends and family, knew that for three years me and my family were placed under enormous pressure and that my partner had depression and that our lives were in a mess. I never put THAT on facebook! And neither does anyone else. No one shares their deepest times.  So while it all looks rosey and happy, it's probably not.

That skinny, pretty girl who you're jealous of, probably has a trauma or past or background you know nothing about. She most likely battles everyday with her own personal drama. Forgive her, be kind and let it go.

What you can do...

1. Focus on you. That sounds too simple, but part of my 'rehab' was to eliminate anyone or anything out of my life that made me a smidgen jealous or that I compared myself to. Restricting my social media time helped, but unfollowing pages and people on FB and Instagram helped. Seriously, looking at pictures of '#squatchallenge' didn't make me feel good!! If I found myself comparing myself to anyone I immediately put down my phone and walked away. Life is too short.

Seriously focus on you.. 

2. BE KIND! Now this is a toughie, but if you can in still in your mind that everyone is made from the same source, we are all one - humanity - then you can start to learn to love everyone. You don't have to physically love them, but wanting the best for everyone - even people that have hurt you or caused you pain - can cause huge upshifts in your behaviour and thoughts. I did a lot of this through EFT (if you'd like to know more about EFT sessions with me then please get in touch), I was able to forgive people and let go of anger and resentment and even mild annoyances!! 

I fricking LOVE EFT for being able to do that! Something so silly that annoys you about someone can literally be tapped away in a matter of minutes! 

3. Forgive and send out loving thoughts and they will return to you. I'm a huge beliver in the Law of Attraction, which is gaining more popularity in books like "The Secret" and people like Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer have also made it more well known. I'm a huge fan of "Ask and it is given" by Esther and Jerry Hicks, or anything from the Abraham Hicks collection. If these call you. .. check them out ;) The Law Of Attraction, in a nutshell, is the belief that like attracts like and what you think about, wether positive or negative, you bring about. You shape your life experience through your thoughts. 

It took me AGES to get my head around this and step out of my ego to see that I was the creator of my life experience. I was in victim made for a long time and thought that life happened to me. 

I didn't realise how much control over my own life I had. Once I understood that my thoughts, words and actions created my life experience, my life turned on its head. An amazing book which introduced me to changing my thoughts, was Susan Jeffers "Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway", I HIGHLY recommend it. 

4. Making a pact to not slag people off or bitch about people with your friends can make a huge difference too. What you think, speak and feel, will be returned to you via karma and law of attraction. If you're constantly bitching and moaning about other people; people will be bitching and moaning about you too - and it's not always the people you expect it to be and it may come at a time when you least expect it. Everything that happens to us is a direct result of a past action, thought or feeling/expectation, wether you believe so or not! It's really hard to do this ALL the time, but making a small step in the right direction is more than worthwhile! BE KIND!

5. Quotes like these I have featured in this blog and especially:  "A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms" are also ace to have around, to remind you that it's so important to focus on yourself.

6. When I competed my Art of Living Meditation course, I left feeling like I knew the 10 people on the course with me, like really knew them. I loved every single one of them, the course broke down huge parts of my ego and I left totally in love with the whole of humanity. Now that makes me sound like a total crack pot - but seriously; from then on I personally was able to let go of my habit of comparison and judgement and anytime it cropped up in a new situation I am able to replace it with the feeling of love and kindness. I owe so much to that course and the meditation/breathing techniques it taught me! Meditation was a huge catalyst for me. It again, took me ages to get into properly, but now, I do it every day. It's the one thing that isn't negotiable. Meditation changed my life! I used to think I wasn't spiritual or special enough to meditate. I thought it was a waste of time and that I was too stressed and busy to do it. 

Once I got over myself and realised that I could do anything, I tried all sorts of meditation before I found what was right for me. A good place to start is 'guided meditations' on YouTube, a Yoga class, an App called 'Sattva' or breathing Apps. I had to play around for a while until I found what was right for me, you might have to too. Keep with it :)

7. Forgive. Forgivness creates peace and peace creates love. The more you practice this the easier it gets. Try writing a forgiveness letter to whoever has hurt you. If there's still anger there, I urge you to try EFT - it really shifts anger! I promise, I will post an anger tapping video soon!

8. Do what YOU love. Not what other people do. If something makes you uncomfortable, don't do it. Focus only on what you like doing. Learning to say no to everything else is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.

Do what you love to do - whatever it is. My mentor once asked me "when was the last time you felt like you?" ... even I was shocked at the answer. At 31 years old, the last time I felt like 'me' was when in was doing my GCSE Art exam. From that day I started doing art again.  I redrew my GCSE art piece and bought myself an easel and some proper pencils!  I decided to stop watching TV every evening and dedicate part of my week to doing something I loved. 

Ask yourself the same question... "when did you last feel like you?" Or "what were you doing the last time you felt like you were "in the flow" or doing what you were supposed to be doing?"

The answer might surprise you! If any old beliefs or blocks surface in your mind about why you CANT do it, write them down and analyse where they've come from. Don't let anything stop you from being you. 

9. Give gratitude EVERYDAY. As I write this I'm in gratitude rehab because my daily gratitude habit has slipped slightly. And didn't I notice a difference? ! HUGE difference in my thoughts and attitudes. I found myself being miserable for no reason and this was after just over a week of not doing my daily graitide journal. A WEEK!  See my blog on gratitude here.

In short (!) How I got over my habit of comparison and judgement was to practice kindness to ALL and concentrate on myself. Simple! 

If you'd like to read more I have searched and found some fantastic blogs about comparison and judgement from some other bloggers. You can read their blogs by clicking on the links below.

I also wrote a poem around this topic. I've never written one before, but you can check it out here....

If you want to know any more about what I've written about or you'd like to talk about EFT, please get in touch via email info@kathrynpearson.co.uk or message me on Facebook. (www.facebook.com/kathrynpearsoneft)

Be sure to follow me on Instagram too @kathrynpearson_EFTandWellness 

                                 

Links to other blogs and further reading

A Blog About Love is AMAZING! I love it. Danny and Mara blog about relationships, fertility, marriage, spirituality and all things LOVE. Here's an exert and link to their Blog:

"If you are dwelling in negativity and self criticism, guaranteed it will spew over to your husbands, kids, boyfriends, girlfriends, family and coworkers.  You can't really hide that stuff.  And guess what - - it's not attractive.  It doesn't lead to happy marriages and relationships.  So if you are letting your desire for skinniness/riches/fame/attention make you feel negatively, think of the poisonous negative energy you are sending into the world and the effect it is having on others.  Consider that you are teaching your children to live this way as well.  Use your love for others as a catalyst for trying to change your ways.  Love really is the most powerful force that can help us to stay on track." Read more here.



A second blog I found was this by Toni Bernhard (See her bio below) 

"A friend of mine likes to joke that dying will be a relief because it will put an end to the “heavy burden of judging” as she calls it. She envisions herself lying in a hospital bed and, moments before death, noticing the ceiling and thinking, “What a hideous green.”

Here’s a modest proposal: Vow that for the rest of the day, you won’t judge your friends and you won’t judge any strangers you happen to see. This would include a friend who’s a non-stop talker; it would include a friend who’s always complaining about his life. It would include the strangers you pass on the street or see in a waiting room." Read more here.

Toni Bernhard is the author of the award-winning How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers and How to Wake Up: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide to Navigating Joy and Sorrow. Her newest book is called How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide. Before becoming ill, she was a law professor at the University of California—Davis. Her blog, “Turning Straw Into Gold” is hosted by Psychology Today online. Visit her website at www.tonibernhard.com.