Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP42] Why Comparison Is Stealing Your Joy (and How to Reclaim It)

Transcript

[EP42] Why Comparison Is Stealing Your Joy (and How to Reclaim It) · AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation

• 0:00
  How to stop comparing yourself and start celebrating your journey.
• 0:05
  Have you ever scrolled through social media?
• 0:07
  You've seen someone living their best life and instantly feel this kind of pang
• 0:12
  and you feel like you're behind and you need to catch up
• 0:15
  or that you might never catch up.
• 0:18
  They're just so far ahead.
• 0:19
  Or you felt good a second ago until you saw that thing.
• 0:23
  And then now you're wondering if you're enough or if you're not enough.
• 0:26
  If you're lost or you're just too late, like you missed the boat, then they just say hit the game and you've been left behind.
• 0:33
  Comparison is something that perhaps we all face on some level and it can quietly rob us of our joy, our momentum and even our purpose, our connection to our purpose and living from our purpose.
• 0:45
  So in this message, in this video, I'm going to talk about why we compare, even when we know we shouldn't,
• 0:53
  the hidden cost of comparison, talking about the economics of the story,
• 0:58
  and the three powerful ways to stop comparing and to start celebrating your own path, your own journey, your own successes.
• 1:08
  So the first part, why we compare and how it hurts.
• 1:13
  Comparison isn't just a mindset issue that you can talk yourself out of.
• 1:17
  It's a symptom of something deeper, a deeper disconnection that's actually happening.
• 1:22
  And we compare because on some more tangible levels, we have conditioned ourselves to measure
• 1:28
  our worth externally.
• 1:31
  We have this measuring stake of, okay, I'm here.
• 1:34
  And then there's all of these people out there.
• 1:36
  And also with social media in our lives, suddenly there isn't this, perhaps what would
• 1:42
  be limited to a geographical location or reach or travel, it is now basically you've just got the
• 1:49
  whole world there in your device and there's a lot more people to compare with. And perhaps we compare
• 1:55
  less with strangers but more with the people that we know that are in the closer or maybe even the
• 2:02
  further circles from us, the outer circles, but there's comparison that we do. Social media makes
• 2:07
  it easy for us to see everyone else's highlight reels. And sometimes we forget that it is their
• 2:12
  highlight reels and someone could just be suffering and struggling with something, but then they're
• 2:18
  just posting all the bits that you want to see or they want you to see. And then our nervous system
• 2:23
  scans for, okay, where do I stand in this? Almost like a hierarchy. And as a way for the nervous
• 2:29
  system to work out if it's safe, if it can feel safe, and if there is a problem to fix. But the
• 2:37
  and breeds doubt or self-doubt. And it distorts the sense of truth and also a sense of time and
• 2:46
  ultimately trusting ourselves, right? And our own journey and our own abilities and the progress
• 2:52
  that we've made, our own intelligence, our skill sets, our experience, all the different things
• 2:58
  that makes you who you are up to this point in time. And what I mean by distorts the sense of
• 3:04
  time is that if you're looking at someone's highlight reel, which they have been working
• 3:10
  towards for the last decade, and you just see those moments of triumph, let's say, like
• 3:15
  metaphorically, they're receiving the medal, so to speak.
• 3:19
  Someone running the Olympics, whatever, like sub 10 seconds or sub nine or whatever it
• 3:24
  is right now, they've trained their whole life.
• 3:27
  And like when we're just seeing that highlight reel, metaphorically speaking, they step up
• 3:31
  to receive the medal and they receive all the glory.
• 3:34
  What we're not seeing in that reel is all of the work that's gone in.
• 3:38
  So in that sense, the time that they've put in to get to that point, the effort, the energy,
• 3:44
  the focus, the commitment, the steps that they've taken, and all the things that they've
• 3:49
  had to say no to in order to choose that thing to succeed in and be in that highlight reel
• 3:56
  of their life.
• 3:57
  So in a way, it distorts our sense of time.
• 4:00
  And then we look at that and think, oh, shit, I'm behind.
• 4:04
  so far ahead. Should I even just bother? Should I just give up? It's a distortion of what is actually
• 4:09
  true. And it makes us forget our own growth. But also, I think it makes us forget who we are.
• 4:17
  It's like saying, if you go out into nature and if you look at, I don't know, you've got like roses,
• 4:22
  like rose plants in your garden, and then there's lavender on the other side. It's like the lavender
• 4:28
  is saying, oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. Look, the roses are so beautiful. Or like the rose
• 4:34
  And if it had a human mind, it's gonna, oh, the lavender is so beautiful and it's got all this different color and it smells in this way.
• 4:41
  But that's what we do as human beings.
• 4:44
  It's like, we're all completely different and unique.
• 4:47
  And if you think of it from a more energetic or more compliant perspective, if the entire universe is expressing itself in one unique form known as you, isn't it funny, sometimes funny, that we as human beings actually then take this.
• 5:04
  unique expression in infinity, which is you, and then compare it with a completely different,
• 5:10
  unique expression of the universe and say, oh, yeah, I just don't measure up to that. I'm not
• 5:15
  good enough. And then beat ourselves down. And that's the gift and so-called metaphorical curse
• 5:23
  of the mind, right? Like that we have a mind that can think and can problem solve, but then
• 5:28
  when we identify with it, then therefore our suffering, as you would know from this work.
• 5:34
  From a story work perspective, it comes from comparison, right?
• 5:39
  Like where does it come from?
• 5:40
  It has its roots in the not good enough story, the not worthy story.
• 5:47
  And it not only comes from it, but also it perpetuates itself.
• 5:52
  Like it breeds more of itself, right?
• 5:54
  So it comes, the not good enough shows up as a comparison, and then it creates more
• 6:00
  of itself.
• 6:00
  It's self-perpertuating.
• 6:02
  and that's how the mechanism of the story,
• 6:04
  we look at story work from our body of work,
• 6:06
  that's how it works.
• 6:08
  So let's look at what else.
• 6:10
  So the real problem is that we've forgotten to look in words,
• 6:15
  which obviously that is our perspective,
• 6:17
  that's our focus here in this body of work,
• 6:19
  being inner work.
• 6:20
  And the tools of yoga, meditation, transformation,
• 6:22
  all of these are opportunities for us to look in words,
• 6:26
  go introspective and find out what is true and what's not.
• 6:30
  Comparison grows when connection to self is low, when we've lost or losing connection to ourselves.
• 6:39
  When you're deeply rooted in your values, your purpose, your truth, you're less shaken by what others are doing.
• 6:46
  So in other words, when you're in your own lane and staying in your own lane, realizing like, okay, this is where I'm at right now.
• 6:54
  But also this is what I'm up to and that's what they're up to.
• 6:59
  You cannot most of the time compare.
• 7:01
  I mean, you can obviously if you want to do that, but it creates all of this suffering.
• 7:05
  It's not an equal comparison.
• 7:07
  Like it's not a fair comparison, right?
• 7:10
  What is it?
• 7:11
  What's the saying?
• 7:12
  You judge a fish.
• 7:13
  Actually, I'm not going to go into the saying that it can't climb a tree or something like that.
• 7:17
  Like that it's stupid because it can't climb a tree.
• 7:19
  Of course, it's not built to do that.
• 7:21
  It's built to swim in water.
• 7:23
  I think that's the saying.
• 7:24
  If I've messed it up, then great.
• 7:27
  That's a new saying.
• 7:29
  What are some common signs that we're stuck in comparison?
• 7:32
  You feel anxious and the anxiety is not just from scrolling.
• 7:37
  The scrolling machines that we have are instant, instant supply of anxiety,
• 7:43
  instant supply of stress and suffering.
• 7:45
  It's just there, just unlock and bang, it's there, right?
• 7:49
  We fall straight into it.
• 7:50
  But it's not just the scrolling, right?
• 7:52
  Sometimes you're like, you've been walking down the street or sometimes
• 7:54
  you meet your friends for, I don't know, lunch or dinner or whatever it is,
• 7:59
  And then so-and-so announces something and you're like, oh my God, why is it they can and I can't?
• 8:04
  Their journey is different, right?
• 8:06
  To you, to me, to every one of us.
• 8:09
  And it's just honoring that or reminding ourselves first that they're different.
• 8:13
  And constantly questioning your choices, like sitting there, right?
• 8:17
  Thinking, should I just do this?
• 8:19
  Or I should have just done that.
• 8:21
  Or I should have just done that.
• 8:23
  And that's why like we get fickle and we keep stop starting different things.
• 8:29
  different things, that's a good way to guarantee that you're not going to get far with anything,
• 8:34
  right? Or just anywhere. And what it guarantees is that we just waste our time and energy and
• 8:38
  effort and life force doing lots of different things, but not getting anywhere. Not even fast,
• 8:44
  like just we're not getting anywhere. Because you start one thing, stop. You start the next thing,
• 8:48
  you stop. Start the next thing, you stop. And then keep doing that with different things. And
• 8:51
  sometimes people do that. I've had, if I think back to back when I was in uni and I started working
• 8:59
  keep going and they'll just do more courses, more degrees, more masters, more PhDs. And that's all
• 9:04
  awesome. They're just too scared to maybe go into a job and apply it or to start that business and
• 9:10
  actually move things forward or get into the relationship or start to work on their health
• 9:14
  and their fitness levels, whatever the thing is, right, that they're working towards.
• 9:19
  So we tend to just keep learning and hide behind the learning. That's another way to do that.
• 9:24
  So that you have more qualifications, you have more pieces of paper and say, yeah,
• 9:29
  much more credited now, but sometimes the most accolades, like people with the most accolades,
• 9:34
  they just haven't really done anything with it. It's just, they're just really smart, so to speak,
• 9:38
  but almost like a waste of all of that knowledge and maybe even intelligence and talent, right?
• 9:44
  Unless it's applied. Other signs you're achieving, it still feels like you're not enough or it doesn't
• 9:51
  feel like enough at all. So you're constantly striving and chasing. And my personal experience
• 9:59
  tens of thousands of people over the last two decades is that it's good to have some level of
• 10:06
  not comparison, like you're reaching for something and that could fuel you to move forward.
• 10:13
  But then there's a tipping point and it goes over when it's unhealthy. And that's when it starts to
• 10:20
  debilitate us, right? Like just not good enough. And it goes from motivation to just like giving
• 10:26
  up, basically. What's the word? Apathy, I think. So you don't need to move faster. Perhaps you need
• 10:32
  to move truer to yourself, right? And truer to yourself might mean, yeah, get on it, go do the
• 10:41
  thing that you've been thinking about for all this time. Or maybe it means actually you need to take
• 10:46
  a break, recharge so that you have more energy to continue, right? And it will be unique to you
• 10:53
  in wherever you are right now in your journey, if this speaks to you.
• 10:57
  So when you look inwards, what do you see as the truth?
• 11:02
  And this is where when we look from the perspective of inner work,
• 11:06
  more from a story work perspective, as in the mind narrative.
• 11:10
  So for those of you who don't know what a story work is,
• 11:12
  the mind narrative perspective, what's actually going on?
• 11:16
  And let's actually break that down a bit more.
• 11:17
  practices to shift from comparison to celebration or maybe even movement like inspiration movement
• 11:26
  right so the opposite of being stuck basically debilitation or giving up right the opposite of
• 11:31
  that first is actually to to just zoom out and look at your why which i kind of hop on a lot
• 11:39
  in our work like why am i even doing this right and actually how does it fit into
• 11:44
  my bigger why in my life right now, this thing that I'm doing that feels, as an example, maybe
• 11:51
  it feels like I'm doing this thing, I'm not getting anywhere, it's really difficult. And
• 11:55
  that's part and parcel of any journey. Whenever you set out to do anything new, you're pretty
• 12:01
  much guaranteed that you're going to be met with uncertainty and obstacles and challenges,
• 12:08
  because every challenge that we meet in our journey grows us
• 12:13
  and then prepares us for the next and the next levels.
• 12:17
  Sometimes when we're going through that, the minutia of it, the difficulty of it,
• 12:22
  and then we're looking at someone else and they're just having their shining moment
• 12:25
  on the podium, so to speak, their highlight reel.
• 12:29
  And we think, oh, my God, look at that.
• 12:30
  They've already done it.
• 12:31
  They've already done their thing.
• 12:33
  They've only just started.
• 12:34
  They've only been doing it for a year and they're already there.
• 12:37
  I've been doing this for so long and I haven't actually got there yet.
• 12:41
  And that's the time to pause and look at, okay, hang on.
• 12:45
  Why am I even doing this?
• 12:46
  And it could be completely different, right?
• 12:48
  Their reason you might not even know.
• 12:50
  But even if you did know, probably completely different.
• 12:54
  So reconnecting with that.
• 12:55
  What's your why?
• 12:56
  What's your why for doing that thing?
• 12:58
  But also how does it fit into your bigger why for your life?
• 13:01
  Your bigger kind of direction of what it is that you want to call forth or create or heal,
• 13:08
  if you want to call it that. And reminding yourself, why did I choose this path? And
• 13:15
  guaranteed any path is going to have some difficult terrains to cross, right? Before we start the
• 13:22
  thing, we always think, yeah, it's going to be amazing. It's going to be so much fun. And I'm
• 13:26
  just going to fly through it. And then you go on, I imagine the metaphor I've used is like going out
• 13:31
  for a walk into, let's say, I don't know, the forest or something. You just think it's going to be
• 13:37
  But then as you go, it might rain or you might have to cross some muddy parts and like everything is going to get wet and dirty.
• 13:44
  Right. Or suddenly like there's a bit that's flooded or I don't know, there's a dangerous animal or just things can happen.
• 13:51
  And you can prepare as much as you can.
• 13:54
  But also you want to prepare for life's uncertainties as well.
• 13:57
  So that's why rather than just focusing on specific strategy,
• 14:02
  it's to zoom out and just remind yourself, reconnect with,
• 14:06
  why did I choose this path?
• 14:09
  I have a student who messaged me and said,
• 14:12
  oh, she's just done the path in Spain, Santiago,
• 14:16
  right, the walk that she's done.
• 14:18
  I think it's 200 kilometers or something like that.
• 14:21
  And she just completed it.
• 14:23
  Think about that.
• 14:24
  Like, you're guaranteed to meet, even though I think they walk on the streets mostly.
• 14:30
  It's a tough thing to do.
• 14:32
  It's a really tough thing to do.
• 14:33
  And you're going to go through journeys unless you've done it.
• 14:35
  You can't imagine, like, some of the challenges that they'd be going through unless you've
• 14:40
  actually done it.
• 14:41
  And even if you'd go and do it, it's going to be different for you.
• 14:44
  So why do you choose this path?
• 14:46
  Why do you choose this journey?
• 14:47
  Why do you choose this outcome that you're after?
• 14:50
  and why in the way that you chose it, this path to get to that place, that journey, the outcome.
• 14:56
  Right? Why for you? And it'll most likely be very unique. And also to ask the question of
• 15:01
  what season am I in my journey? If you're comparing your winter to someone else's summer,
• 15:08
  let's say, right? And it could be all sunny and shiny for them, right? When you look at
• 15:13
  their highlight reel and you could be going through the difficult part of your journey.
• 15:20
  they would have had to cross their winter,
• 15:23
  their difficult terrain to get to wherever they are right now.
• 15:26
  And also, there is no guarantee.
• 15:28
  Nothing is permanent in life.
• 15:30
  You might see them in summer,
• 15:32
  and in the next moment, they will enter their next winter, most likely.
• 15:36
  Just like we know from our own journey.
• 15:38
  Sometimes the moment of glory is there,
• 15:40
  and enjoy it when it's there,
• 15:42
  and then don't get attached to it.
• 15:43
  Because the next thing the universe will bring you sometimes,
• 15:46
  or life brings you is just,
• 15:48
  okay, here's the next challenge.
• 15:49
  Get ready.
• 15:50
  my journey of transformation, that's how it's been.
• 15:53
  So it's not to suck the joy out of it.
• 15:56
  It's to really lap it up, enjoy it, celebrate it,
• 15:59
  acknowledge yourself for how far you've come.
• 16:01
  Take a moment to let that sink in,
• 16:03
  to let that be embodied, right?
• 16:05
  Or to let that be felt in your heart.
• 16:07
  And then be ready, right?
• 16:10
  Like not paranoid, just be ready.
• 16:13
  In other words, be present.
• 16:14
  Because in any moment, the next level will come.
• 16:18
  Life will give us the next level.
• 16:20
  Most likely, at least that's what I've experienced.
• 16:22
  You can't compare your summer with someone else's winter or your winter with someone else's summer.
• 16:28
  My second is replacing your comparison or jealousy or doubt, whatever that is running in that moment with, I want to say, inspiration.
• 16:40
  One of the things I've learned over the years when I go into this, oh my goodness, that person is doing so much better.
• 16:46
  and I'm really shit because they've done it in less time
• 16:49
  or they've done it in an easier way
• 16:51
  or they've had just monumental success
• 16:53
  that I just feel like a loser compared to them.
• 16:57
  And sometimes we can get jealous, right?
• 16:59
  Or resentful towards them or thinking bad thoughts, right?
• 17:04
  I'm not going to do anything bad,
• 17:05
  but just think, how dare they?
• 17:07
  And the truth of that, when I got underneath that,
• 17:10
  like maybe just one level underneath that
• 17:12
  is that some part of me,
• 17:14
  what's there for me to learn is that maybe there's something there for me to learn.
• 17:20
  They know something that I don't. They have experienced something that I haven't.
• 17:24
  They've learned something that I haven't learned. They've done, right, like the hard yards that I
• 17:29
  haven't done, that I just haven't seen because it's not showing in the highlight reel of their
• 17:33
  life, so to speak. But to take that and the things that, you know, would make me jealous or resentful,
• 17:41
  to take that as inspiration. It's very easy, right? Like we live in a world where people will support
• 17:48
  the underdogs, but the moment someone stops being the underdog and you go in par with them or they
• 17:55
  think like you're surpassing them, people tend to then throw stones and try and drag you down.
• 17:59
  And that's the mindset that keeps us small and never succeeding however you measure success in
• 18:06
  any area. And I've learned that rather than throwing stones at them, the truth is I feel
• 18:11
  insecure because they have done something, they've learned something, they've experienced something.
• 18:18
  There's something there that either I don't know or haven't done, right? Like that, that they've
• 18:23
  earned that most likely. Like it probably just didn't fall in their lap. So what can I learn?
• 18:29
  How can I be inspired by what they've created for themselves in whatever area of our lives?
• 18:36
  Turning the jealousy to inspiration, I would say.
• 18:40
  Yeah, what is this showing me about what I desire?
• 18:43
  How can I, what is it, what's missing?
• 18:45
  Why am I getting so-called triggered by their success?
• 18:49
  And how can I turn that trigger into inspiration?
• 18:53
  The other part, the third part is a bit more of a heady version.
• 18:57
  And it's like tracking your wins.
• 19:01
  And I'd say more than tracking.
• 19:02
  I'd say more actually acknowledging and celebrating it in the moment. In our body of work, I would say
• 19:09
  celebration to me doesn't mean go out and get wrecked. Celebration most of the time means
• 19:15
  acknowledging in that moment, like just giving it a moment for it to really land, at least for it to
• 19:21
  become embodied. I've worked for this and it took me 10 years to get to this point, to building this
• 19:27
  thing and to get to this moment where I'm receiving the medal, metaphorically to speak,
• 19:33
  right? I'm on the podium, I'm receiving the medal. To really let that in and from an inner work
• 19:38
  perspective, I know for myself that some part of me wants to block that. And sometimes it would be
• 19:44
  like a compliment or an acknowledgement. People say, wow, well done, that was amazing. Kudos to
• 19:48
  you, whatever. Congratulations. And I used to find myself when I started to build more awareness,
• 19:54
  there was a point when I wasn't aware and then I started to become more aware and I started to
• 19:58
  become more aware I noticed that there's part of me that was blocking that and that blocking and
• 20:03
  not allowing it in not receiving the acknowledgement is also what I do to a bigger degree with myself
• 20:12
  so externally when people give me the congratulations some part of me receives it but most of it I
• 20:16
  blocked it but me to me if I was to congratulate me I just one I don't even do that but even if I
• 20:22
  did, the acknowledging and celebrating, I'll just block that. And that comes, the root of that
• 20:29
  lives in that machine, that mechanism, the story of I'm not enough or I'm not worthy,
• 20:36
  right? Like I need to be more, I need to do more, I need to be more. Because
• 20:42
  like where else is that machine, that mechanism going to live? If it doesn't perpetuate itself
• 20:49
  in these forms, like blocking out and not receiving.
• 20:54
  The acknowledgement, not just externally, but self to self.
• 20:58
  And more of the work is actually self to self,
• 21:02
  which will then open up to other to self,
• 21:06
  like receiving from other to self.
• 21:08
  So I hope that makes sense.
• 21:09
  It's about taking your power back.
• 21:12
  It's about remembering who you are.
• 21:16
  this comparison keeps you and me and all of us in competition and celebration moves you into
• 21:23
  alignment so when you can be when you can there's a bigness right there's a capacity within us
• 21:30
  that we can celebrate someone else's success even if we're not quite there yet
• 21:37
  this it creates space for that level of success or even a fraction of that success to show up in
• 21:44
  resenting that, then there is no space. Like I'm the opposite, right? It's the magnet that repels.
• 21:49
  Right? You know how some magnets attract and some magnets repel. So when I'm resenting it,
• 21:53
  I'm repelling that from my life. I'm saying no space for that in my life. Yeah. So if you're
• 21:58
  ready to stop abandoning yourself, then, you know, for those of you not in this body of work,
• 22:02
  that's what this work is about. So for you to, if you feel like you've been spinning and
• 22:07
  overthinking, people pleasing, never feeling like you're enough. And this work is about you're
• 22:12
  reconnecting to your own truth, your unique truth, your purpose, your bigger why in this lifetime.
• 22:19
  That's what we do here. It's to heal the emotional patterns and the story machine, right? The
• 22:25
  mechanism that's running your life that's behind all of this comparison that leads to burnout,
• 22:30
  that leads to resentment, that leads to jealousy, that leads to doubt, right? And this kind of
• 22:35
  caused all the havoc that's related to this pattern. And it's about you remembering who you
• 22:39
  are without all of that noise and the pressure, which, you know, really most of the pressure we
• 22:45
  create for ourselves. So it's about you taking your power back. It's not chasing anymore,
• 22:50
  but it's coming back to what's already within you and who you are, the truth of who you are.
• 22:55
  And your timeline, your journey, your timeline is sacred. It's unique. Your path is enough.
• 23:02
  The journey that you're going through and what you are receiving and every step,
• 23:07
  It's, you could say, maybe custom made for you.
• 23:10
  And your journey deserves celebration, not comparison.
• 23:15
  And comparison is noise, and you are the signal, and it's time for you to tune in.