Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / if you struggle with social comparison, watch this.

Transcript

if you struggle with social comparison, watch this. · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  If you are struggling with social comparison, you are not alone, you are not to blame and this
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  message is heart made for you. Social comparison is something that I have always struggled with,
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  ever since childhood. I was definitely raised to believe in sort of wanting to be the best at
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  things to a point that I think has been destructive over time. And as I grow older and older, I'm now
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  30 turning 31. This is obviously something that doesn't serve you in adult life. It doesn't serve
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  you in child life either. But when it came to school, I always loved being the best in class and
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  being the best at this and best at that and this overachiever mindset. And of course as I grew older,
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  this pattern stayed with me even as I was invited to like not see the world that way. I was so conditioned
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  into me that anyone succeeding is like my losing. Like whatever someone is succeeding at is like a
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  testament, a commentary at what I'm failing at. And like is evidence as to like how I'm fundamentally
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  not good enough. So this is something that I've sat with and danced with for many years and now a
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  lot of my work that I do, all my work is online. And the ways you can compare yourself to people,
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  how many views is this person getting, how many followers or likes, it's something that I try to
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  stay very separate from but is part and parcel of this path that there are numbers involved and
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  that can often lead to forms of comparison that are really painful to sit with and experience.
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  The first day by always say when it comes to social comparison is to remove any shame.
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  It can feel really shameful, especially if you're someone who wants to feel happy for everyone on
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  earth who is thriving. And yet you feel this pang of not good enough ism. You feel the tears come
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  or why them and not me? Why are they being chosen and not me? Why are they getting the attention
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  not me? And that's what your inner child is saying. Like why not me? You know, and your inner child
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  just feels like oh my word, she, they, he is seeking love from you, is seeking affirmation that
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  you love them even when these external signals are not saying, ding, ding, ding, we're succeeding,
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  we're good enough, we're worthy, ding, ding, ding, we have the things that society told us we need
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  to have in order to feel good enough or safe or worthwhile. And so it is really a process of creative
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  reparenting. But something I realized in recent years is something that I've actually never heard
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  anyone else discuss, which is basically that the part of you who doesn't feel good enough and
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  who is comparing yourself to this person, maybe because of some opportunity they got or some
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  milestone they reached or a relationship they're in, an engagement or whatever it may be.
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  For me, my jealousy often tends to be more career driven. In fact, in one of my last episodes,
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  I made this joke about when your friend gets engaged and you're like, I'm jealous. You want to
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  feel happy for people and you want to be like, oh my word, that's incredible. You're engaged,
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  but like part of you is like, why not me, right? Why not me, right? And the funniest thing is,
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  I sort of cringe at myself because I don't feel that way about my friends getting engaged or
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  being married. It's more so like, for me, it's more so in the realm of like career and opportunities
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  and it's not necessarily my friends, but people like in my industry, you know, in this world.
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  So anyways, I do deal with those feelings and I'm not proud of them. Like I want to feel like,
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  oh my word, good for her, good for them, good for everyone because we're conditioned as women
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  to compete against each other or to believe it's either her or me or to believe in scarcity,
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  right? Which serves patriarchy and serves all the conditions of supremacy and all of these
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  isms that exist in society are served by the notion of competition, especially capitalism.
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  And I have grown and there actually is an aspect of being genuinely happy for many people
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  who are experiencing success in their fields in their industry. And also there's that part of
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  music. I want that for myself. You know what I mean? I want that home. I want that for myself.
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  I started writing a song about this and let's see where that goes. I've been struggling with
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  finishing songs. So send me finishing vibes. I'm going to lean on Soulcraft, the creative community
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  that I co-lead with my best friend Alex, which is all about facing these creative blocks,
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  creating through them, creating with them, creating in conversation with all these fears and doubts
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  and oh, insecurities that come up in the creative process. So if you are looking for a Soulled
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  creative community, you can go to school.com slash Soulcraft to join us. But anyways, back to the
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  point, I am growing. I am growing in my capacity to feel genuine, join my body for other people's
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  success who are in my industry and field. And also there is a practice that I've never heard
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  anyone speak about that I want to share with you. When we're comparing ourselves to someone,
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  we're also sort of like dehumanizing them in a way because we're reducing them to like what
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  our ego needs their life to mean or be or feel like in order for us to prove to ourselves that we're
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  unworthy. So what do I mean by this? There's a part of us that has been made to feel we're inherently
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  unworthy. So because of the reticular activating system, the brain is a belief proving machine.
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  So you have a reticular activating system which filters out reality based on what you already
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  believe to be true. So if you already carry the belief in your body, I'm not worthy. You're going
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  to be looking for evidence and you're going to be perceiving the world through the filter of
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  I'm not worthy, through the filter of unworthiness. So when you see someone else succeeding,
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  this part of you sees that as evidence that you are not doing enough, that you are failing,
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  that people are not choosing your videos as much as they're choosing theirs or people are not
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  as in love with you as they are with this person because ultimately what do we all seek most?
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  We want love and we look for it in all these other places where we will never find it. So in that
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  process, we are reducing this person's experience to our own understanding of our own unworthiness.
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  Now with compassion and grace and love to us and to them, this is the point. That person is a human.
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  So that means they're experiencing the human condition. So while they may be going viral on
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  TikTok, if that's who you compare yourself to, while they may have just gotten engaged, while
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  they may have just gone to promotion, as a human facing the human condition, there are other
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  areas of their life that are deeply complex. They may be grieving someone that they lost.
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  They may be dealing with forms of sickness. If you've ever compared yourself to me because
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  this is a reality when you follow someone and when you support them, also part of you compares
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  yourself to them. It's natural. I do it. It's very much human. It's very normal. If you've ever
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  done that, you're not comparing yourself to the health challenges that I've had for a year with
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  my voice and the uncertainty around what is the future of my relationship with the very thing
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  that gives me life and gives life through me.
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  You may look at certain aspects that from the outside are like, oh my word, how must that feel?
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  How must that feel? But there's a human reality to each and every person. I'm not trying to now say
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  we're all having the same human experience. Obviously privilege, wealth, all the isms, all the forms
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  of oppression, these shape reality deeply and shape who gets to access what, totally completely
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  and also within that all human suffer. All humans experience the pain of not being good enough
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  and while that person may be winning in that area that you see them winning in, there's an area
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  in their life where they feel deficient. There's an area in their life where they don't feel good
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  enough. So what I do is I put my hand on my heart and I say, just like me, you suffer. Just like me,
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  you love.
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  And so similar to how these things that are amazing that they're experiencing that I don't see,
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  that's that's the just like me, you love pot. And then there's parts of the experience that I
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  wouldn't envy. It was at this precise moment that I decided that this clearly was not good enough
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  and I would leave the room, take a beat and come back to record this video again. Now obviously
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  you're watching this video and you see that it has reached you, but I just want to demonstrate
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  what stories perfectionism keeps us trapped in. I was convinced this was simply not good enough
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  and I would need to start again. Now I'm so grateful that it's reaching you, but I just want to tell
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  your inner perfectionist, your inner critic that what you have to share is more than enough is
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  generous and does not have to be the sort of state of absolute perfection that is always an illusion
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  that keeps us from actually making art in order for you to be worthy of making it.
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  I am going to be releasing the second version of this video that I recorded which ended up having
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  a slightly different message and I will be sharing that tomorrow, metaphorically speaking,
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  as in the next natural moment of sunrise for this work and it'll be fascinating to see the
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  differences. As a speaker, I really love being present with the raw moment of what is emerging
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  and what is alive to me, but this of course has its trade-offs. I'm not a scripted writer and so
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  I am with you in this moment of sharing, but the downside is that sometimes I just don't have it
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  and I reach for it and it's almost like gas or smoke and I have to hold the faith long enough
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  for it to condense into form. Oh sexy, sexy. I am going to be ending off this experience since we
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  did speak about comparison with some of the bloopers, the bloopers from this experience, like how I
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  tried to start and you know, just so you know, I actually used to think I had to be this role model
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  of perfection, I would, I placed that on myself and I'm like no, actually, actually the opposite,
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  show people, show people that you get to show up imperfectly and also that like we're all just
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  having a human experience and sometimes we just can't say the word struggling. If you are struggling,
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  struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling, if you are struggling with social comparison,
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  if you are struggling with, if you are struggling, if you are struggling,
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  if you, if you are struggling with social comparison, this message is for you.
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  My darling, my love, my soul sibling, thank you for stepping into the soul salon.
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  If you are still hearing or watching this, we are soul siblings. We are resonating on the same
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  frequency and so something you may struggle with that I struggle with is the fear of being seen.
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  You know that visibility is involved in you living your creative purpose and being in your power,
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  serving the collective through your gifts, through your magic, through your medicine. In order to do
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  that, you know, you need to be more seen than you are allowing yourself to be right now. I have a
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  gift just for you, heart made for us on this frequency and it is a free ebook called The Soulful
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  Visibility Guide that is soulful visibility. Like we don't just want to be seen, we want to be felt,
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  we want to be heard, we want to move and be moved. So I do have a free gift for you and all you need
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  to do is go to my website, I understood.com and there you will be able to input your email address
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  and receive this directly to your inbox. This is such a juicy and delicious guide and I change
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  the free offering every few months. So you know, get it while you can. All the links are in the show
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  notes. So thank you so much. I love you and I will see you on the next sole session. Okay, I love you. Bye.