Danielle Jhiani, an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, explains how comparing yourself to others damages your mental health and relationships. She offers strategies to break the habit, especially for people dealing with anxiety disorders.
Welcome back. Today we're going to talk about comparing and why this is so unhealthy. We all do it. But when you have an anxiety disorder, you might find yourself doing this a lot more. It's going to be very ineffective and make things worse. So stay tuned to learn why and how to stop.
My name is Danielle Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach who has recovered from insecure attachment anxiety and ocd. And I help others do the same. Let's talk about comparing today. So comparing is something we all do as humans from time to time. We see somebody else, they're really attractive, we wish we looked like them, or we have a friend who has a lot of money and we wish we had money like they did. This is a natural human behavior. The brain does this because it's seeking comfort and wants to avoid discomfort. So it's always seeking pleasure in some way. It's always seeking more. This actually isn't a bad thing. I'm a dreamer. I very much like to dream and improve my life in many ways, and it actually serves me very well. But when we start comparing, we're always going to find somebody who's better off. We're always gonna find somebody who's worse off, right? So if we start looking for things, we're going to find it. So starting to look for people who have it better than we do, who have things that we don't, or in a place in their lives where we're not, we're always gonna find it, and it's never gonna make us feel very good. The other reason why this is so unhealthy and ineffective is because we're usually comparing and making a lot of assumptions. So if I'm on social media and I see somebody who is in a place in their life where I want to be, and I start thinking, oh, my gosh, well, I'm not there and she is, and she's making all this money or she's really happy, or they're always traveling or whatever those things are that maybe I wish I was doing in the moment. I'm creating all of these stories based on one picture or post that I'm seeing in that moment. Oftentimes we are creating stories that aren't even true. Yeah, maybe they're on vacation, but maybe they haven't been on vacation in eight years. Or maybe they've had an argument with their partner the night before. Maybe they look like they have it all together, but they're really struggling with anxiety or depression in the background. We make assumptions that aren't true. We're looking at one moment in time, and that's all. There's often a lot more underneath that that we don't know. And so we're wrong. And even if we are right, maybe they are at a really good place in their life. They're really happy, they're making money, they're traveling. They're having a lot of fun. One thing I've learned is that people can be in that place in one moment in their life, and then two years later, they may not be in that place. They may be really struggling with something, whereas my life may be going a lot better. Everybody goes through ups and downs in life and comparing ourselves to other people, making assumptions about other people's lives and then putting that back on ourselves and saying, I'm not good enough. I don't have that. All you're doing is focusing on the negative. You're focusing on the negative when you don't have the whole story. And you have a lot to be proud and hopeful for. If we focus on the positive in our lives, we're going to feel more positive. And if we focus on the negative, you're going to feel more negative. I don't know about you, but I want to feel more positive. So when my brain starts comparing, what I do is I just recognize that and I stop. Now, if you have OCD and this is a compulsion, you may find that your brain is going there automatically. It's comparing a lot. Your job is to recognize that you're comparing, recognize that you're misjudging a lot that may be there and stop. And the more you train your brain to stop comparing and focusing on what you're grateful for and what you're doing right in your life, the more your brain will stop doing it on its own. I hope this was helpful. Let me know in the comments. Subscribe to this channel if you like this video and we will talk to you very soon.
