55: Turn Comparison Into Growth. It's Possible.

Hello friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges and loss and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in Comparison we all do it. We all do it. It's human, right? We are constantly trying to organize where we feel as though we fit into this world. And oftentimes doing that means comparing to others. But what happens when comparison consumes you or really alters your ability to focus, to make progress or lead you to beating yourself up? Or feeling this lack of alignment in your relationships or in your own self worth, or maybe stopping you from taking action on some of your goals? It is so common. I talk with so many people about it and a recent conversation has inspired this episode. So if comparison has creeped into your life, this is for you. How many times have you seen a social media account and thought like, oh, if only I was like that? Or you see somebody I don't know out to dinner or at a gym or in some type of class and you immediately go to comparing your experience to theirs, well, if it's happened to you, congratulations, you're human. The truth is, is that we are wired to try and organize and make sense of things. And a lot of times that means comparing, like where do we fit in? Where does this person fit in? How does this make sense? And as we get older and we grow and we mature, our need to organize and categoriz everything lessens. But while we're going through that process, one way that we have found a sense of safety is by organizing and making sense. This is why some people can be really attached to certain beliefs or norms or systems because they've identified these to be quote, unquote, right? And so if somebody challenges those, essentially somebody's challenging whether or not they are quote, unquote, right. And they can become really defensive. Now we know here, as we're doing the work and as we're growing, that there's not a right or a wrong right. It's about alignment, it's about choice, it's about spaciousness and freedom. But I want you to understand where this comes from, the more tightly somebody hangs on to their way, being right, somebody else being wrong, trying to make sense of it. It's really about their internal organization of where they fit in in this world. So what do we do when it pops up for you? Because it likely will. Right? It's human, as I said, and it's part of our experience. So there are three things that I coach others to do when they're feeling comparison, and this is something I'll coach. Right. Of course, that there's always feelings of comparison at any stage of your life. It's just how much you allow them to take up space for you, right? For me, if something creeps in at this point in my life, it maybe is a fleeting thought, a second or two channeled into something productive, rather than at one point in my life, it was this place of paralysis. And again, like all of these things, I learned this in my grief journey. I learned it from Laden, because it was when I was completely humbled in my grief and knocked down and shattered that I learned that everybody grieves so differently, right? And the way that Leiden's father was grieving in his needs were really different than mine. And it didn't make me right or wrong. It didn't make him right or wrong. They were just different. And understanding and honoring that was a really beautiful thing. It was a really beautiful part of growth. And so then I realized, and I thought, okay, well, you know, if this is true in grief, I believe it's true in life. And so that's what I like to do here, is connect so many of these grief lessons, not just to grief. Now, of course, if you're grieving, I certainly hope it helps you, as these are things I learned that were instrumental to my grief journey, but they really do help in life, right? Because grief is an intense manifestation of life challenges. It's like a magnifying glass on really, really hard stuff, on pain and those painful energies of fear and shame and loneliness and disconnection and a lack of safety and a lack of certainty. Grief basically is like a magnifying glass on all of those things. And so what I learned in my grief journey after losing Layden was, well, the way I grieved wasn't right or wrong. And there was really no comparing it to anyone else. Like, there was no one year finish line. There was no whether you should talk about it or shouldn't talk about it or what I should do or shouldn't do. And this allowed me to make the connection of what a weightless way this is to live life, to let go of something being right or wrong and to let go of there only being a finite amount of resources or somebody else's experience was somehow going to either and take away from mine, which leads into one of the foundational pieces of shaking that like nagging voice of comparison, right? That nagging voice, whatever it is for you, one of the absolute most important things in order to do so is to recognize the difference between a scarcity and an abundance mindset. And we can go really deep in this. But the easiest way to explain, and I encourage you to look further into this because this stuff is good. This stuff is gold, right? Lot about energy. I talk a lot about low vibes, high vibes essentially. High vibes are a place of abundance and low vibes are a place of scarcity. If you are curious and learning more about high and low vibes and you want a copy of the Bible, just shoot me a message, I gotcha. But in terms of scarcity versus abundant, what the scarcity mindset suggests is that there's a finite amount of success to be had or a finite amount of love to be had or a finite amount of food to be eaten or. And so it's that idea of if somebody else is receiving love, that you're going to receive less love because there's a finite amount. So by them receiving it, therefore you're going to receive less. A scarcity mindset says if somebody else has had success, maybe in their business, that there's only a finite. Right? There's a limited amount of success to be had. So now their success is taking away from the success you can cultivate. So now do you see how that scarcity mindset, that finite can really play into comparison? Because now we feel like we're competing with everybody, right? We're competing for love, we're competing for business, we're competing for that. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. Now in an abundance mindset, we realize that these energies, they're limitless, right? We're the ones that place limits on them. That when love is shared, it can fuel and feed more love, right? That law of attraction, that love will attract more love, that when success is achieved, it can fuel more success. Success, right? It's something I've experienced in 90 day CEO and our own coaching from our success, we can fuel more success for others, right? And so it's like you're cultivating and you're doing these things, but then you're taking people on the journey and setting Them on fire too. And now they go. And then they take others along on the journey. And what this beautiful visual is of us just all growing and learning, that is an abundance mindset. So if you are feeling comparison, the first thing to do is to really, really do some work around a scarcity versus abundance mindset. Like I said, I'm happy to help you with that, give you some tips. Because it's critical, right? It's critical to everything, not just in comparison. It's going to be critical to our relationship with food, it's going to be critical to your relationship with money. Scarcity mindset will definitely play into that. Now, once you've established that if you're feeling triggered, if you're feeling triggered, so somebody does something and you feel this sense of comparison, the first thing I want you to do is get really curious. What is it that I'm envious of? What is it that feels off for me? What is it that's triggering me? So step one, get super curious. What is it? Because nobody can trigger you, that feels totally whole and clear and aligned within you. So basically what they're doing is holding a mirror up to something that you want to give more attention to. It's to something that you want to cultivate, strengthen or align. So first thing, what is it? Journal on it, think about it, meditate on it. What is it that is being elicited, that's being pulled to the top for me? Second thing, what can I learn from or be inspired by this person? What does this person have or doing that I can allow to be a source of inspiration, a source of motivation? So instead of competing and comparing, how can I learn? How can I be inspired? Now, what this requires, what this requires, this entire process is putting our ego on a shelf. And that's not easy, right? That's not easy. In fact, I challenged someone recently to reach out to the person that they feel this internal compassion to and just be like, hey, I want to learn. I'm blown away by what you're doing. I want to learn. I mean, that is putting ego aside or being able to say what's worked for them. I can do that too. Now remember that scarcity mindset might set in and say, well, that worked for them, so it can't work for me now. And remember, that can't be further from the truth. And this abundance mindset, if it works for one person, it absolutely can work for someone else. It's not a finite world that we live in. The world we live in is amazing. So step one, what is it that's being triggered in me? Step two, what can I learn from or be inspired by from this person? Where can I put my ego down and actually start taking action into that direction? Maybe it's reaching out to them, or maybe it's just taking an action that you haven't prioritized that now you're ready to. And then the last step, how can you actually thank that person now you don't have to reach out and thank them. Like, hey, I found myself comparing myself comparing to you. And then I realized you were triggering something, something to me I didn't feel good about. And then I realized what you're doing that's really inspiring and I'll take action. So thank you. And you could. Honestly, it's probably a conversation I would have. I think it'd be pretty awesome if someone said that to me. But that takes a lot of comfort, right? That takes a lot of comfort in owning your energy. So as you get to that place, how can you just internally thank them? How can you switch that dialogue from, oh, I hate that person, he's such a blank, or she's such a blank or whatever it might be to, wow. Like, thank you to that person for holding a mirror up to something in me that's not clicking. Like, thank you to that person for shining a light on something that I need to tend to. And thank you to that person for inspiring and motivating me to take action to create change, to get out of this place of victimization and pour me and woe is me and step into my path. Because when we compete and compare, we are positioning ourselves as powerless. We're saying that we don't have the power to change anything. And the truth is we have all the power to change. So thank that person for inspiring, motivating you to create change. That's going to serve you really well. I hope this was helpful for you, this idea of comparison. And I really challenge. I'm going to challenge you this week. I want to challenge you this week to dig in. I want you to think of three or four places where you feel a sense of. You can write it down now, you can do it later, but do it this week. I want you to first talk to yourself. Talk yourself through the scarcity versus abundance mindset approach. Where are you feeling like there's a limited amount of love or money or success or attention? Where do you feel like it's limited and how can you change that? And then three steps, what are you feeling envious of? What feels off for you. Step two, what can you learn from this? What can you be inspired by? Where can you take some action from a place of clarity? And three, how can you be grateful that from this person you are now going to grow in your own journey? Maybe that was part of the purpose of your journeys. Connecting was to light or ignite a spark or fire for you to do some deeper work within. Because it's in doing the deeper work within where the magic lays. Don't forget that so often we look at other people, it's that deeper work within. You know that or you wouldn't be here with me. So thank you. Try those three steps, right? Find three or four examples. You can absolutely do it this week and watch how it can change your energy. And when you change your energy, you can change your life. So I hope this supports you in some capacity. If it does, the best way to tap into that karma and pay it back, pay it forward, whatever it is, truly is just to rate and review the podcast because that's gonna help us spread this work. That's just the way that all of the interwebs works. I really appreciate you taking the time to do that because nothing means more to me than shining my daughter Layden's light just as brightly as it can go. No brighter than it's meant to, no dimmer than it's meant to. And I'm just on a mission to see exactly what her width of shining may be. Talk soon.