Compare, Despair + Repair

With 2012 coming to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about setting intentions for how I’d like to spend my time in 2013. In doing so, I find that it is always quite useful to notice what the biggest energy drains were for me over the course of the year and implore myself to take a moment to think about how to restore some of that energy.

Think about it like a water balloon with many almost imperceptible pin pricks – leaking water in small fountains.

No matter how small those holes are, that ballon will drain in time.

Yesterday, I wrote this post on my Facebook page:

Regardless of what anyone else is doing or achieving or winning – I love and deeply accept myself.

In that moment, I was speaking directly to the time that I spend comparing myself to others. I was speaking to the time that those around me spend comparing themselves to others.

I was thinking about how much pain we are all feeling about not being enough. 

Comparison is an enormous and collective energy drain, and it’s repair would provide us permission to plug deeply in our lives in ways that we have never imagined before.

Here we are, at the culmination of 2012, with access to such immense technology, and many of us are spending our waking hours scrolling through other people’s facebook pages, looking at other people’s webpages, immersing ourselves in what other people are offering the world.

And we assimilate all of that data and make it mean that we aren’t: pretty enough, thin enough, pulled together enough, rich enough, smart enough, intentional enough, spiritual enough, accomplished enough, educated enough, perfect enough,  tough enough, __________.

When we compare ourselves to others, we are sending our spirits powerful messages that we are not good enough being exactly who we are.

We begin the process of trying to be like someone else.

We work to dim our inner sparkle and make ourselves small.

We speak to ourselves in violent and judgmental tones.

We wish parts of ourselves away.

What if we believed, instead, that the life of our dreams was behind the door with our name on it?

What might you have time for, if you were to reclaim this energy?

Who might you become, if you stopped waiting for other people to give you permission?

What might you achieve, if you were motivated from a place of phenomenal love and support for yourself?

How might you begin to feel repaired from a lifetime of distance from yourself, if you were able to unconditionally accept yourself – all of your parts?

It may have been a long time since you feel truly connected to the fantastic person that you are.

It may feel much more comfortable to scroll through your facebook feed and think judgmental thoughts than it is to look at yourself in the mirror, and that is perfectly OK.

I also know that you are stronger than you give yourself credit for.

Meet yourself where you are at, always, and allow that place to be good enough.

I believe in you. I believe that you are good enough right this second.

I believe that there is a part of you that is nodding along with me, as I summon your inner light, your inner wisdom, and your inner goddess forward.

I believe that comparing yourself to others dims your light.

As we bring this year to a close and set our intentions for how we’d like to live in 2013, I encourage you to examine the multitude of ways that comparison sneaks it’s way into your life.

I want to invite you to dream with me about what you might do, if you were able to reclaim some of the energy that you’re spending worrying about not being good enough.

I want to invite you to sink deep into the beauty of your being, and, if only for this moment, give yourself permission to be exactly who you are.