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Hi, lovelies!
It is the first Sunday of December, so here is this month's Q&A.
Enjoy!
xx
Do you ever fall victim to the comparison trap? I’ve been comparing myself, my relationship, my life to others for far too long and no matter what books I read, or how much I want to break myself of this habit, I am finding it extremely difficult. Do you have any suggestions?
We are asked to "let go" and surrender something with all challenges and habits. The gripping parts, the reaching out, and the desire for something different are all human habits that teach us where to cultivate our inner worth and peace. I know these words can feel hollow. Nothing feels as though it is changing for you in all your readings and attempts to learn. I understand that longing to close the gap between what you know intellectually and what you wish to know experientially. The feeling is so genuine and visceral. The only thing I can offer is to be okay with the presence of your continued learning. The pressure you feel to change or escape this habit of comparison is the prison wall around you. Without your resistance, there is no conflict. I would encourage perhaps, the letting go of the wish to change itself. Maybe play with the notion of letting the comparison be there, no matter how many times it visits.
When I find myself comparing, I let the thought come, see it, and let it dissolve. I don't need to hold it. It just comes and recedes. If it grabs hold and hooks in, I practice contemplating my death because it brings me directly to the door of impermanence. My comparing thoughts will not last. These thoughts and worries do not stick. It is not a problem that I need to keep recycling—everything changes when we hold it up to the light of impermanence. When we live close to the idea of death, we love more deeply. We forgive, we relish in what we have already, we find the good thread through our lives. You are being asked to cultivate this in yourself, and this discomfort is how nature is helping you. Some of us have to work with chronic physical pain, some of us have to work with addictions, some of us need to work with anger and depression, some in intimate relationships, either way, it presents itself, we each have a teacher that is guiding us. And often have more than one- the robust and searing place that repeatedly calls us forward. What if you were to see your comparison as a relentless teacher, instructor? not something to rid yourself of necessarily, but something to lean into. Assume it is kind and essential. And learn to live in the tension of your discovery. I live with my hand on my heart too. I breathe into my heart often. I don't have to keep my walls up. My ideas, my thoughts, don't have to be so important. We need to learn to 'be with' whatever is coming. Hand on heart, resolved and devoted to letting go and letting be. It is what is here now, for you. You have no choice, so find gentle ways to live into the teachings hidden for you. Ask for eyes to see clearly. And then rest. Do not fight the arrival of your teacher. Let it come in and subtly change you. Let it instruct you on letting go, slowly, constantly, repeatedly.
Hard words to live by, I know. But love is cultivating, tilling the soil, continual weeding, and tending to the garden as it grows and winds within us. Fruit does not come with ease. It is labored for. It is kissed by the ripening and relentless heat of the sun until it grows round. Live with your ripening. All is good and necessary. Assuming that all is helping me, I learn to find the light at the edges no matter how hard. I struggle with my teachers, just as you are, and I work to love the hardship as I know well it has served me in so many ways.
Do you think that it's best to do the heart work with/around people who aren't triggering for you, or can that be used as grist for the heart mill?