“This negative voice is an immediate punch in the stomach that drains all my energy.”
Marty writes:
I have a terrible habit of comparing myself to others (negatively), and it is an immediate punch in the stomach, which hurts and drains my own zest for life and all my energy. A voice tells me, “If you would only_____, then you would be like them.” Or “If you only would have _____, then you would be happy like them.”
Dear Marty:
You are describing a kind of suffering that many people experience, so I’m really glad you wrote.
This suffering is tragic because it’s so unnecessary. This part of you that is hurting you is actually trying to help you.
If it says, “If only you would have _____, then you would be happy like them,” then it’s pretty clear that what it wants is for you to be happy. It’s just not taking a very successful approach to help that happen.
So what can you do? The very first thing I’d suggest is that you give some kindness and empathy to the part of you that is getting punched in the stomach. Call it “something in me.”
Like this: “Something in me is feeling punched in the stomach when it hears this negative voice.”
Then put a gentle hand on your stomach and say to the feeling there, “Yes, I know it hurts, and I am with you now.”
YOU are with it now: kind, compassionate, friendly. YOU are the one who can be a friend to the one that got punched. This is called “disidentification,” where you step away from being punched to being with the one in you who got punched. Now it has company.
We don’t know yet why that negative voice is so determined to compare you negatively with other people, and why it thinks that will help make you happy. That will come later.
First, and most important of all, don’t BE the one who is punched. Who you are is bigger than that. When you put a gentle hand on the feeling in your stomach, you are being the big Self, what we call Self-in-Presence. That’s already a big shift. From there, everything else can happen…including real transformation.
