Do You Have Comparitosis?

You know; I wasn't back on facebook more than 48 hours (after a month long facebook diet) and I found myself right back into the cycle that made me leave facebook in the first place.

That is the moment I realized I am suffering from a common ailment I have affectionately dubbed Comparitosis.

Comparitosis is both non-life threathening AND life threatening.  It's a tricky little dis-ease that I estimate 90% of the human population suffers from without knowledge. 

Comparitosis is a psychological dis-ease that encourages you to adopt false, negative beliefs about your self-worth and potential.

Flare ups of comparitosis can happen in an instant.  You can be moving along, enjoying life, loving yourself when all of a sudden BAM! it hits you.  Somebody else does or attains something you have always wanted to do or have and because you unknowingly suffer from comparitosis you immediately go into how you have nothing and the other person has everything or you are a nobody and the other person is a somebody.

My form of comparitosis flares up when I see someone achieving something I believe looks like success.  Immediately my body turns hot and I feel overwhelmed by sadness at the things I am not successfully accomplishing.

Other forms of comparitosis involve but are not limited to material possessions, finances, career and family.

I'm beginning to understand my dis-ease as insanity and am working on controlling the flare ups before someone around here discovers I would be more comfortable in one of those little white jackets that buckles in the back and makes it so that I hug myself tightly. 

Funny thing about comparitosis though, the minute you realize you have it.  It kinda sorta goes into remission.  I have suffered with this dis-ease of perception since I was a little girl and it wasn't until that moment on facebook that I realized it was affecting me on such an intense level.

I am learning as I go, but so far I have figured out a few things about how to reduce comparitosis flare ups and I thought I'd share them.

* Immediately remove yourself from the cause of the flare up.  AKA turn off facebook or turn away from the conversation.
* Keep paper and pencil handy.  When you discover yourself at the onset or in the middle of a comparitosis flare up, the best defense is to write down the comparison.  example "Sally lost 25lbs in 1 month and I am still overweight and unhappy; I'll never lose weight".
* Take it to the next level.  With the same pencil and paper, write down ALL of the things you can think of that you have accomplished in your lifetime (size does not matter, write it ALL down).
* Do the happy dance.  Moving your body is like a reset button for the emotions and is a great way to celebrate your accomplishments.  Once you have written down all of your accomplishments, turn on the music and dance around (again size does not matter, just move!).

I took these steps the other day in removing myself from a comparitosis episode and found that my list was really, really long.  What I realized is that my accomplishments in my 39.7 years of being on this planet are probably more than most people would only dream of accomplishing.

Once my list was written I posted it on the refrigerator so that I can see it everyday.  A great reminder of an accomplished woman who is working hard to free herself from the confines of comparitosis.

You are the Captain of your Relation-Ship!

I picked up a book off my bookshelf the other day called "Complaint Free Relationships" written by Will Bowen.

I purchased this book over a year ago and hadn't even opened it!

This weekend was a 'soul searching' weekend.  Nothing I had planned, it just sort of happened.

Anyway, I love how when you are ready to conquer a belief system, the tools and ideals magically appear in front of you. 

This book is one of those tools.

The book speaks about the state of our relationships with ourselves and others are based on perceptions in the mind.

This information isn't new to me, and at the same time it is!

Think about that person that you work with that you absolutely cannot stand.  Think about your thoughts while on your way to work.  What are they saying about this loathesome being?  I'm pretty sure they are not good thoughts.

If you are having nasty thoughts about this co-worker, then it shouldn't be a surprise to you when he/she behaves exactly as you expect them to behave.  Energetically, they are living up to your expectations.

Whoa!

Did you feel that shift?!?  I certainly did!

I spent some time yesterday releasing all sorts of people and the perceptions that I had held about them.

Often times we feel victimized.  We feel we've been done wrong at some point by the people in our lives.  We sit with that wrong doing and we review it daily, adding bits and pieces of things to the story that make it sound 'better'.  We do this for days, months and years.  The mind is loving this!

What we forget in the midst of all of this victimization behaviour is that we have all the power inside of us to change this situation.  It's a matter of making a choice.

Last night as I sat in meditation, my heart was filled with so much love and compassion for the people in my life whom I've filled my relation-ship with negative photos of.  I began to see myself taking down those photos & perceptions of them and revealed all sorts of wonderful memories and pictures that were hidden by the yucky ones I had placed on top of them.  What a relief I felt as I drifted off to sleep, knowing that those pictures were gone, that I had made a choice to make a change.

I have been holding onto some ugly, ugly perceptions of people.  Something I'm deciding to let go of.

All those perceptions do is make me feel sad, alone, frustrated and angry, which leads to behaviour I normally would not entertain!

This simple meditation has filled me with so much forgiveness.  Because in reality there is nothing to forgive, it was all made up in my mind!

The people involved in our victimization stories haven't done anything 'wrong'.  They haven't done anything TO us. 

We've done it to ourselves!

Benefits to Humanity

This week I got to meet a 16 year old boy who has autism.

His parents brought him to State of Being for a Reiki session;  they had been all around the world seeking healers to heal him of his 'issue'.

His parents were evaluating my skills as a healer to see if I could help their son.

He took his Reiki through his Mother as a surrogate.  He didn't let me touch him.  He didn't want to be here.

His energy was saying "leave me alone" throughout the entire session.

Leave me alone.

He had endured different healers poking and prodding at him for years.  Endured his parents seeking out people who might be able to 'fix' him.

Granted his parents love him very much.  He doesn't see it like that, he sees it as not being accepted for who he is.

I could see the gift that this beautiful boy had brought to the world.  I could see the joy and love in his sisters faces as they watched him move around the room and touch everything in sight.  I could see the pain and exhaustion in his parents eyes.

The boy doesn't know he has a challenge.  He thinks he is just fine.  It's the perception of the parents that says he has something wrong with him.

This boy and his family touched me, because it made me realize how much I had been denying my own imperfections.

I have been the one in my own life who has been searching out 'cures' for what I see as challenges, deficiencies and defects.

I began to wonder this week what would happen if I just embraced all of that, accepted it and moved on.

I had told the parents of this boy that their son was a gift to them, brought here with a purpose to serve humanity by way of teaching patience and tolerance.  Both of which this world needs a whole lot of.  When you begin to see your son as perfect and as a blessing that is when you will see changes.  The changes won't be his, he will be the same.  The changes will be yours.  Your perception will have changed and that can change everything.

I thought long and hard about this message once my clients had left.

I realized that this message is for all of us.

For each one of us, our challenges, quirks and special personalities are serving a purpose to humanity. 

It's up to us to change our perception of each of these and accept them so that humanity can finally benefit.

Expand your perception

What if life as you know it was all an illusion?

What do you think would happen?  How do you think you would continue on with that knowledge?  Could it and would it possibly make your life....less stressful.....less tense.....more fun?

I have been challenging my thinking and my beliefs about our "reality" lately and am finding it fascinating at how it has changed my perception of everything around me.  I catch myself laughing hysterically at things that I normally wouldn't laugh at, the absurdity of life itself and how we give so much energy to things that are infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of the Universe.


My awareness of people's emotional intensity has been heightened in this process.  We've all experienced this same intensity and I can certainly relate to the feelings and the after effects of this intensity on our bodies and minds.  But what if the very thing you are giving so much intense energy to isn't real? 

What if the extra slow driver in front of you was just your imagination, an opportunity for you to find the humour in the situation and diffuse your anger?  An opportunity to change the way you react to this inconvenience.

What if your life is just a movie that is playing and you are nothing more than the actor/ress in a leading role?


Just a thought.