Compare and Despair

Compare and despair.  We all do it.  We don't mean to.  It almost seems automatic.

What do I mean by compare and despair?  You see someone that seems to have "it" more together than you.  You then feel bad by comparison.  In the eating disorder world, it means you see someone that you perceive as being thinner than you.  Your eating disorder is always on the lookout for people who are thinner.  And it seems like they are everywhere.  You can't escape.

So what do you do?

The solution is easier said than done, but with practice it gets to be secondhand.

TURN THE FOCUS BACK ON YOURSELF!!!  KEEP THE FOCUS ON YOU!!!

Pay no attention to what others are doing.  It doesn't matter.  At all.

To tell a story from my personal life, I'm going through this with my son right now.  He recently brought home a D on his math test.  He and I both know that he can do better, so we were talking about how he can bring his grade up.  He started talking about how so and so in his class is so smart and always makes As and on and on.  I immediately told him not that his classmate's grades were not to be our concern.  We can be proud of his classmate, but we need to turn our attention back on him and what we can do to improve his test grades.  I told my son that our focus needs to stay on him and only him.  We were not to worry or compare him to his classmates.  Once he understood this, he felt much better.  (He's seven.)

Another point I want to touch on real quick is Facebook.  I saw a quote that says something to the liking of, Don't compare your life to someone else's highlight reel.  Facebook should be called Fakebook.  People post only what they want others to see.  Now there are a few people who do post all their dirty laundry, and they get very tiring.  So be very careful when you're on there.

My last point is you'd be very surprised, but I bet you have people that look at you and then compare and despair.  That goes back to what I said at the beginning.  We all do it.  The girl who you look at and believe that she has it all, may look at you and think you have it all.  We're all in this together.

love and light, kelly