Lessons with Les

Permanent link for Don't compare your insides with other people's outsides on May 13, 2020

I invite you to take a couple of minutes to review the past month. What have you been feeling? Have you felt the same thing every day? Have there been good days? Have there been bad days? Have you had some pretty negative thoughts at times? How about positive thoughts? Days with the glass half-full and other days with the glass half empty?

Has your energy been the same every day? Or has it been up and down? And what about self-care? Have you consistently eaten, exercised, slept, and relaxed in healthy ways?

How about your relationships? Have things gone well 100% of the time, or have there been moments of conflict?

I am going to bet that your life has varied in most of these areas. It’s not possible to be “on” every minute of every day. One trap we may fall into is comparing our insides with other people’s outsides, and then wondering what’s wrong with ourselves. We become self-critical because we perceive that we don’t measure up.

Often what we know about others is their Instagram or You Tube selves. We know what they project about themselves, the image they portray and what they want us to know about them. Think about the COVID posts that you have seen. Others aren’t likely to post things about how they were tired and snapped at a friend who was asking a simple question. They don’t usually post about the four days they didn’t go to the gym last week, or about yesterday when they had a healthy salad for supper but ended up eating an entire package of Oreos before the evening was done. What you see is the highlight reel of their lives—5 minutes of exciting outtakes from 30 days of being average. You can perhaps see how it’s a trap to compare your past 30 days of ups and downs with someone else’s 5-minute highlight reel.

What can we do about this?

One way to get out of the trap is to begin sharing more honestly about the good and not-so-good parts of your life. Pick someone who seems able to have those kinds of conversations. Be a little bit vulnerable and observe what happens. If someone can handle it and be a little bit vulnerable in return, it may be safe to try sharing a bit more. Often when we are real with others, it can be a relief for them because they get the message that they don’t have to pretend or live up to an unrealistic image. That can decrease loneliness and isolation. That can lead to the kind of intimacy that gives life beauty and meaning.

A word about sharing—take time to observe whether the other person has earned the right to hear more about you. Are they able to listen well? Can they validate your feelings? Can they be empathetic? Can they keep what you share confidential? Is the sharing mutual? If so, it may be safe to share more. If someone is constantly critical of you, puts you down, always tells you what you “should” do, or invalidates your feelings, it’s okay to move on to someone else.

During this time of COVID isolation, I encourage you to experiment with being more real with at least one other person in your life. As your relationship deepens, you will be able to compare your insides with their insides, and you will probably find that your feelings are quite similar at times. Emotion is the common, shared human experience and sharing at that level decreases our sense of isolation. Being vulnerable takes courage---and it is the pathway to intimacy and connection.

Posted on Permanent link for Don't compare your insides with other people's outsides on May 13, 2020.

View all Lessons with Les entries


Page last modified May 13, 2020