Evening Thunderheads - Bring On the Rains
You are not separate from creative Source. … the creative Force of the Universe is creating without any evaluatory bent. … your greatest creative defeat is often that you have set yourself up in some kind of comparative mode that is working against you. Gregge Tiffen (Open Secrets: Creative Power Released – July,2011)
Comparison is a trap that has us believe that we are separate from Source and from one another.
Comparison and competition are antithetical to the Universe. Just look at nature. In the woods out back the pines don’t compete or compare themselves to one another or to the cottonwoods nearby. They simply (or not so simply if you dive deep into the science of these woods) live, breath, and grow with the season. They do so without regard to standards the world sets about how a pine tree should be. Likewise, they don’t give a wit about how they grew last week or last year.
It’s tempting to say pine trees have an easy life, but in a year of drought, I doubt the pine would agree. They deal with such challenges in their authentic way, honoring the pattern of the seed from whence they broke through the ground. They are tapped into the creative power that is the Universe without the blocks and barriers to that Source that we humans create with our awareness and our intelligence. (Yep, I find that humorous too!)
Universal humor aside, our awareness and intelligence are the ground from which the gift of free will is called forth. We say that we’re connected to Source, but the truth is we ARE Source. Free will is the right and responsibility to choose how we direct that energy. The more we know about and honor our uniqueness, our blueprint, our ‘seed’ if you will, the more ease we experience.
Sadly we live in a world that operates under the false belief that comparison is beneficial and that good, better, best are real measures of success. We compare our lives, our work, our financial wealth, our health (and the list goes on) with others. We’re surrounded by messages – some of them very well-meaning - that success means measuring up to whatever the world declares as standards (and it keeps us in chaos by constantly, often subtly, changing those standards). Rather than learning from what we’ve experienced, we often compare our experience today with that of last week or last year.
Personally, I unconsciously gravitate to comparison when I’m feeling a little off, having lost awareness of the reality that I’m not separate from Source. From this place, I simply don’t measure up to what others have done/are doing or to the world’s standards or to what I’ve done in the past.
Comparison is a trap that has us believe that we are separate from Source and from one another. Breaking free and staying free of the trap requires practice and awareness. From the point of awareness that you’ve fallen into to the comparison trap, here are some useful techniques for breaking free:
- Move (stretch, shake it off, or better yet, get outside for a walk)
- Touch the earth (a few minutes with my feet in the sand is a great elixir)
- Remind yourself that you are not separate from creative Source and feel into that energy
- Return to gratitude
- Engage curiosity (how can I live more fully into what I know?)
- Laugh (and the world laughs with you! – how silly of me to forget who I AM)
Enjoy a comparison free week!