It’s easier for you because you are smarter.  It is easier for you because you are stronger.  It is easier for you because your situation is different.  It is easier for you because… fill in the blank.  It’s easier for you because is a refrain I have heard throughout my life.  And perhaps things have been easier for me.  I really don’t know because I only know what I experience.  What I do know is that when these words are given back to me, even when I have said nothing about the subject at hand, what I hear is, ‘Your experience isn’t valid.’

I encountered this again recently when one person was commenting on my upcoming shift in employment.  My circumstances differed from hers, and so her comment was that my transition should be easier than how she had found hers.  In truth, I have been emotionally working through this transition for several months, recognizing the significance of the change in my life.  And to be brutally honest, I truly suck at transitions.  That, however, is another tale for another time.  Yet her words left me frustrated and angry, resentful that, yet again, my experience doesn’t count.  Logically I understood what she was saying.  Our circumstances were very different and I truly wouldn’t change positions with her.  I also believe that it wasn’t her intent to invalidate what I was experiencing or anticipating, rather I believe she was trying to connect and be supportive.   Alas, that was not what I heard at the time.

It is truly interesting to me how so often we hear things that are not said and that is what we accept as our reality.  Or we hear what we think people are saying colored with our own biases and expectations without really listening to the words being spoken.  Or, as the speaker, believing we are connecting with someone when we share our experiences, we unknowingly invalidate another’s experience when comparing it to ours. And perhaps that is part of the key in this wondrous world of communication…comparison.  The reality is I can’t truly compare my experience to another person’s.  Who am I to say their path is more difficult or less challenging?  I have not walked their journey with their history, beliefs and biases, only mine.  It is only my journey I can speak to when voicing my words to another, or perhaps more importantly, to myself. 

So in my journey, I am learning to sit and listen, to hear the words that are spoken and accept them for what they are.  To notice when I experience some emotional pushback.  To acknowledge it without judgment and then to question what part of me is needing attention.  What is the message?  For truly, it is my reactions that tell me more about where I am in my journey than the words spoken to me, and to compare in judgment is truly the thief of peace. 

Wishing you, dear friend, less comparison and more compassion for yourself on your heartfelt journey. ~♥~

A flower doesn’t think of competing with the flower next to it.  It just blooms. 

~Zen Shinn~