How to value the life you already have
And stop allowing comparisonitis to steal your joy
Ok so I need to start with a confession… this is after all autumn and metal season in five element wisdom, the season of letting go.
So here it is, I’m totally avoiding writing about my grief.
There I’ve said it.
There’s been so much of it over such a period of time, it’s hard to know where to begin and how to find the end of the spaghetti to get stuck in… I promise I will write about it before winter arrives.
A good friend told me a couple of years ago to get writing. I was feeling sad and miserable and despondent and in the throws of a round of life grief. I told him I couldn’t be bothered and ‘anyway the only thing I have to write about is grief and no one wants to read that’. ‘Ha’ he replied, ‘everyone grieves at some point in their life. Get writing.’ Anyway it would take me another two years to actually get writing for me again and look even now I’m stalling...
But there is good reason for it… from what I’ve researched on grief, similar to my experience of working with trauma, its tender territory. As such, we can’t put a sledge hammer to it and crack it open, we’d leave ourselves wide open for being sectioned in the nearest looney bin or falling apart. After all we have our daily lives to attend to.
We must first build the comfort duvet up around ourselves, and remember how resourceful we are, take gentle steps, drink some tea, snuggle down some more. Remember again how loved we are, how well supported we are. And only then when we feel we can surrender without going under, we can take our grief out and have a lovingly good look at it.
So instead… I want to write about valuing ourselves. Valuing ourselves is a great way of building up those resources and helping us to feel more resilient. And metal energy (autumn theme still) is all about the value of things. The value of your life, the value of possessions, the value of you, how you value yourself and your friends and loved ones. It’s the price tag you put on the things that can have no price tag.
Largely this blog has been inspired by a text interlude with a best friend this morning. We are both holding our own respective griefs. We are both trying to find a way to travel through peri-menopause without HRT (sadly we appear to be in the 10% who are intolerant), we are both trying to make peace with where we are in our lives. I found myself texting them back that despite the very real need for me to plop on the floor like a toddler and have a good cry (which of course is also a super healthy way of getting some release), we also need to remember who we frickin are on the inside.
At this mid life time I’m asking myself all sorts of questions. Have I done all I’d hoped to by now? Have I achieved what I set out to? Am I earning the kind of money I thought I be earning by now? Why can’t I afford that kitchen renovation I keep dreaming about? Why does life still feel hard work and why is it not getting easier?
Most of these questions are fuelled by the paradox of two questions that continue to intertwine in my world;
The first, what’s everybody else up to and how do I compare? In other words am I doing as well I think I should be based on how everyone else is doing?
and
The second, fuck it, what does a good like look (NOW) for me?
The first is a direct result of societal conditioning that comes largely from the post war 60s era, when people were brainwashed into ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. Marketing and advertising boomed as countries tried to rebuild their economies encouraging people to spend spend spend. So what better tactic than to encourage us to reach for more and at the same time end up assessing our ‘place’ in society largely by the ‘stuff’ we could afford to fill our houses with.
‘Comparison is the thief of all joy’ Theodore Roosevelt
This quote is still so true today. Apparently written to describe how it undermines happiness (and that was a long time before the 60s boom). It’s so true. Every time I start to compare my life (and I’m really good at it), I can feel my joy seeping out into the gutter and switching over to sadness. I start to feel the edge of those failure feelings. That I’m somehow not enough if I’m not earning the same as my peers (most of whom have chosen very different career paths to me). That the car, jewellery, brand of clothing, latest kitchen gadget, third holiday of the year.. somehow will give me entry into the ‘good enough club’. I will feel I can belong and feel good about myself.
When we get wrapped up in thinking we’re only ‘worthy enough’ if we have the same stuff as our peers, we end up in a game chasing someone else’s idea of what a good life looks like (probably not even your friends ideas, but the capitalist machine’s ideas).
What ends up happening is that we actually end up feeling empty, not content. None of those things make us happy because they’re not our dreams. Ok some of them maybe, I’d definitely like a better kitchen and I’d like to be earning more money and oh maybe one more holiday a year. But when push comes to shove, they’re just things, short or long term dopamine hits.
And stuff doesn’t define us, our character does.
So when I’m getting caught up in comparisonitis (which I’m very very good at), or feeling sad that my joy is dripping away, or the emptiness starts to become present in my body, I try to reconnect with the qualities I have as a person.
The qualities I have as a friend; that I’m dependable and loyal, I’m thoughtful, I can make people laugh, I’m a great listener, a fantastic hugger, I make myself available to spend time together. I’m not the funniest or the most entertaining, I’m not the most confident of a group. I’m not a natural entertainer. I’m not great with small talk either. None of those things really matter. Someone else is good at that. I have other qualities I bring to the party.
The qualities I have as a daughter, niece, aunty, god parent
The qualities I have as a business owner (shit am I really a business owner?)
The qualities I have as a doggy mummy
The qualities I have when I’m taking care of myself and prioritising my self care
The fact I’m writing this blog despite not thinking of myself as a writer
The stuff I’ve already achieved that really mattered, I’ve stood up to being bullied many times, I wrote and published a book about my experience of recovering from sexual violence, I learnt to play piano, sang on a stage, danced like nobody was watching in 5 rhythms dance class, I’m a great snogger (ok you’d have to ask my partner about that… but I like to think I am, kissing is great isn’t it?)
What’s on your value list?
Once I’ve topped up my self value bucket… I then turn to the second question…
What does a good life look like for me now?
But that’s a question for another blog.
Have a fabulous weekend - may you always be able to return to finding and knowing your self worth as you define it.
Jx