Comparison is the Thief of Joy

DHARMA TALK - July 23, 2017I HEART YOGA

I took a class recently and was inspired by the teacher's dharma talk that I decided to share it with my students.

Comparison is the Thief of Joy - I'm sure this is not the first time any one of us has heard this.  How often are we faced with situations where we compare ourselves to others?  Our achievements vs theirs, our losses vs their wins, our current situation vs theirs.  When we compare our lives to others, we foster competition more than community.  We think of ourselves as competitors instead of companions - friends, family, colleagues.  We label people winners and losers as feelings of superiority and inferiority surface.  By doing this, we rob ourselves of joy and satisfaction because we feel we are worth less than others. We start desiring what other people have and when we feel this way, we forget about our own blessings and accomplishments because we become envious.

Envy makes us want and withhold affirmations for others. But we need to kill that envy before it even begins. We need to be grateful for what we have so we covet less.  Gratitude will make it difficult for us to be jealous because we reorient ourselves to our own blessings and achievements. Being grateful prevents those good things from being obscured by things we covet.  Being grateful also helps us be genuinely happy and excited for other people's milestones because we become less jealous.

So today, I invite you all to keep in mind that you are loved, you are enough, you have what you need.  Be grateful for your body doing yoga and do not compare yourselves with other yogis and what they can do.  Look at them as inspiration.  But focus on just you and your mat, because trust me, you are going at your own pace.  Nothing and no one else should matter.