For years I've been punctuating my yoga classes with the reminder that when we come to our mats, there is no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse. Essentially, release all judgment and meet yourself where you are; stop the comparison to your neighbor, to me as the teacher, and even to a past version of yourself.
This is hard for people to do, I think, because we like to know where we stand. It's comfortable in the same way labels and categories make us comfortable; people like things to be easily defined so they know where to file them and where they are in relation to them. But, as we've seen, the idea that any person is somehow better or worse than you can be, to put it lightly, highly destructive. It makes sense that our ego craves this ranking system because on the "positive" side, we can position ourselves as better than. But, if we adopt that way of thinking, it means we must automatically believe we are somehow "worse than" other people.
We can talk about this in the bigger picture of course - racism, classism, sexism, etc... but lately I've been really thinking about it on the smaller scale, individual to individual. And I have found, personally, that working towards releasing this way of thinking is in fact incredibly freeing. Let's take dating, for example. It's common to utter the phrase to your single friends, "he's not good enough for you." Hmmm, so then that implies that there are people out there who are "too good" for me, too? What does that even mean?
When we can realize that nobody is better or worse than another, we free ourselves from the shitty feelings that come with rejection. Sure, some people out there are jerks and truly think they're better than you - the fact that they think that way tells you two things off the bat: (1) they're actually very much NOT better than you, and (2) you really don't want to be dating that person anyway. But if someone is not interested in dating you for more genuine reasons, it may simply be that they have gotten to really know themselves, what they need and desire in a relationship, and they can see that you are not a match to their needs. This says nothing bad about you, it is simply that your values and priorities don't align at this moment in time. They're doing you a favor, in fact, because you may not yet be able to see the mismatch that they see.
Same goes for the people YOU choose not to date. Think about it - if you're single, or if you know somebody who is - you've probably dated a bunch of really great people who just weren't a match. You have respect for these people, heck, perhaps you even want them in your life in some way, but you've gotten to know yourself well enough to know that they don't offer what you truly need, and that's okay. It doesn't make them any more or any less. Perhaps you don't agree with some of the decisions they've made, or feel that their lifestyle is too different from yours. Maybe you can tell that they struggle with vulnerability, or with respecting boundaries, and you've done too much work in these areas to be with someone who can't meet you where you are.
It's really easy to get on our high horses, we're indoctrinated with the ranking systems of society (financial wealth, physical appearance, where you live, what your job is, etc etc), but I know it happens in a personal development kind of way too. I know because I've done it. When you start to get intentional about your life, tune up your sense of awareness, and start to see people's struggles, self worth, and limiting beliefs, it can be easy to consider yourself "more enlightened" or "further ahead" or, of course, "better than." You might look down your nose at folks who haven't figured out the things you've figured out just yet, you might pity them for the cycles they're stuck in. But the truth is, they're on a different journey than you! There is no timeline, no boxes to check, and certainly no better or worse.
So, next time you catch yourself judging someone else, perhaps looking at their clothing and ranking them as "worse" than you, or admiring their vacation pics and ranking them as "better" than you, try to remember there's no such thing. Everybody has amazing qualities to offer to the world, and everybody has things they're working on. We simply have different values and priorities.
Sometimes our values and priorities match up well enough that it makes sense to be friends, business partners, or date. And sometimes, those puzzle pieces don't connect well enough for you to support each other's journeys, and you go on your separate ways.
The question is: can you sacrifice the ego boost you get by making yourself "better than," in order to also rid yourself the icky feelings you get when you make yourself "worse than"?
Til next time ;)
xo,
m.
