Struggling with Comparison - Part I

I grew up doing ballet, and have spent many hours of my life in pink tights and a bun in front of a long glass mirror. Over years of practice, I became known for being a good jumper. I can stay suspended in the air for longer, allowing me to jump higher and farther. But earlier in my dance training, I was an average jumper. I had my split in the air, but I didn’t go very high and had a clunky landing. “The jumper” in my class at that time, I’ll call her Sylvia, was the smallest and slenderest among us. Sylvia could jump like gravity did not apply to her. The magic was, she would get an extra push higher in the air when you would expect her descent to start. Like an airplane, Sylvia somehow managed to catch lift, giving her a floating, feathery quality. For a long time, my class attributed it to her small size, assuming that because she was lighter, gravity didn’t drag her down. But I stayed curious, and watched her very closely in the mirror wondering, How does Sylvia do that, and why am I not jumping like Sylvia? Why is my experience different? Coming into therapy, we can have very similar thoughts of comparison that might sound something like: My best friend thrived after her divorce, but I’m really struggling on my own. So many people told me motherhood was the best thing to happen to them, but I feel like I’m losing my mind. How is it that we all lost Dad, but I feel like no one understands what I’m going through? This celebrity wrote a book, runs a YouTube channel, and started a charity foundation because of their chronic illness, but I can’t manage to shower everyday. This wouldn’t bother most people, but when someone calls me ‘sir,’ I get so hot and angry like I could hit them. In other words, why is my experience different? The question may haunt us, and we may be frustrated with ourselves for asking the question at all.

Why is it natural for us to make comparisons?

As humans, we are social learners. We learn our behavior from watching and copying other people. This starts , trying to mimic our parent’s sounds and movements, and continues through adulthood as we try to do our jobs like we were trained. Can I wave my hand like Mommy? Can I implement this strategy like I was trained at orientation? And we refine and develop new skills by using comparison to measure our progress. Probably up until this point, comparison has worked well for you and been a fairly easy way to learn new skills.

What am I learning now and why is comparison no longer helping?

In therapy, a skill we are often learning is how to grieve. We grieve life changes, death, missed opportunities, and unfulfilled hopes and expectations. But grieving is no simple task. William Worden, a grief psychologist, actually suggests that there are four tasks as a part of grieving! A complex skill requires a more nuanced use of our tools. Grieving has more complex layers that make it difficult to use simple comparison in order to help us adapt to our loss. However, when we are used to using simple comparison to progress in our motor skills and career advancement, sometimes we can internalize a belief that something is wrong with us when we struggle to adjust to a loss. Comparison can be an adaptive skill when it motivates us to grow, or harmful when it leads us to shame and shuts down our momentum. What determines comparison’s helpfulness or harmfulness is the thought that follows, or that is automatically implied, in our observation.

Revisiting my story…

I noticed that Sylvia and I did not jump the same. What thought comes next? When we have observations of differences in our world, we can either follow those thoughts of observation with open curiosity or a rigid judgement. I could have decided that something was fundamentally wrong with me, like I am a bad dancer. However, while I have acquired negative beliefs of my own, in this instance, I remained curious. Over time, as I watched Sylvia, I noticed that it wasn’t just the air giving Sylvia an extra push, she gave a little extra kick from her feet and lift from her core. I appeared a little forceful in my first attempts to copy what I saw in Sylvia, but eventually I found the right balance. I remember the class where I got it. The room stalled. “Woah!” my instructor let out. The class noticed that I figured out the mystery to Sylvia’s grand jeté. Soon, Sylvia and I were often paired together as highlighted jumpers for routines and were having playful competitions about how in sync we could leap together. Now, this is a nice victory story, but dance has also taught me that some of the differences I notice, I can’t change. My foot will never go a full twelve inches above my head in développé because my legs aren’t that long. My turn out will never be 180 degrees, because my hip joints aren’t built to do that. What I want to communicate is not, “with enough effort I can be exactly like someone else.” What I want to communicate is curiosity gives us the freedom to understand our experience and to explore new options that work for us. In dance, I have learned about fundamental qualities that make me me, and I have learned how to use what I have to grow and learn new skills. Rather than being defeated by not having  “an ideal ballet body” (whatever that means), I have found ways to communicate length and openness through my dancing that are equally as beautiful and uniquely me.

Coming Soon - Part Two will be available in an upcoming post

To learn more about Hannah, please visit her bio page. She is currently accepting new clients and sees clients both in person in Evanston/Chicago and virtually via telehealth. 

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