Everything we label, is in comparison to something else we have an opinion about in our mind.
But we can choose what we compare it with! If you look at everything from this perspective, life can feel a lot different.
A very famous quote by dr. Wayne W. Dyer describes this beautifully:
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
So, when you change the result/view/opinion you compare to another result/view/opinion, your view on the situation will change too.
For instance: when you feel sick and you compare it to a healthy person, you’ll absolutely feel sick. But when you look at people who are also sick and maybe who are even a lot sicker than you, you’ll already start feeling less sick even though nothing has changed in your body yet. This way of thinking is valid for all kinds of situations like: if you think you’re poor and you compare yourself to richer people, you’ll definitely feel poor, but when you look at people who have less than you do, you’ll suddenly feel a lot richer. A quarrel with your neighbor suddenly feels trivial when you watch the news and see that people are bombed out of their homes.
With everything you are thinking or feeling, you can always broaden your view. Whenever you describe something, try to consciously take note to what you are comparing it with.
That can take a lot of pressure off as you look at it from a wider point of view and suddenly things do not seem that bad anymore.
Whenever things do not seem so dramatic anymore, you feel yourself relax, you can breathe again even though nothing has actually changed. You just compared it with something else in the grand scheme of things and you realize everything is going to be just fine.
The more you see yourself as lucky in comparison to more unfortunate people, you can feel gratitude. As the saying goes:
It’s not happy people that are grateful,
It’s grateful people that are happy.
Can happiness be this simple? I think yes. The more you train your mental muscles*, the more you learn how to look at the good side of all, the more you’ll be able to see that everything is relative and only gets its meaning from what you compare it with.
Realizing things could be worse, knowing this too will pass, will alleviate already a lot of your daily suffering. And less suffering is what we all are striving for, isn’t it?
No long blog this week, just a reminder that whenever you feel you drew the short straw, know that in almost every case, there are people who got the even shorter one.
Look for the beauty, see the relativity of things and enjoy life!
Happy, joyful, not-too-scary Halloween to you all!
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Katrien
*”The Trouble is: It’s All Up To You, The Good Thing is: It’s All Up To You.” By Katrien Degraeve.