The Comparison Trap: The trouble with measuring your life against someone else’s
You know that feeling when you're scrolling on social media, and you see a former classmate who just bought a lake house, and you think, "Why isn't my life like that?"
Or you're up for a promotion at work, you look around and decide everyone else is more qualified, so what's the point?
In this episode of Beyond the Type, Sandy explores comparison, using a "mirror and window" metaphor to unpack why we measure ourselves against everyone else's life instead of our own.
Drawing on Leon Festinger's social comparison theory, Sandy looks at why the comparisons that hit hardest are the ones closest to us (and how social media has widened what "close" even means - yes, I'm talking about those influencers and people you follow and see every day in your feed!).
Sandy also brings in the Enneagram, focusing on Type 4's relationship to envy, and closes with a somatic exercise she uses with her clients to help listeners feel the difference between comparison and its opposite: Presence, enoughness, and abundance.
This episode explores:
- The mirror and window metaphor, and why the window is so much easier to look at
- Leon Festinger's social comparison theory, and why the comparisons closest to us affect us most
- How online relationships (with influencers, creators, even TV characters) can make a stranger feel as close as someone in your own life
- Why Type 4 energy, and its passion of envy, has comparison built into its wiring
- A somatic exercise to help you feel the shift from comparison and scarcity into presence and abundance
Comparison isn't something to eliminate. It's something to notice, and you get to choose which one you're looking at: the window, or your own mirror.
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Beyond the Type episode on Enneagram Passions:
https://www.swansoncoaching.com/podcasts/beyond-the-type-an-enneagram-inspired-podcast-about-being-human/episodes/2149131772
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comparison, social comparison theory, why do I compare myself, comparing yourself to others, envy, Enneagram Type 4, Enneagram passions, self-trust, abundance mindset, scarcity mindset, social media comparison, parasocial relationships, influencers and self-esteem, Leon Festinger, somatic exercise, nervous system, self-worth, personal development podcast, life coach podcast, holistic coaching, Enneagram, emotional awareness, self-awareness, Sandy Swanson, Beyond the Type
