Live YOUR Journey Part II: Embracing Your Unique Journey

Julie: 0:05

Hello everyone and welcome to part two of the Live your Journey series here on the podcast. Thanks for tuning in again. In the previous episode we talked about the ways that we live our lives trying to avoid other people's journeys, but today I wanted to talk about those times when we actually want to live other people's journeys. So we'll start by talking about the most basic of ways that this comes into form, and that is really simple jealousy Wanting what someone else has. I wish I had their house, I wish I had their job, I wish I had their relationship, I wish I had their body. Whatever it is that we see someone else have that we perceive as something lacking in or for ourselves. And as I was researching for this podcast, I came across this definition that I actually thought was pretty insightful. It comes from Wikipedia, which I always tell my students is a great place to start your research, but just don't stay there. Here's the definition.

Julie: 1:01

Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety. Jealousy can consist of one or more emotions, such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness or disgust. Now, there are two things that I found to be really interesting in that definition. The first is looking at the words that they connect directly with jealousy, insecurity, fear and lack, and when you think about it, all those words suggest scarcity. And when we're experiencing jealousy, we are living with the belief that there isn't enough to go around, that if someone has it and I don't, that my life is somehow lesser. And scarcity is a very contracted, fearful way of seeing the world. That touches a very primal part of us, and that part is survival. If there isn't enough to go around, in other words, if someone has something and I don't, then I might not survive, which sounds really pretty dramatic. But these reactions are instinctual and they're primal and they happen very, very quickly and if we're not careful, we can find ourselves following this dramatic and usually subconscious thought process that we're in danger all of the time and that because of that danger we're going to die. It's all very Victorian literature in a way.

Julie: 2:36

So what we're really experiencing, if we allow this unconscious thought process to occur, is a sense that someone else has something that actually should be ours, that maybe they've taken something from us or that we actually deserve to have it, and I want you to take a moment to tune into how that feels when you think about the experience of something being taken from you See if you can locate that somewhere in your body, because here is where being aware of those thoughts is actually really important. When we see a beautiful house that we wish we had, we don't consciously think that house should be mine. At least, we rarely have that conscious thought. However, we do experience that scarcity on a deep subconscious level and it can drive our actions or, depending on the circumstance, our inaction. And one of the experiences that we've had that, I think, will demonstrate this all of our children.

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When they were around six or seven or eight, my husband would let them sit on his lap in the driver's seat and allow them to help steer on the way home from church, which in our case was never more than a couple blocks away, and the kids loved it. They would get so excited about this prospect of doing something so big as driving, even though Dad's hand was on the wheel the whole time, and I remember one common reminder that he had to give to all of them, and he had to do it often, and that was to say look the way you're headed For these little ones. It was so easy to get distracted by seeing their friends who were walking home or looking at everything else that was going on, that they looked away from where the car was heading, which is not a great idea. They were actually driving. As you can probably imagine and this, just as a side note, totally drives me crazy when I'm watching a movie or a TV show where the characters are supposedly driving but they spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the person in the passenger seat as they talk. Look at the road, people. But back to the point.

Julie: 4:45

The real danger here, of course, is that in looking to the side, we can't see what's coming up on the road that we are on. At best, this means that we have to come to a standstill in our journey, because we can't look sideways without running into things. So we stop, we stagnate, giving into thoughts that don't actually lead anywhere, because they're not connected to our reality, they're not part of the journey that we're currently on, and so we stop responding to our journey, to our calls, to our learning and to our growth. And we're not responding to anyone else's calls either, because we literally can't. And so we get stuck, because we're not moving forward, because our focus is elsewhere. Now, at worst, looking to the side actually means impacts and crashes. They can hurt other people because we weren't focused on where we were going. I've been in one accident in my life up to this point and it was 100% because I was looking to the side instead of looking ahead.

Julie: 5:53

Now we see this when we allow jealousy or scarcity or any of these other feelings to impact our relationships and interactions with others, and it can actually be really consuming if we let it. And that brings us to the second part of the definition that I actually found interesting. The last part of the definition says jealousy can consist of one or more emotions, such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness or disgust. Now, these emotions are the type of emotions that heavily impact a relationship. It's almost impossible to imagine feeling one of these emotions towards someone else and still treat them with compassion or respect or love, so we end up crashing into others, metaphorically speaking. Of course, we say and do things that carry the energy of one or more of these emotions, and this energy is really toxic. It's damaging to us, it's damaging to our relationship and it's really all based on this false premise that the person has somehow hurt us through their success and in reality their success has nothing to do with us. Their success is part of their journey, not ours.

Julie: 7:12

And now how can I say that when there are situations where there's only one job and I wanted it but somebody else got it, or there's someone that I'm attracted to but they end up with someone else? And I would invite you to consider the idea that the real issue with that is that we let ourselves begin to believe that that thing or that opportunity or that person was ours, when in reality they weren't. As much as we might want that job or that grant or that assignment or whatever it is, that doesn't make it ours. So not getting it only feels like a loss because we allow ourselves to believe that somehow it was already ours. We live in a fantasy of imagining what our lives would be like with that thing or that person, and we enjoy that feeling so much that we become attached to it. Now we want that feeling. We want to feel that feeling and we believe that that person or opportunity or thing is going to give that to us, that happiness that we're searching for. Now, attachment is a topic for a different podcast, but we can start looking at it here when we look at jealousy, in many ways we want the object of that jealousy, or that scarcity or whatever it is, because of how we believe it will make us feel. We anticipate all of the positive feelings that we could experience and become convinced that it can only be through having that specific thing. And in reality there's no guarantee that having that thing or that opportunity or that person would actually provide those feelings anyway, and we conveniently choose to ignore any potential difficulties that might come with it.

Julie: 9:03

So, as an example, for many years I have talked about wanting to have a castle. I spent a summer in London when I was in college and it was magical, and one of my favorite things was to travel to the different castles that were in the area and imagine my life in one of these grand, beautiful places. Right, of course, it would be amazing to have a castle. And then one summer we took our little kiddos to stay at the home of a friend of ours, a home that was quite a bit more luxurious than the rambler that we were living in at the time, and I remember waking up one morning and it's this beautiful decor, enjoying being surrounded by all these beautiful things, the big windows and the views and everything, and I eventually got up in order to start making breakfast for everyone, holding onto this sense of happiness, and made my way to the kitchen, and it was when it was about halfway there that I realized how long it was taking to get to the kitchen. This expansive house was truly beautiful, but, man, it took forever to get anywhere, and it was in that moment I started realizing that having a castle would actually have some drawbacks, not the least of which is the reality that it would take forever to get from one end to the other, let alone to clean it.

Julie: 10:19

Now, this is, of course, a silly example, but it was one of the first times that I actually thought about what the reality would be of getting what I want. Now I still want a castle, because I mean, who wouldn't? But my view of that dream is much more realistic than it used to be. I can see that having that object would have some really fun things about it, but, like everything else in life, it would also come with its challenges. And now I can make a decision about pursuing that dream or not, without assuming that I need it in order to be happy. The truth is, I am the one who controls my happiness. I can be happy with those things or without those things. I can have those things and be miserable. In the end, it's up to me, not another person or an object. Getting caught up in the idea that having equals happiness is really just a subtle way to keep us from moving forward on our journey, because we start thinking I can't move forward until I have it and we end up remaining stuck waiting for something that may or may not matter, which actually leads me to the next point I want to make regarding jealousy and scarcity and journeys.

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As a business coach, it was common for me to have clients who, as they are working on building up their businesses and taking action, find themselves looking sideways at other people's success and actually becoming really jealous of it. And I would hear things like I'm doing the exact same things that she's doing, but I'm not getting any clients and she's already got 10. Or I don't get why he's succeeding. I'm working way harder, but nothing seems to turn out for me. This can also show up in other situations, right, like why are they losing weight when I can't seem to? How come they get a raise when I work just as hard? I'm just as good a player as they are. Why didn't I make the team and I'm going to quickly acknowledge the first issue with that thinking because it's flawed all over the place.

Julie: 12:13

But we are really terrible judges of what is real and what is an invention of our thinking. But, more to the point, these kinds of judgments are a deep disrespect of the other people's journey. We are taking a snapshot of their path and assuming that they somehow got there easily or through some divine intervention that favors one person over the other. That person is where they are because of the journeys they have been on. I have such a reverence for the journey process that to disrespect someone else's journey, trivializing what they've had to go through to get where they are, is almost painful. So let's pretend for a moment that you are taking the exact same actions as that other person, which is fundamentally untrue because any action you take is informed by your experiences and beliefs in previous journeys, etc. But we'll pretend anyway. Isolating that action to a specific moment in time completely ignores the work, the blood, sweat, tears, heartaches, disappointments, loss and grief that that person has experienced. Yeah, you might both be using the same strategy to get clients or to lose weight or do whatever it is, but perhaps you are just starting on your path. Maybe they've been on this path for years. Maybe you've been trying to lose weight for a long time and they've just started, but maybe they've done some crucial inner work through another journey that supports their success, work that maybe you haven't done yet.

Julie: 13:53

The point is, we don't know other people's paths. We barely know our own path. So, when given the temptation to look sideways and see these moments of other people's paths, let's choose to honor whatever it took for them to get where they are. If you think about your own journeys, you can maybe get a sense of how hard fought that battle must have been. The last point I want to make about other people's journeys is to be aware of the temptation to look for someone else to have the magical formula for how to get a specific outcome for your journey. I know that it is marketing 101 to tell people they have a problem that you have the answer to. Ultimately, though, what worked for them on their journey may not work for you on yours.

Julie: 14:43

General principles are absolutely helpful, which is what I try to focus on here. Ultimately, general principles are what mentors are really all about. They don't tell the hero step by step what to do. They share wisdom and guidance and then they leave the hero to figure out what that means for them. But anyone who tells you that they know how your journey should go, based on their journey, is mistaken. So let's talk about some general principles.

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When dealing with looking sideways At some point in this process, it's important to recognize it.

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We need to notice the emotions that are typical for us in these situations.

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Could be scarcity or jealousy or something else for you, but you want to be able to name it and see it for what it is.

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Again, emotions are signposts and they can be incredibly informative about what part of a journey we are in and how we're thinking about that journey. And if we can recognize it, then we can more easily acknowledge that any time we're spending a lot of time looking sideways and feeling miserable because of it, it's because we are choosing to believe something that isn't true. So we can then look at the thinking that's causing us to suffer and we can see where we're buying into a story of scarcity or a false sense of ownership, or looking outside of us to find happiness. As always, we can apply compassion to the thinking that's causes us to believe something that isn't true, acknowledging the impact that it's having on us, and then reframe the thinking to something that's actually grounded in truth and, as best as we can, we turn our gaze from looking sideways back to looking at our own journeys, and that's really what the last podcast of this series will be about. So until then, remember life is a journey and it's time to start living like it. I'll see you next time.