I had a dream. This is what it taught me

Recently I had a dream so potent that it has stayed with me for more than a week.

I was walking with some people I used to know, who are very sophisticated and elegant. ­­We were heading towards one person’s home, then they fell into a conversation I didn’t understand, and started to gain pace. Suddenly it was like my legs had a rubber band around them, just above the knees. My legs would only take small steps forward, and I couldn’t separate them enough to lengthen my stride and catch up with the others. I was shouting at them to wait for me but they were too engrossed in their conversation to notice me. 

Soon they progressed so far ahead I lost sight of them, and I didn’t know where I was going. I became hopelessly lost, and got stuck, briefly, trying to climb over a seawall. Eventually they realised that I didn’t know where I was going and came looking for me. I was quite distressed abut the fact that my legs had failed me and that I hadn’t been able to stay with them. “I just couldn’t keep up with you,” I said to them sadly.

I just couldn’t keep up with you.

This is the line that has been bouncing around my head ever since that dream. I wrote it down in my dream diary when I woke up, but I didn’t really need to – the meaning is so obvious. When I tried to follow other people’s path, I lost my way. 

Wanting to keep up with other people – specifically, people I perceive to be cooler, hotter, more successful – is an old pattern of mine. It’s that whole ‘fitting in’ strategy we adopt in our teenage years and often results in us overspending on material goods in adulthood (keeping up with the Joneses, in other words). It can also result in us painting the picture of a perfect life on social media – and Brisbane model Essena O’Neill, 18, certainly did a brave thing this week by admitting her Instagram shots were faked in order to cast herself as someone to envy and admire.

For me, the urge to keep up with other people is problematic for several reasons. The first is that it’s based on comparisons. It involves me assessing other people, concluding that they are superior to me for whatever reason, and putting them on a pedestal. This is unwise, given I have no idea what is actually going on in people’s lives beyond the surface. Are they good people? Who knows! Are they happy? They probably have the same problems as everyone else. Are they better than me? Well, no, actually – since life is not, whatever Nike would like us to believe, a competition. I love this line in the 90s hit Sunscreen Song: "The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself." 

There’s another problem here. Worrying about what other people have, look like and appear to be doing takes my focus away from where it needs to be: on my own growth and development.

This dream has been a wake-up call (literally!) that I need to address the way I compare myself to others, and also the way that I measure my own value. This is not a new lesson; I’ve referenced my struggles with comparison and self-worth in many previous posts. But just like those angel cards that keep recurring in the daily readings I do for you guys, these messages will keep coming up until I can truly take them on board and move on. The Universe will not stop throwing these messages at me until I learn the lesson.

I can’t keep up with other people, and I don’t need to. I am enough. 

Forget FOMO, look for JOMO – joy of missing out. (Let me know if you find it)

Do you suffer from FOMO? You might like to know that that’s out of fashion now (sorry). Apparently it's all about JOMO now – in case you are as deeply uncool as I am, that's the Joy Of Missing Out.

The terminology may be new to me, but the concept certainly holds appeal. Unfortunately my long-held pattern of comparing myself to others presents a challenge. 

The joy of missing out essentially means being happy with what you have right now, and not wishing you had someone else's life – someone more glamorous, more popular, more successful. (This isn't, however, the same as staying stagnant and not pushing yourself towards your dreams.) It means being OK with sitting on the couch on a Saturday night devouring corn chips and watching The Big C box set while your friends are posting party pics on Facebook. And being OK with that because you have other things to look forward to. That’s next-level contentment, right there.

It comes back to acceptance. If you're happy with where your life is at – or even if you're not, but you believe it will change – you have no need to compare yourself with others. If you can nail that, missing out really could be a joy.
I like this. I wish I could honestly look at other people's lives and not feel that I am missing out. Back in early January I wrote about my struggle with comparison on social media. Well, I'm still struggling (clearly). Maybe I always will.                

Two months ago I felt so miserable about how my life compared to other people (ie unfavourably) that I

decided the best solution was to unfollow all the people on Instagram who were doing life better than me. People on incredible trips overseas. People loved up, and flaunting it (which they're perfectly entitled to do). People with strong eyebrow game. This seemed like such a good idea!

It was a terrible idea. 

In my defence, I was the far side of a bottle of shiraz at the time. But, still. While many of these people were high profile, some were regular people… my friends. One of my mates called me out on this – and good on her – by asking why I'd cut her off. Ouch. I still have not been able to bring myself to refollow these people – it's just too embarrassing. How do I explain? "Sorry for unfollowing you, I was feeling inadequate and jealous." Yeah, that'll go down well. 

I'm well aware that what we see on social media are very carefully curated snippets of people’s lives that are not indicative of their reality. I know this, and yet, I still find myself comparing my behind the scenes with the beautiful people’s highlights reels, as the saying goes. Also, removing the triggers (ie people whom I might envy at any given moment) from my eyeline is hardly going to help me resolve the root problem: a lack of self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is something that comes up for me time after time in my reiki sessions, so I know that this, or a lack thereof, is playing a big part in holding me back. No matter how many times I tell myself that I AM good enough, I struggle to completely believe it. As yet, I have not found a way to shift this block in my thinking.

I know it is up to me, and that I’m not powerless, but right now I’m struggling to figure out how to move forward on this.

JOMO? I’ll aim for JO-maybe.