The Comparison Trap: How to Shift Your Mindset & Focus on Gratitude

We all compare ourselves to others at times. It's a natural part of being human, but when left unchecked, it can influence the way we think, feel, and view our own lives. This conversation explores how awareness can help shift our relationship with comparison and create a healthier perspective.

I explore how comparison can either pull you out of alignment or be used as a tool for growth, depending on how you respond to it. This includes learning how to redirect your focus, ground yourself in gratitude, and come back to your own path without getting caught up in what others are doing.

If you find yourself constantly comparing or feeling like you’re falling behind, this episode offers a perspective shift to help you feel more present, more grounded, and more connected to what you already have.

Thanks so much for listening! If this episode resonated with you, make sure to subscribe and leave a review. New episodes drop every Tuesday morning, and you can follow me on Instagram @Stephanie_Monge to stay connected and come along for the journey.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Barefaced and Becoming. Today I wanted to talk about a topic that I think we all experience two different capacities, and that is comparing. I want to start this off with a story that happened to me at the beginning of this week that really kind of put things into perspective for me. And I feel like ever since this experience happened, I've slowly kind of been understanding more and having a little bit of a mindset shift because of it. So I was at Publix grocery shopping. I'm listening to music the whole time I'm shopping. And as I'm checking out, there was a man with a grocery cart. I'm not fully paying attention and fully, like I said, I'm listening to music. So I'm like half present. And he said something, hey, can you something something for my kids? And I'm thinking, oh, he's asking me to watch his grocery cart. And I'm like, yeah, of course. And he goes, Okay, oh, thank you so much. You know, something about food stamps. And I'm like, oh, I'm I'm so sorry. What did you ask me? And I take my headphone down and he's like, Oh, I was wondering if you can buy me these groceries for my kids. And my immediate answer was, oh my gosh, I'm I'm so sorry I can't. Because I don't know, maybe my own mindset, I'm kind of just very frugal with my money and my discipline around money. I don't know. I I guess maybe this is something that is a different conversation, but that I can work on is just having a more abundant mindset with money in general for myself. And I collect my money like I'm a squirrel collecting nuts. So that's just where my mind goes first. And then, you know, I keep shopping, I look at his car, and he had already had some groceries that were purchased. Then I, you know, reality settles in, and I actually do have the finances to do that. I'm blessed enough that ever since my partner and I moved in together, he takes care of the groceries for me financially. So I have the money to spare. And I look at his car, and like I said, he already had some of his groceries purchased and in bags, and I said, Oh, you know, I can help you with some of it. Maybe, you know, maybe not everything, but let me help you with whatever I can. He's like, Oh my god, thank you so much. He brings the stuff to checkout, and I was actually already buying some cards for Mother's Day, so I was already gonna do a separate checkout, anyways. Yeah, he brings me two jugs of water, a thing of Publix chicken, and a thing of fried rice. And he's like, you know, is four things okay? And I'm like, Yeah, of course. And he's like, Thank you so much. You know, nobody has a heart these days. My food stamps haven't come in this week. Thank you so much. God bless you. Like, thank you so much. He was very, very grateful. And I ended up looking, and like I said, I was kind of half there, half not, because of my headphones. And I, you know, everything just happened so fast, and that's never really happened. So it took a little bit for me to process. After he left, I looked at what he had left behind, and it was just cookies and rice krispies, which I could have got, and I felt bad for that. And then it just put everything into perspective. Like, wow, especially with social media these days, it's so easy to compare. I mean, it's thrown at our face every single day. We're always comparing ourselves. At least I I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I only compare myself in a way that puts other people on a pedestal, right? I'm when I'm whenever I'm comparing, I'm comparing it where I could be, what I could be doing, how my life could look different in a better way, which puts me on a lower frequency. And you know, I could tell I, you know, you always have this when I told a story to someone, it's like, you know, are you sure like he was being honest, like it's for his kids? But I mean, here I just kind of have to choose to trust and and believe that the story that was told to me is the real one. That's what I choose to believe, especially that I like I said, I saw the cookies. Like this man was just getting stuff to provide. It was food and water and cookies, you know. And he was talking about food stamps. He wasn't outside begging for money, you know. He was with his car, like persistent that he was gonna get this. And I feel like that's something you kind of only do when you have people to take care of. And he was standing at the checkout waiting to ask people. And as I was helping him, last part of this story is as I was checking out his stuff for him, the worker at Publix came to him and told him that pretty much like he had to go. So I assume that I wasn't the first person that he asked. Clearly, I mean, obviously, he had half his stuff purchased, so either he did it himself or he asked someone for it. And you can tell he he wasn't like a dirty person, but you can tell he hadn't had access to a shower in a couple days and things like that. So it just hit me that much harder because I was his last option, really. That it was divine timing that finally, as he's getting his stuff purchased for him, he had to go. If I hadn't said yes, he wouldn't have been able to get the rest of his stuff. So I don't know, it just hit me so hard. And uh, I cried for like 30 minutes after because it uh it just yeah, it's just like wow, like here I am comparing to you know, this life that is so silly. Like, yeah, people get their paid trips, and you know, people don't have to worry about paying for rent and things like that. Like, there's certain things that, you know, could things improve in a certain way for me to like have less stress in my life, of course. But at the end of the day, one that's always gonna be the case. Like, I always think about Jim Carrey with this. He always says, you know, I wish that everybody could experience being rich and famous so they can see that it's not all it's led up to be. So, yeah, not only does these things in my head mean that all the other stress and every other problem is gonna go away, no, problems are always gonna persist. And it's really the mindset that you can have in every single different stage of your life, no matter how rough or amazing things are. Having that mindset consistently will put you in a higher frequency and a more enjoyable place to live your life. And it's like stress is always gonna be something that's there, and it's just kind of where you choose to focus. Where your attention goes is kind of where your reality flows. And all the saying is where your attention goes, your energy flows, but it also creates your reality. It's really not the stress itself, it's how you respond to it. Because at the end of the day, stress and issues and loss and all of these different life experiences, they're inevitable. But suffering is optional. And it's really the mind is so powerful. And so that's first of all. Second of all, how I don't know. I don't know how to say this, and I don't want to like make myself feel bad because there's a part of me that wants to be like, how out of touch of reality are you? But it was really eye-opening for me to think about. Before me and my partner moved back in together, I was obviously paying for my own groceries and had to be a little bit more mindful of how much I was spending, how long it was gonna last me, making sure not to waste any food and things like that. And I haven't had to worry about that in over six months. And you know, to see this guy at the store, like worrying about food stamps and not only that, but having to take care of his children really just reality just kind of smacked me in the face. That's part of our world. It's a lot of reality that people live in. We're aware of it. Yeah, we see homeless people all the time, but to have like a one-on-one interaction, you know, see it in real time. Like you see people at the grocery store, you're never gonna really think twice about what their situation is. You know, we're always so focused on our to-do list and our finances and our worries and things like this. Yeah, anyways. So the point I want to make out of this is that at the end of the day, comparison is kind of inevitable. Yes, we can talk about oh, don't compare ever, don't compare, don't compare. But I feel like humans are just so intrigued, really. And sometimes that can just lead to comparison, even if you're not really trying to, just oh wow, like this is someone else's life. Thinking about, I don't know, I'm I'm a very I love people watching. I am just very intrigued by just so many different paths of life. And yeah, I just think that's a normal part of being human. So I don't really think that it's very realistic to just say to never compare. I don't think that the mind is capable of never ever comparing ever again. But I think that in comparing, I think it's important when doing so to compare rather than putting yourself lower and putting someone else on a pedestal, almost to do the opposite and not in a self-centered way. Like, don't put yourself necessarily on a pedestal, but just count your blessings more than you compare to others. So understanding that wow, I have it so good. I have a safe home to be in. Not everybody has that. I have food on the table, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some people have to worry about that every single day. I have clean water, some people have to drink from a lake. Like, there's so many things that we don't even second guess. So it's not even like comparing, like, oh, I'm so much better. No, no, no. It's just counting your blessings and knowing that your blessings aren't everybody else's reality. And I think it's really important to think about that. And I think that it puts us in a more grateful state of mind. And I think also thinking about rather than comparing where you are now to where you want to be, compare where you are now to where you've been. I think about four or five years ago. This is in 2021. I think about this often, actually. So 2020, obviously, COVID hit, move back home with my parents. 2021, my parents moved away. I had nowhere to go. My parents were moving to Orlando. I didn't want to. I was kind of making my way here in Miami, and my friends are all here, and I wanted to get my footing in the wellness space. And obviously, Miami is really the place for that. So I had no idea what I was gonna do. I hadn't had a job in so long. I think I was jobless for about a year on unemployment. So I'm just like talking to my girlfriends about everything, and one of my girlfriends at the time was living with her dad in his house, and they had an extra bedroom, and she was like, you know, I can talk to my dad about it. And honestly, it was such a beautiful and humbling experience. I ended up moving in with her. I had to go over her house, talk to her dad. I had a dog, I wanted to make sure that was okay with him. The room was like kind of older, so I had to paint it and all these things. And it was cool because it really like this is such a side tangent, but it really deepened my relationship. Lexi, love you, if you're listening, because it changed our dynamic into sisters, and I wouldn't trade that experience for the world, but it was just, you know, I was in someone else's like family home, trying to make sure not to like overstep, respect boundaries. You know, it was I was living with someone else's father. It was just a very new experience, and someone else's groceries and how they organize and their pantry and just everything. None of nothing was mine besides my own bedroom. And even at that, the bed wasn't mine, it was there already. So I just remember so vividly while I was living there. All I wanted was to open the this is so like now that I'm saying this out loud, I don't think I've ever like talked about this. All I wanted was to open the kitchen cabinet and see all of my own mugs. It's so silly. But I remember thinking about it often when I was living there. And I do think about this often even now because now it's my reality. I'm a very huge mug collector. I've collected mugs since I was like 14 years old. And while I was living at her house, obviously all my stuff was put away into storage. I didn't have anything. I had a couch and all my mugs, everything, all my bathroom stuff. But again, we were sharing a bathroom. Like I really didn't have anything besides my own room. So for some reason, that was something that I was just like, oh my god, how cool. And I hadn't really ever had my own place at this point either. Because before I was living with her, I was in college living with roommates. And yeah, I just had never had my own space completely. Obviously, living in completely somebody else's space, you know, living with roommates is a little bit different because we all moved in together and like created the space together. But I was really just coming into somebody else's space at this time. And so it made it more apparent to me how much I wanted everything my own space, you know, to create something of my own from scratch. It was such a dream of mine, really. I it was something that I felt at the time was unattainable. I didn't know how I was gonna get there. I didn't know if I was gonna be able, like just so much. Yeah, I just always remember wanting to open a kitchen cabinet and like everything was my own mugs, my own glasses for matcha and all the different silverware and just like everything about that. I just remember wanting that, and that was something that kind of like put it into perspective for me. Having that little reality check and that little reminder of something that I wanted and seeing it in my reality now is such a beautiful place. I think that it's important when we're doing this comparing game to remember things like that. Wow, four years ago, all I wanted was my own space, and today I could be stressing about oh my god, people are getting paid to go to Coutella, people don't have to worry about paying for their rent, people don't worry about going to work, whatever the story is that you tell yourself, you know, it's different for everybody. But rather than being in that place and scrolling on Instagram and seeing how other people have it, like you can't compare your reality to somebody's Instagram highlight reel. Like, that's just like not, first of all, it's not reality. And it's also not fair because five years ago, where I am right now is my dream. Never in a million years. Actually, let me take this a step further. When I was in high school, I went to college because I was like, oh, you you can't do like aesthetics in college, like, there's not a degree for that. Oh, it's just like a technical school. Oh no, no, everybody has to go to college. I'm going to college. Never in a million years did I think that I could make a living doing something that I genuinely enjoy. I used to do everybody's like makeup and brows and all of these things in literally middle school, high school. And now I get to do that every single day. I do people's lashes, I do people's facials, like I make people feel good, I relax people. Like that is actually insane. I like I didn't think that was I didn't, that wasn't even a dream of mine because it wasn't like I didn't even think about it because I didn't think it could be a reality. So I think it's just yeah, it's just so important. Comparison can be the thief of joy, and it is to a certain degree, but at the same time, it's a part of life. I think it's a part of the human mind and a little bit inevitable to some degree. So make it something that is positive. Compare to your past self, compare to the blessings that you have in your life and be aware that those blessings in your life are not everybody's reality. Count your blessings more than you compare. Okay, that's all I have for today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that this really resonated with you and put things into perspective like it did for me. Yeah. Count your blessings every day if you have an able body for your breath, for the peace that you can wake up to. Like we're in a country, if you're in the US, that we're not waking up to war every single day. Like, there's so much other reality. Scratch five years ago, ten years ago. Even though, yes, I think it's important to think about your past. There's so much to be grateful for. And counting your blessings really lets you be able to come from a more grateful state of mind. Just in reality right now, like I think about people that are in war right now and troops that had to be sent. The fact that I have the blessing to wake up and not hear gunshots, and to have an able body that can walk and breathe, and that I can make myself food. And just those tiny, actually, they're not tiny, they're amazing, they're huge. Like, I think it's like rewiring the brain. Like, no, that these aren't tiny. Like, some people, that's it's so far away for them. So yeah, they're not small, they're grand and so beautiful. So I pray every day for a clear mind and a grateful heart. And I pray for that for you, for anyone that's listening. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for holding space for me to tell stories and just share my mindset with you. Very grateful to be able to share all of this and have anyone that listens. So, if this is your first time here, welcome. If you are returning, I love you. Thank you so much for supporting me. It means so much to me. New episodes every Friday. Thank you again so much. I love you so much. And I will talk to you next week. Bye.