Don't compare

I know we're always telling ourselves and each other not to compare who we are to anyone else. There's nothing new about this. I just want to bring up these two simple words as a gentle reminder also not to compare your spiritual journey.

The reason is, that well meaning people (me included) will tell you how this or that happened, and how great it felt, and how you have to try it. Your friend may have stood on one foot while croaking like a frog and had the most transcendental, mind blowing experience of her life. She tells you about "Frogging" one day when you're feeling down. You go home and try it, and damn it, you feel nothing. Worse than nothing, you feel like an idiot because you're standing on one foot and croaking like a frog.

This isn't to say we shouldn't share the things that transform and uplift our lives. We just shouldn't expect the same results. We're all so different, and yet sometimes, when it comes to the spiritual stuff, we all expect to have the same experience. And when we don't, the results can be devastating. We might toss something in the trash that could be just what we need - only not in the way we expect and maybe not even in that moment. 

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For me, this realization hit hard when I discovered tapping (also known as the Emotional Freedom Technique). It did wonders to help me with my depression. I seemed to let go of things by the kilo. Emotional baggage just poured off me and I felt incredible. And guess what? I told everyone. "You guys, seriously, stop Frogging and start tapping immediately!!!! It'll change your life!!!"

I was the champion of tapping. Until I tapped out (haha, had to go there. Forgive the bad pun). It was when my writing wasn't selling and I was on a terrifying free fall downwards. I tapped and I tapped but I felt nothing. Zilch. Nada. I was afraid that this was it - this was life for me. That feeling of hopeless is perhaps one of the scariest you can experience.

I kept trying different tapping teachers, different mentors, and still, nothing. Worst of all, in many of the seminars and videos, one of the students, or tappees if you will, was a writer. They had this fear and that mental block, they had been up, down and to the mountain top, but nothing was working. And then tapping transformed them and they were selling a million books!!! It all made me want to punch my hand through a wall. I just didn't get it. Why wasn't it working for me? 

Because I was different, and what I needed in that moment, was so different. 

My writing wouldn't sell, I had no idea what do with my life, and I was embarrassed to be me in general. I was feeling like a failure. So in comes the tapping. And it doesn't work. I can't do it right anymore apparently. This reinforced my feelings that I was a failure. That's a scary freefall to be in. 

The thing was, I didn't need to tap feelings away. My life was trying to take me in a completely different direction. If I would only stop trying to force something to happen that had happened to so many others I would see this.

When I finally did stop and just kind of surrender, what had been trying to come through did. I wasn't meant to be writing at that time. I went on a completely different journey. One that led me to an incredible relationship and a period living abroad in Holland (!!!!). So please, don't compare. It'll probably only make you feel worse. And you're you. You're unique. What you need and what's trying to happen in your life is completely independent of your friend who's Frogging.