Most yoga asana students compare themselves to others.

It’s okay, we all (most of us) do it!

And I don’t think we should judge ourselves at all, for comparing. This is a natural thing for humans to do. Comparison is part of how our brain works. We are social creatures!

However, this tendency to compare and contrast can get dark fast. We end up with a strong or subtle experience of inferiority or superiority – and neither creates an emotionally healthy human being.

There are a couple ways we can handle this.

But the first thing we need to do, is to admit we’re doing the comparing. In asana class almost every student notices what their body can do and notices what other students can do. While I’m at it, I will point out that practitioners also notice other people’s clothes, grooming, race, size, age, and a whole lotta other things. Humans are perceptive as hell in ways we don’t always credit.

And unfortunately – we were raised in a culture that has prioritized able-bodied, youth, whiteness et cetera. It’s everywhere. Our own families may have bought in, too.

Of course we’re going to be noticing how other humans in the room are “stacking up” according to these contrived concepts of individual and collective worth.

We can’t simply snap our fingers and NOT see.

So to be honest, most everyone in a room is sizing up others. Even if they know better!

There will always be someone who is thinner than you, younger than you, who has a nicer yoga mat, who can get into a handstand, who can take that tricky bind.

There is always going to be someone who arrived on time when you didn’t, or someone who the teacher seems to prefer over you.

You are not a bad person for noticing and you’re not a bad person for caring; you’re not a bad person for feeling jealousy, envy, even anger!

I don’t have a solution for all this but I do have something that might help.

Last night I was listening to this fantastic podcast, “Coping with Ghosting”. The podcast is about the friend, lover, partner, employer – whomever – who ghosts or abandons the relationship without explanation. This is called ghosting in today’s parlance. It’s a great podcast about a very painful experience.

In last night’s episode, “Coping with Anxious Thoughts with Joanna Hardis, LISW-S”, Joanna, a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist specializing in anxiety, delineated a difference between a “thought” and “thinking”.

To paraphase, a “thought” is something we can’t control, it more or less pops into our brain. So in the yoga asana space: “I wish I was as flexible as Carol!” – well, that’s a thought. We can’t really stop it, it just happens. 

“Thinking” on the other hand, involves some of our buy-in, that is to say – we voluntarily begin participating.

So, “I wish I was flexible as Carol” turns into, “She obviously has a lot of time on her hands, she can come to class anytime she likes. It must be nice having a husband who makes six figures. Ugh, she’s just like those popular girls at school, the ones who wouldn’t talk to me… I wonder where Janice is today? Ugh I sure hated her …”

And so on, and so forth.

(Sound familiar?)

In the podcast Joanna affirmed that we have control over our thoughts. Not a hundred percent of them all the time. But we are not helpless.

And just like with yoga asana, we’ll get better with practice.

So be kind to the thought – the comparison thought – but don’t ruminate or entertain it. Firmly move your attention elsewhere (how about your breath? It is always there!)

My second suggestion would be for you to be very patient and kind with yourself.

Changing the compare-contrast-compete mindset is a LOT of work, especially for some people since their very family of origin inspired, coerced, or imbued these values and behaviors.

I guess I have one other thing to say.

If you think about it, you are actually at the beginning of an incredible opportunity. Dismantling your compare-contrast-compete is so scary.

Who will you be if you don’t have that drive?

Sounds like an awfully big adventure!