Hello, it's Eve here. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Friday.

I want to start today's episode by asking you a question. When was the last time you

compared yourself to someone else or compared a situation to another situation? Let's just

sit with this. How did it make you feel? What were some of the predominant emotions that

were present? So I'm just reflecting myself and some of the emotions that arose for me

were fear, doubt, anxiety, disappointment and jealousy. I'm not saying that it will

always be negative when we compare ourselves to others. We can view someone else or an

event with awe and adoration. But more often than not, the pranks of doubt and low self-worth

can arise quite quickly when our comparing mind is active. And I was thinking of a situation

recently where I had to cancel some live events because I was ill and some of my wonderful

co-teachers stepped in for me. I joined one of the sessions virtually but just as an attendee

and watched as my friend led a beautiful meditation. I was in awe of how they held

space for everyone and weaved together an amazing talk and an inspiring practice. Unfortunately

though, I started to realise that I was comparing their guidance to mine. Thoughts like,

oh, I would never articulate those points as well as they did. And why can't I think

about things like that? Started to arise. And I went from really enjoying the session to

feeling a little bit jealous despite being so happy that I was being led in this beautiful

practice by a good friend and fellow teacher. And I really started to reflect on how this

comparing mind seems to surface. When we start to step back and notice the impact it's

having on us, we can see that comparing, it can feel like we are grasping onto something

quite tightly or wanting something to be different than it is. And this creates a lot of

tension in the mind and body. It also takes a lot of energy from us which can leave us

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