MINDET TRAPS OF THE EMPTY NEST - TRAP #3 - COMPARISON
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 143.
Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Small Jar Podcast. I am so glad you're here as we continue our journey through the Mindset Trap series, where we're taking a deep dive into the tricky patterns of thinking that often shape how we experience this journey of raising and launching our kids. If you've been listening to the series, you've heard me say this, but it's worth reiterating.
These mindset traps are not signs that there's something wrong with you. Does it feel terrible when we catastrophize? Yes. Is it stressful when we fall into perfectionist thinking? For sure.
But these patterns of thinking are not a flaw in who you are. They're simply habits of thought. And these habits are deeply rooted in how our brains are wired for survival.
They're actually solutions our minds have created to help us navigate uncertainty, discomfort, and change. So far in the series, I've explored two traps that show up in sneaky ways. In a past episode, I talked about the mindset trap of emotional reasoning, which I'm calling the emotional rollercoaster.
This trap is really like being stuck, feeling at the mercy of your emotions. But what's really happening in this trap is that we let our feelings define our reality. So, for example, we think, I feel anxious, so something must be wrong.
Look, our emotions are a natural response based on our perspective of the circumstances we're facing. But our perspective is not always based in absolute facts. This particular trap is so powerful to understand because it gives you a window into understanding your mind and how it creates your emotional reality.
So if you haven't had a chance to listen to that one, I highly recommend you go back and take time to do so. The second trap I explored in the series is all or nothing thinking, which is when we fall into the trap of thinking either everything is going to be okay, or basically the way I hope it will be, or everything will be absolutely terrible, the worst case scenario. Again, these mindset traps are not personality flaws.
They're not signs that there's something wrong with us. They're just mental habits, which are created by our brain's desire to keep us safe, comfortable, and efficient. But my friend, just like any habit, you can change these ways of thinking by understanding your mind with curiosity and compassion.
And the upside of this is that you get to drop unnecessary stress and anxiety and all these other painful emotions and step into a more peaceful and intentional experience of your life. And just imagine the impact on your day-to-day experience of not feeling at the mercy of your emotions, or getting dragged into worst-case scenario thinking. This isn't magic, but it is a skill set you can learn.
And this is exactly what I teach in my one-on-one coaching program. So today I'm going to explore the comparison trap. So have you ever scrolled through social media and seen another mom's post about their recent family vacation? Or a picture of a mom hugging her teen, smiling, and thought, why can't I have that? Or maybe you've heard someone talking about what school their kid got into or some other achievement they've had, and you start to think maybe you didn't do enough to encourage your kid.
Or you even wish that maybe your teen was more motivated and tried harder in school. My friend, we have all done this. So there's no shame in admitting it.
But of course, when we think this way, we feel insecure and anxious. Maybe even guilty or shame. These are not great feelings, but they can feel hard to let go.
So today I'm going to unpack why our brains love to compare, how it affects us as moms, and most importantly, how to step out of this trap to let go of this insecurity and shame. So let's dive in. The comparison trap is essentially when we measure our worth, success, or happiness against someone else.
Truth be told, sometimes this comparison can make us feel better about ourselves, although we might not want to admit it. You hear stories about other teens struggling in some way your kid doesn't. Or you hear about another mom grappling with some challenge and you think, I'm so grateful I'm not facing that right now.
We don't feel happy to see other people struggling. But we can feel some degree of relief that at least in this way we're doing okay. But more often what we notice are the times when we compare ourselves to others and it seems like we're falling short.
Now, I want to first say that comparing ourselves to others isn't itself a bad thing. In fact, it's a very human thing to do. We compare.
So it's not that comparing ourselves is necessarily a trap. The trap is when this comparison distorts our view of what's really true. So let me share a few examples of how the comparison trap shows up in our lives as moms.
Sometimes it's obvious, like when you hear someone talking about their kid's achievements and you feel that immediate pang of, why isn't my child doing that? But other times it can be more subtle. Thoughts that we have underneath the surface of our daily lives and we don't even really realize we're engaged in comparing. So one way we compare ourselves is when we compare our parenting style with that of other moms.
The common themes are, am I too strict? Am I being too lenient? Should I be doing more? Or am I doing too much? We have these thoughts anyway, wondering what the right approach with our kids should be. But then you introduce this concept of comparison and then we judge what we're doing against what we see other moms doing. Maybe you overhear another mom talking about how she sets firm boundaries with her teen and then you start wondering if you've maybe been too relaxed.
Or you hear about a mom who shares that she trusts her kid and would never track them on Live 360 and then you start to wonder if you're being too controlling because you feel compelled to follow your kid anytime they're out. It's like we're constantly measuring our parenting against an invisible ruler that's always shifting. A second way we compare ourselves is when it comes to our kids' academic achievements.
Now this one hits hard in high school. Grades, test scores, college applications. It's like there are all these markers of what success should look like.
You hear about a friend's teen getting straight A's or getting accepted into a prestigious college and your brain immediately goes to, why isn't my teen doing that? Or am I not doing enough? Should I push them harder? Even when you're proud of your kid and what they've accomplished, you can be surprised that your mind will still find ways to compare. It's not just about questioning your teen's achievements. At the heart of it, it's even more about your effectiveness as a parent.
As if your child's report card is somehow a report card on your parenting. My friend, believe me, I know I've been there. And then there's the comparison of social lives.
Now social media has made this one a complete nightmare. You see photos of other teens at parties or at sports events or hanging out with a big group of friends and you start thinking, why doesn't my teen have that many friends? Or they spend too much time alone. Should I be worried? You fear your teen is missing out.
You might even feel like their lack of social engagement reflects on you. Like you should be doing something to fix it. Or alternatively, they could be going out all the time.
Now you're worried about partying and wishing that your kid would actually have nicer friends that didn't drink alcohol. It's like you can't win. Now another area of comparison in the social aspect is in the connection we have with our kids.
We see other moms bragging about how their kid is their bestie. Or we see other kids willingly spending time with their moms and we can't help but feel like we're missing out on something really special. You can feel hurt and jealous.
Why can't I have this easy connection with my kid? Did I do something wrong? Or is there something wrong with my kid that they don't care about me? It's incredibly painful to compare ourselves in this way. Now the last area of comparison I'll talk about that we fall into as moms launching teens isn't even about our kids. It's about us.
We can think that other moms seem to have it all together. Or that I wish I had a career or a passion to shift my attention to in the empty nest. We think that other moms must be happier if they have a job or a hobby.
That they must be thriving. You can feel inadequate if you lost and unsure of what's coming next for you. When it comes down to it, the comparison trap is your brain's way of telling you, you should be more.
You should be better. It creates this illusion that there's a right way to parent. The right type of relationship to have with your kids.
The right way to succeed. And inevitably we feel like if we're not meeting these standards, we're falling short. Okay, so if any of this resonates, I want to reiterate, and I've said this many times, but these mindset traps are not a sign that there's something wrong with you.
But there's no denying that what they create for us doesn't feel very good. So let's look at what's really happening. I mentioned that the fact that we compare is because we are human.
And what I mean by that is that when we compare, our brains are actually doing exactly what they were designed to do. Because this natural instinct of our brains to compare is actually a survival mechanism connected to how our minds evolved to keep us safe. So imagine yourself as a cavewoman.
You're living in this cave, you have no protection from predators, and you need to hunt and forage for food. Being part of a tribe was absolutely essential for survival. Without a tribe, you'd have to protect yourself without help.
You'd have to do all of your own hunting and foraging for food. But on the flip side, in a tribe, you have a whole team of people who protect each other, who work together to find food, who even welcome each other into the same cave. Belonging isn't just about being social or having a group of friends.
When it comes to the primitive instinctual part of our brains, belonging means survival. Not belonging means danger. It means you're not safe.
So our brains have evolved to constantly assess, am I fitting in? Am I contributing enough? Do I belong here? Now in the times of the cavewoman, this was literally a matter of life or death. And while we no longer need a tribe to guarantee our safety or survival, our primitive brains still instinctually react as if belonging equates to survival. And more to the point, as if not belonging means danger.
Because our brains can't tell the difference between actual threats and emotional discomfort. When we feel left out or different, or like we're falling behind, our brain sends out alarms as if we're in danger. Even though we're perfectly safe, it doesn't feel that way.
So let's relate this to the motivational triad, which is our brain's natural instinct to help us avoid pain, seek pleasure, and conserve energy. Our brains compare ourselves to others as a way to avoid the pain of feeling less than. It's like our brain is saying, if I can measure up, I won't have to feel inadequate, rejected, or unworthy.
This happens on autopilot, my friends. Think of a time when you heard another mom talk about her kid's accomplishments. Or really any time you've seen evidence that another mom or family had something that you don't.
A closer connection, more accomplishments, more friends. It's like in a fraction of a second, your brain is already asking, did I do something wrong? Did I do enough? Believe it or not, your brain is going to this worst-case negative interpretation that I must be wrong or inadequate in some way, because your brain wants to avoid the discomfort of falling behind. Notice the irony, that our brains want to avoid the pain of actually falling behind, but at the same time, these thoughts are creating pain of the insecurity that we might be falling behind.
I mentioned earlier that while sometimes we compare ourselves and worry that we're not enough, we also compare ourselves when others are struggling or maybe not having as easy a time as we are in some area of our life. Again, this isn't about taking pleasure from other people's suffering, but our brains do take note of those areas where we compare positively to others. And believe it or not, we get validation from that.
In fact, our brains even reward us with a dopamine hit when we're doing well compared to others. This reward is our body's way of encouraging us to continue to belong, to not fall behind. And so when we succeed, our body's natural reaction is to reward us with this dopamine.
Think about how good it feels when someone compliments you. It doesn't matter what it's about. Or even better, when they compliment your kids, you automatically feel this warm, proud feeling.
This is literally your brain's way of saying, yes, this is what success feels like. Keep doing more of this. But there's a downside to this pleasure-seeking instinct part of the comparison trap, too.
Because the more we rely on this external validation, the more we need it to feel like we're enough. So that's how the comparison trap relates to avoiding pain and even seeking pleasure. So let's talk now about conserving energy.
My friends, our brains are lazy. Seriously. They're designed to be as efficient as possible.
And that includes how our brains think, the mental shortcuts our brain takes. And the comparison trap is just one of these shortcuts. Think about it.
It can feel like it takes a lot more mental energy to think proactively about your values and your goals, to decide what you want and who you are. To be honest, it can feel a lot easier for our brains to just look around and think, am I doing as well as she is? If yes, then I must be okay. For sure, this can feel easier.
But it also only gives us a partial and potentially distorted picture of what's really true. I'll add one more thing. And as we get into the rest of the mindset traps in this series, you're going to see how these traps start to interrelate and layer on top of each other.
The comparison trap also relates to the trap of the illusion of control. Because these comparisons our brains make between us and other people trick us into believing that if we can just keep up, we'll get to feel secure. It's like we try to manage the uncertainty of knowing what's right for us by measuring ourselves against others, as if they have it figured out.
But life doesn't work that way. The truth is, no matter how much we achieve, there is always someone else doing more. No matter how much we're doing right in our lives, or how much we feel good about when it comes to our kids, there are always going to be areas where we feel like we're not enough or that we could do more.
So we find ourselves constantly on this hamster wheel of having to be more and do more. You become hyper-focused on that one area where you feel like you're falling short, and you completely forget to consider that other people's lives might not be as perfect as they seem, or that other people are struggling in ways that you might not be able to see. So let me give you a few real-life examples that might sound familiar to you.
Imagine you're at an event, and you overhear another mom saying that her kid got a 1600 on their SAT, a perfect score. Immediately your mind goes to, should I have hired an SAT tutor for my kid? Or maybe if I had, they would have gotten into a better college. But here's the amazing thing.
Before you overheard that other mom, you were feeling pretty good about your teen. They're thriving in their own way. But all of a sudden, you become hyper-focused on that one measure of success, that one area where your child might not have had a perfect score.
In that moment, it's like we forget about all of the things our kids are doing well. You overhear this, and somehow the pride you felt only a few minutes before feels tainted or diminished somehow. It's like a punch in the gut.
Now you're thinking you've somehow let your kid down. But my friend, the problem isn't the SAT score. It's the belief that your worth or your worthiness as a parent has anything to do with that score, or even that your child's success depends on that score.
Now let's talk about social media again, because if comparison had a playground, this would be it. So you come home after a long day. You finally sit down and you let yourself mindlessly scroll on social media for a few minutes to relax.
You see an image of a mom you know hugging her two teen girls, and everyone is smiling. And the caption reads something like, so blessed to have these besties in my life. Hashtag grateful.
Hashtag family goals. You immediately think, I can't remember the last time my kid took a picture with me without me forcing them to. My teen barely speaks to me.
Or they're just so grumpy most of the time I never get to connect with them. What am I doing wrong? And let me also say there are seasons to our relationships with our kids. So during some times of our lives with our kids, we probably have gotten to experience those cozy moments, captured a happy image with them, with everyone hugging and smiling.
But then we find ourselves in these other moments, other phases when we feel disconnected and it's like social media is putting salt in the wound. We don't stop to think that this one image on social media is just a small fraction of the reality of this other mom's life. This picture may not even reflect reality at all.
What you didn't see is the argument she had with her girls the night before, or that she just bought them some expensive treat and so of course the girls are smiling because they got something they wanted. And this isn't at all to diminish the joy of the other mom. But the one picture only captures a small sliver of that season that that mom is experiencing on her own roller coaster of raising her kids.
But in that moment, we see the picture and our brains don't go through all of that trouble of processing all of the possibilities. We just see the picture and immediately think, see, you're falling short. Now as we launch our teens and start the transition to the empty nest, this is another area that is fraught with the potential for comparison.
Social media is filled with posts about happy moms and the empty nest as well, and they're all playing pickleball. Their posts read something like, loving this new chapter of my life, girls trips, rediscovering my passions, hashtag empty nest adventures, hashtag pickleball. Again, amazing for these women.
But if you're sitting at home thinking about your kid in college and feeling sad and lost, you start asking yourself, why am I struggling when everyone else seems to be fine? Frankly, you can be struggling and also look at some of these women engaging in pickleball and thinking they're just covering up their sadness in ways that you don't want to do. Ultimately, the comparison trap makes you believe that if you're not effortlessly thriving like everyone else seems to be, then you must be doing something wrong. But something else that's worth considering, not only do we all have seasons in our lives, some beautiful and some painful, we can also experience all of this at the same time.
Grief, pride, joy, sadness, excitement, and fear. All of these emotions can actually coexist. Our brains are these incredibly powerful tools, and they have the capacity to hold all of this emotion at once.
Sometimes we find ourselves leaning more into those painful emotions, and other times we can fully embrace the positive and powerful emotions. When you see other moms thriving, could it be possible that they're simply leaning a bit further into the positive in that moment? In all of these examples, and you might have others that come up for you in your life, but notice how this comparison trap has the effect of narrowing your focus to the most painful areas of your life. You zoom in on that one specific pain point, whether that be your kid's success and well-being, your family life, your own personal fulfillment.
And in that moment, it feels like that pain point takes up a lot of space. You lose sight of the big picture. And the worst thing is, the comparison trap means that the goalpost is always that much further out ahead of you.
No matter what you do, it's never quite enough. Even if your team gets into that top college, or you do have those close moments with your kid, or you find yourself in the empty nest, no matter where you're succeeding in life, your brain is going to go to that one painful area where you compare yourself to others and feel like you're falling short. My friends, it never ends, because comparison isn't about what you're comparing.
It's about the belief underneath that I'm not enough. And the impact of this one belief is pretty painful. Over time, it wears down your confidence because you hold on to this nagging self-doubt.
It can also bring up resentment. We can silently resent or feel jealous of other people who seem to have it easier than we do in some way. We can also feel resentful towards our own kids because they're not meeting these hopes and expectations we have as we measure ourselves up against others.
This can strain our relationship with our kids even more because we can find ourselves putting pressure on them to meet these expectations. Although you don't say it, at times you could be thinking, why can't you be more like this other kid? All of this is painful and exhausting because we're constantly chasing this illusion of being enough, measured by something out there, when what we really need to focus on is that part of us that feels enough inside of ourselves. My friends, stepping out of the comparison trap is simple, but it's not easy.
The truth is, you are enough, right now, exactly as you are. One of my first coaches once said, imagine your child as a baby. In that instant, when they came into the world, you knew they were enough, perfect exactly as they were.
They didn't have to be anyone or do anything. They simply were in the world, and that was enough. We were once that little baby too, my friend, born perfectly enough.
And the thing we have to ask ourself is, when did that change? Our brains want to go to, I don't know, or it was that thing in my past that made me feel insecure, or whatever demon we want to point to that's caused us to feel so inadequate in our lives. And that all certainly can be true, but also, it's just a function of how our brains work. Your beautiful mind is trying to keep you safe, to help you feel good, to make your life easier.
That's it. That's your brain on autopilot. It's just that these instinctive comparisons our brains make don't actually keep us safe or make us feel better.
In fact, they do the opposite. The higher part of your brain actually has the capacity to step back and become the watcher of this primitive part of your brain, to catch your brain falling into the trap of comparison and to remind yourself, nothing has gone wrong. You have the ability to catch your brain falling into the trap of comparison and to remind yourself, nothing has gone wrong.
Of course, my brain wants to compare. And I'm simply going to decide that I am enough, and that I'm always doing my best. My friend, your worth can't be measured by your kids' accomplishments, or the number of times they take a picture with you, or how many hobbies you have in the empty nest.
Your worth is simply a function of you being a human on this planet. You did it. You are already enough.
And maybe the gift you can give yourself right now is to start believing the possibility of that. My friends, these traps create so much pain for us. But they're also what makes us perfectly human.
Your brain has the capacity to step out of these traps. And this is a process I teach step by step in my one-on-one coaching program, Mom 2.0. Wherever you find yourself lacking or feeling like you're not enough, let's break free from the thought that this is true. Or worse, that these feelings stem from who you are or what you've experienced in life.
It's time to empower yourself to believe that you are enough and always doing your best. In fact, has there ever been a day that you've decided not to do your best? I've maybe had a few. But 99% of the time, we show up to our lives and we really do try hard to do our best, even when that doesn't look like what we really wanted to.
So maybe it's time to start giving ourselves a little bit of credit for that. You're not on this journey alone, my friend. Reach out and let's talk about how you can become Mom 2.0. This isn't about becoming someone new.
It's about stepping into who you know you can be.
Until next time.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
