Sometimes my life feels like a forest—dense, shadowed, and uneven.
Everyone else seems to walk a wide, sunlit path: their maps are clear, their steps steady, their packs light.
Meanwhile, I carry heavy bundles of pain and medicine, stumbling often, wondering if I’ll ever catch up.
~Cue the tiny violins 🎻 🤭~
Beyond the Familiar: Embracing a Different Forest
My therapist keeps telling me to stop comparing myself to other people – that life’s not a competition. Which, to be fair, is exactly what I’d say to someone I was trying to beat, too.
Comparison is never useful. It’s like measuring trees by how tall they look in someone else’s forest, forgetting that soil, roots, storms, and sunlight differ wildly.
Or like judging an oak tree by how quickly the wildflowers around it bloom. Different roots, different seasons, different reasons for being.
And yet I fall into it—measuring my path against someone else’s trail, forgetting we are not even walking in the same terrain.
Comparing … is a waste of time and effort; we are all different people, experiencing and feeling things differently.
San Diego Prepare Yourself: Sisterhood Adventures Await
Next month, my sisters will gather in San Diego. I am so excited for them. And to hear about their adventures. Sunshine, laughter, time to connect. It’ll be fabulous.
I would love to be there. But the cost of my monthly medicine is about the same as what that trip would take.
I live in a different economy—the economy of pain management. So instead of boarding a plane, I stay home.
~Poor lil’ me 🥲👉👈 🤣 ~
It’s hard not to compare. Their togetherness, my absence. Their momentum, my stillness. I remind myself that longing is not failure—but it still stings.
Screenshots of a Life I Don’t Live: Family Call, Personal Spiral
On a recent morning: my sister called from her vacation in London. On a family video call. At 9 a.m., I was still coaxing my muscles awake.
I listened to the bagpipes she was sharing and checked out the sights in the background. I marvelled at what she has been able to accomplish and see in her life. I joy in her success.
Inevitably another emotion starts to rise. As on the screen, this is what I see:
- One sister in her home office, thriving in a job that suits her perfectly.
- Another in her kitchen, caring for her family and home.
- A sister-in-law outdoors, likely at the park or on a walk with her two littles.
- My parents smiling in their living room, enjoying retirement and seeing their family.
- And then there was me—tired, clearly still in bed, clearly accomplishing nothing.
That’s how I saw it. In truth, no one said that. But comparison painted me useless in bold letters across the screen.
~Woe is meee 🐌💤 😜 ~
A Sermon I Couldn’t Speak
At church, I tried to answer a question on a bad pain day after a sleepless night. My words came tangled, incomplete.
I saw my husband’s face and thought, I’m taking too long. I gave up. Without tying my random thoughts together. And I gave him the microphone. He expertly gave a clear, concise answer that was perfectly on point. My effort looked weak next to his polish.
Comparison whispered: why even try?
Fredrik Backman once wrote:
“My brain and I, we are not friends. My brain and I, we are classmates doing a group assignment called Life. And it’s not going great.”
But here’s the truth: trying counts. Even stumbling words are a kind of courage.
The Math of Measuring Up Never Works: The Broken Ruler I Keep Using
Comparison is a thief. It always leaves you with less than you started.
It’s like weighing a feather against a stone and expecting the scale to balance it out. It demands a sameness life never promised. It blinds us to the worth in our own story.
As a people, we tend to magnify the strengths and blessings another person receives. But minimize our own gifts, talents and opportunities. Social media is as helpful as a screen on a submarine when it comes to perpetuating this problem.
There’s no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.
No one truly wins the “Pain Olympics”.
Living with chronic pain means my days will never look like someone else’s. But that doesn’t mean they’re lesser—it just means they’re different.
Brene Brown says:
Fear and scarcity trigger comparison and we start to rank our own suffering.
Brown calls this comparative suffering. She goes on to say,
The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough.
Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world
This toxic pattern of comparison blocks emotional processing and prevents genuine empathy, creating isolation rather than connection.
My worth is not judged by what I do in comparison to others, but by what I do with what I have—what love, what compassion, what presence I can offer. Even just in showing up.
Measuring By Love, Not Ladders
I’ve decided to measure my life by something else: in every conversation, I want the other person to leave feeling better about themselves than when we started.
If they do, then I’ve accomplished something real. It may not be a promotion, a trip abroad, or a picture-perfect moment. But it’s love, and it’s within my reach.
In such a headspace there should be no time for shame and comparing. Only felicitations and adulation.
Broken But Still Moving
Mandy Harvey is a singer/ songwriter. I saw her on an America’s Got Talent clip. Mandy lost her hearing when she was 18. Interestingly enough she has EDS which is similar to my connective tissue disorder.
On the show, she spoke about initially going to dark places. And when she decided she wanted more for her life, she wrote this song. And performed it in front of a live audience and judges and cameras.
She beautifully sings,
“I don’t feel the way I used to / The sky is grey much more than it is blue / But I know one day I’ll get through/ And I’ll take my place again… So I will try…
There is no one for me to blame/ Cause I know the only thing in my way/ Is me…
I don’t live the way I want to/ That whole picture never came into view/ But I’m tired of getting used to/ The day
So I will try..
Those words hold me when comparison tries to unravel me.
Forest Therapy: A Way Forward
If comparison is a thorn, forest therapy can be a balm.
The forest floor is messy. Layers of leaf litter, moss, dead wood. It doesn’t pretend to be clean and perfect. It is rich because of its imperfections.
Your struggles, limitations, pain give richness and texture to your life story—not flaws to hide.
Walking a path in woods, you may have to step over roots, navigate mud and stray branches. But each step gives you awareness, grounding, breathing space.
Comparison often makes us spin like leaves in the wind; forest therapy anchors us.
When comparison grabs tight, I go to the woods.
The forest does not compare:
- Trees don’t measure their height against one another.
- Moss doesn’t resent the ferns.
- Streams don’t ask why the river runs faster.
Each element grows where it is, as it is. That is enough.
Roots, Rituals and Small Resets
Here are ways the forest has supported me:
Leaning against a tree and letting its rootedness remind me that I, too, belong.
Listening to the birds until my thoughts soften.
Sitting by water and imagining my comparisons floating downstream.
From Forest Floor to Open Sky
Yes, I still compare. Yes, it still hurts. But when I remember that comparison steals joy, I find space to choose something else.
I may not be in San Diego, or London, or even fully awake at 9 a.m. (to those who are, Have as good a time as possible, given that I’m not there. Heehee 😊)
~Life said nope 🙃🍋~
I can still offer kindness, presence, and love.
And maybe that is enough.
I want to feel good about my life. Not in the sense of “as good as anyone else,” but as my life, full of the shape I have.
Chronic pain is part of the soil I grow in. It’s changed what I can do, yes—but also deepened what I can feel, what I can appreciate.
If everyone else seems to be walking on sunlit paths, I may be walking in dappled shade, or in a different time of day. But my path is still mine, and still worthy. Because even in the shaded parts of the forest, light still filters through.
SUNBEAM ACRES 