Episode 263: Energy Leak: The Dangers of Comparisonitis
How does the old saying go? “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
We all understand what this means, and we all understand what comparisons do to us.
In this episode, we explore how Human Design can help shift and reframe the stories and narratives developed through comparisonitis and reset the damage caused over the years.
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“Realize the ways that you’ve been conditioned, and use your Human Design in your pursuit of self-discovery to undo the layers of stories and narratives that you’ve developed over the years. ”
Read the Transcript:
How does the saying go? “Comparison is the thief of joy.” I think we all understand what this means, and we all understand what comparisons do to us.
Today, I'd like to dive into comparisonitis and look at how Human Design can help reset the damage that years of comparisonitis have done to us.
But first - Hello, if we've never met, my name is Naomi Nakamura. I’m the host of The Live FAB Life Podcast and am so happy to be here with you.
The past few episodes have been on energy leaks - how we unnecessarily waste our energy and how we restore it. Today, I want to talk about the energy leak that is comparisonitis.
At some point in your life, you've probably had someone, a parent, teacher, partner, or co-worker, tell you, “Why can't you be more like <insert data-preserve-html-node="true" someone's name>? A sibling, friend, classmate, another co-worker.
It’s human nature to compare one to another.
Think about the “who wore it best” columns in the magazines. We scrutinize and compare famous people to each other all the time.
But let's take a step back and consider how we feel compared to someone else.
We don't like it, at least I don’t, and yet we do it so easily and often - not just comparing people to others, but also ourselves to others.
How does it make you feel?
Speaking from personal experience, when I’ve been told, “Why can't I be more like
When we try to do this for a prolonged period, we eventually lose ourselves. We lose our authenticity and forget who we are.
And the reality is this starts at such a young age. I remember being naughty as a child and having my caretaker say, “Why can’t you be more like
These experiences stick with us, especially when we're told these things repeatedly.
Not only does it make us not feel good, not only does it make us self-conscious, but we also end up with low self-esteem. We have no idea who we are because we spend so much time trying to be someone we're not.
Ultimately, we end up doubting ourselves. And when we doubt ourselves, we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust our judgment. We search for validation from others. Self-trust is lost.
This is not how happy, confident, and content people live. Happy, confident, and content people love themselves, trust in themselves, and believe in themselves. No one is always happy, but this is what we all aspire to be. And we all have a right to feel this way.
We are all deserving of it.
Unfortunately, the comparisons we’re subjected to lead to stories and narratives we form in our perception. And for many of us, this starts at such a young age, and we carry these perceptions with us for a lifetime.
It’s no wonder it takes a lifetime to undo - a lifetime to unpack, release and reframe those stories, those narratives, those perceptions. And as we go through that process, we can be left unaware of who we are. Just who are our authentic selves?
And this is where Human Design comes in.
There are so many ways that our Human Designs could help us on this journey, but today, I’m going to touch on five ways, but understand these aren’t the only ways.
These five are some, but not all, of the ways that Human Design has helped me unpack some of the conditioning from comparisonitis because, as you know, this podcast is about real people's stories. And when I do a solo episode, most often than not, it's my “real people” story.
So let’s take a look at these five parts of my Human Design that helped me to unpack some of the narratives that I was told that shaped my self-beliefs.
I grew up believing I wasn’t creative because I wasn't good at art class. I couldn’t draw. I’m a left-hander who initially had right-handed scissors so that I couldn’t cut things well. My school projects looked terrible compared to my classmates. So, I developed a belief that I wasn’t a creative person because art class was how I defined creativity.
Of course, once I got scissors made for left-handers, my art projects improved, I’d already developed the belief that I was not a creative person, and I carried this with me throughout most of my life until I began to realize that creativity isn’t just art projects. Creativity shows up in many different ways. In hindsight, I can see how this belief held me back in many ways.
But as I’ve learned my Human Design, I learned that I have an Undefined Head Center. This means that I’m inspired by things external to me. So with that, there is no shortage of inspiration, and I’ll never run out of creative ideas. In this sense, I’m naturally creative.
Understanding that I have an Undefined Head Center has helped me reframe what creativity means and what it looks like. It’s helped me shift my narrative around my creative abilities.
I grew up believing I didn’t have any athletic ability. I wasn’t good in PE class. I'm sure those of you who are close in age to me remember the Presidential Physical Fitness Test - I was terrible at it. My 50-yard dash was so slow and I couldn’t do a pull-up (and I still can’t today).
But because of all this, I grew up believing that I wasn’t athletic and not good enough to do sports, so I never even bothered to try. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fast forward to adulthood, I worked with a trainer and began understanding what being active meant and what I could do.
My confidence grew as I got stronger and developed more athletic abilities. Before I knew it, I was training for half marathons and marathons, and I discovered a part of myself that I never knew was there. I reshaped the story I’d told myself that I wasn't athletic.
But here's the thing, I was still slow. And I didn't know I was slow until I joined the running community on social media, where I met fast runners. Once again, I found myself comparing myself to them. And in a sport where you're rewarded for speed, my self-esteem again took a hit. And this wasn't that long ago.
But then learning about how the Sacral Center is the center of lifeforce energy - the physical energy that sustains life - and that in my Human Design, I have an Undefined Sacral Center, which means that this Sacral, lifeforce energy isn’t available to me all the time, suddenly it clicked.
Long-distance running isn’t on my race card, pun intended, because that lifeforce energy isn’t always available to me. This helped me reframe the narrative I’d been telling myself where I was not a good person or a good enough person because I wasn't a fast runner.
The Root Center is a pressure center. It’s the energy of drive and forward progress. Having an Undefined Root Center means I don’t do well under pressure. I can be easily overwhelmed by deadlines and by pressure.
As you can imagine, working in the fast-paced tech world, there are a lot of aggressive deadlines and pressure. Early in my career, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to manage it. There was a period when I thought I wasn't good enough because I couldn't keep up with the pace of how things were expected to move.
But now I’ve been in this industry for 20+ years, and I’ve learned how to adapt and operate in a way that meets the demands that don't leave me completely burnt out.
But learning that I have an Undefined Root Center and don't have the constitution to work like some of my peers do when I go into my annual performance review. I'm compared to my peers because, unfortunately, that’s how we’re evaluated in the corporate environment.
Our salary increases, promotions, and career advancements are largely determined by how we compare to others.
Knowing what I know now about Human Design, I’ve been able to be a stronger advocate for myself in those kinds of conversations, and it's really helped open the doors of communication between my colleagues and me in terms of setting and managing expectations in ways where we can still move things forward and get things done.
This has brought a broader awareness of how we all function differently, and by understanding how I'm designed, I've been able to be a better support to others, even though they don't know anything about Human Design.
It’s been empowering to say, “This is how I'm built, and if you want the most out of me, work with me in this way.
The Heart Center is the center of will, ego, and with your will - competitiveness, sense of value, and self-esteem.
Those of us with Undefined Heart Centers are susceptible to accepting less because we think we don't measure up. We tend to accept less regarding money, career, love, and happiness. We struggle with our sense of worth.
Learning this part of my design was huge for me. I can now quantify and put words behind things I felt my entire life that directly reflect having an Undefined Heart Center - all of the ways I've compared myself to others. Every time I’ve been told, “You should do it this way.” “Why can't you be more like
Learning about this part of my design put everything into perspective, and I realized that I have nothing to prove.
My success isn't driven by achievement, which has been huge, huge, huge in helping me to unpack some of the ways that I’d been subjected to comparison-itis from a very early young age.
And then there’s my Undefined G-Center. The G-Center is about identity and direction in life. Having this center undefined means that my sense of identity is adaptable to who I’m with, so I can easily get lost in someone else's identity.
When I talk about understanding who I am with my friends who have a Defined G-Center, they have no question about who they are - they know who they are. This is fascinating because I can get lost in other people and lose sight of who I am.
It's taken me a long time to get to know myself. The real me. The authentic me.
If you have a Defined G-Center and you're listening to this, you might not be able to relate, but if you have it Undefined, you might finally feel like you're being seen and heard for the first time! I understand feeling lost, unsure of who I am, and afraid of copying others, even though we say that imitation is the best, highest form of flattery.
I don't want to copy others. I've shared in past episodes that I'm careful about who I follow on social media.
I'm careful about the words I choose and who I allow myself to be influenced by because I’m aware that I’ve tended to take aspects of other people’s identities, and I don’t want to do this. I’ve never wanted to, and I didn’t understand it until Human Design.
So if you also have an Undefined G-Center and you’ve felt this way too, know that it's perfect; there's nothing to feel bad about.
This is how I feel about my entire Human Design. Learning about how I’m designed is reassuring, validating, and invaluable in helping me break down the stories I developed about myself from a young age, which aren’t true. They're not it's actually not true.
They’re just stories from a comment someone made in passing that stuck with me and formed my narrative of how I viewed myself. But they’re not true - they’re only true if I let it be - if I try to be something I’m not.
What I perceived to be flaws aren't actually my flaws. Instead, it's actually who I am, and these are things about myself to be celebrated because I'm not meant to be someone who has all the drive and stamina.
I'm not designed to be strong under pressure.
I'm not a competitive person.
And you know what, not being these things doesn’t make me a bad person. It doesn't make me any less of a person. It makes me, me. It’s what makes me unique.
And those people who have those things - they're not bad people for having those things, either. It’s who they are.
And I would really like society to stop the comparison game.
I know this is wishful thinking. It'll never happen. I don't understand the need that we have to compare women against other women. Or why we compare ourselves against others. I really don’t want any of us to do this.
Let’s celebrate who we are and not compare ourselves to others.
And so my takeaway for you is that as you learn more about Human Design, as you learn about your design, and as you process it and realize the ways that you've been conditioned, and as you go through the process of undoing those things, which can be a lifetime, use your Human Design in your pursuit of self-discovery as you undo the layers of the stories and the narratives that we've developed over the years. Ultimately it’ll lead to our personal growth.
So that's it for this week. As always, I thank you for your energy and your time and your attention, and we will see you right back here again next time. Bye for now.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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