Once I was talking with an RCIA class alongside a Dominican brother and a Jesuit scholastic.

It sounds like a bad joke, but bear with me.

Dominicans and Jesuits both have a very developed spirituality and modes of prayer that are distinctive to their orders. The RCIA participants wanted to know what each thought of the other - dangerous question.
The Dominican brother glanced at the Jesuit, took a breath, and said the Jesuit spirituality is beautiful "but it's not for me."

"That's beautiful, but it's not for me."

I think this phrase is key.
To ending the mommy wars.
To lessening our anxiety.
To passing on the comparison game.

It acknowledges the Good

So often we try to defend why we don't do something by tearing down the choices of others. Saying things about why homeschooling, breastfeeding, day care, gluten-free, etc. is THE WAY and anything else is lesser. Or at least not ideal.

However, no one makes the choices they do just for kicks. There are reasons and purpose behind them. There is a beauty whenever something fits a person. Acknowledging that what someone is doing has that beauty is powerful for a very simple reason.

It releases us from the grip of Envy

Envy cannot live with beauty. Envy wants to be ugly. Envy wants to rip beauty from others and gobble it down to never see the light of day.

Envy is what causes you to avoid that one friend you keep comparing yourself against.
Envy is what tells you that someone's pretty pictures on Instagram are the real reason you are unhappy.
Envy says you are never enough.

Beauty says you are each doing your best.
Beauty says you are enough.
Beauty says you can be so much more yourself when you turn toward the light.

It respects our own gifts, choices, and needs

Saying "That's beautiful, but it's not for me" respects that you have made different choices because you have your own set of gifts, choices, and needs. That those aspects of you and your life are valid. That you don't need to run after every bright, shiny, thing that might just be the "best thing ever" for your friend.

This saying notices that preferences are ok. That God gave you the taste he did for a reason.
It allows the reality that some things are easier for some people than others. That some things might rank high on another person's "need" list, but not even make an appearance on yours.

You're off the hook! You both are!

"That's beautiful, but it's not for me" is how friends can be friends without being clones.

What do you think of this phrase? Have you used something similar? 

Women We Won't See

When women play the comparison game, I’ve noticed something lacking.
The women seen as “having it all together” have their own weak areas ignored by others in order for this idea of them as “put together” to continue. The women who are self proclaimed “hot messes” don’t often show their strengths to others. I think this is a combination of women choosing to limit what they display to the world in order to fit in, and others placing a woman in a particular category and holding her to it.

What this, oh so conveniently, does is flatten women. It removes her dimensions, her complexity. Because the comparison game only really works on caricatures of women, not on women themselves.

This is why the comparison game is so objectifying, but the thought processes that make it possible might even be considered healthy. Women tend to see mostly the positives in others, and the negatives in ourselves. When this acts as an incentive to learn new skills and grow, it’s great! But the comparison game grows out of the negative mental narrations that are stifled from action.
This plays out in mental narrations like this:

"She manages to homeschool AND show up to mass on time. Why can't I get my one kid's shoes on?"

"That family had a whole pew of kids sit through mass THE WHOLE TIME. Yet every Sunday is a wrestling match in my pew."

These mental narrations can only happen because we block out all the things that other person doesn't do/doesn't do well, and cognitively emphasize all the things we perceive as lacking in ourselves. We don't notice that the mom who is on time and well organized does not have kids wearing well coordinated outfits and the dirty dishes sit in the sink until after dinner.
We get in the habit of picking on our personal weaknesses, and ignoring those things that come naturally.

"I could never do that." That is the phrase that seems to closely follow the comparison narration.

In most contexts where I have heard this phrase, it has been uttered as a way of displaying humility, as a socially acceptable form of self-loathing, or as a way to place the person(s) who do such a thing in an othered category.

It's a truth and a lie. It is true that you might actually not have the skills to do said thing right now. You might have no inclination to do said thing (and if it's not a matter of faith and morals, don't feel like you need to do it!). But the "never" is the snag.

There is a spiritual danger to this thinking.

The Devil would love for women to believe that they can't. That they are not capable of living out their chrism while mothering. Of growing skills. Of confronting those things in themselves that are raw and tender.

Refusal to see the whole person is a refusal to live as the Body of Christ. A refusal to be Church.
We have to cut out the comparison game because it pulls us apart internally, it pulls us apart from each other, and ultimately it pulls us away from closeness with God.

How have you seen the comparison game play out in your own life? Does this resonate with you?