Celebrating the Success of Others!

How do you celebrate the Success of Others, when all you feel is anger, jealousy and resentment?

 

This is something that has been on my mind and heavy on my heart for the last few weeks. I am hoping I can explain all my feelings without sounding petty while I am doing it.  Wish me luck eh’?!

 

Have you ever had one of those moments when you feel like something was said or was placed in your life at that exact time for a reason? Well, this was one of those moments that spoke to my heart with brutal honesty and gave me some clarity on how selfish I was acting.  I like to watch a local show here in Utah called Studio 5. Each month Studio 5 has a theme and for whatever reason lasts month theme  of “Celebrate the Success of Others” really gave me something to think about and strive to become better at.

 

I had been reading this girls blog that is all about her recovery from an eating disorder. She is currently in treatment and has been since the fall.  There were days when I felt like she was telling my own story and then there were days where I just flat out envied her and the journey of recovery she was on. I felt angry that her story is not my own story, that my recovery looks so different from hers. Her recovery looked how I expected and wanted my recovery to look, but in the end it was very different. I felt angry that she got the one thing I wanted more than anything in this world!

 

Let me try and explain this as best I can…. I was not able to be an inpatient at the Center for Change. The cost of inpatient care is around $900+ a day. This was just not do-able for my husband and I. There was no way around it so we came up with a plan of what we could do. I was able to go to therapy once every 2 weeks and meet with both my therapist and dietitian on that day. That is all we could do at the time. I would read this girls blog and when she would say her treatment cost $150K , I would scream at her inside my head “why you?” and then I would realize how selfish that sounded and the guilt would set in for even thinking such thoughts when I do not know her personally. I would then ask myself the question “why not her, Kallie? Why do you think you deserve any more than she does? Is she any less worthy of help then you are?” and I  would quickly come back down off my selfish high horse.

 

When I heard the theme for the month on Studio 5 it pierced my heart because I could not see past my own envy for this girls amazing story. I could not celebrate her success even though I knew she deserved to shine for all that she had overcome. Here are some truths that were really profound to me. The first truth is this…SHE DESERVES to be there, even if I am green with jealousy. Even if I was jealous of what she had been given because it was something unattainable to me-She deserves it! That is the truth. But here is another truth – one that I had to dig deep to find and hear the truth it spoke to me….just because I couldn’t be at the Center for Change as an inpatient doesn’t mean I wasn’t worthy or that I was undeserving of the kind of help she was, or that I was unworthy of recovery.  I was WORHTY of it. I was ENOUGH, but due to circumstances my journey  just took a different path. That doesn’t mean I cannot celebrate her success and at the same time rejoice in mine. This girl and I’s struggle is one and the same but our stories are completely different in how we are obtaining the same goal. Both journeys are beautiful and unique in their own way but beautiful just the same. Neither girl is better than the other but both stronger for what they are overcoming on their journeys to health. My journey led me to Smitten. Which has led me to meeting some amazing people who I find so much strength in and I get to celebrate with them in their triumphs and success because I am genuinely happy for them.

 

 

 

I know that not everyone of you can relate to this post because it is about my eating disorder, but somewhere in your life you compare your success to someone else’s. You feel like you deserve something that someone else has that you cannot obtain. Or how many of us compare our HARD to someone else’s HARD? Instead of just realizing that hard is hard. This behavior will rob you of your joy. I encourage you to look at your own life and refocus your energy on your own beautiful journey because when we can see our path with more clarity, what others paths look like no longer matters. I also challenge you to find the truth of why you are feeling envious- more times than not I think it goes back to how valuable we feel we are and what our worth is. I believe that if we could all see our own bigger picture, the mission that is ours alone here on earth, we would never feel envy for others paths, for we would see that our roles here are intertwined and each essential as we try and make our journey home.

 

I have learned that by celebrating others success you will find that it does not take away from your own success but makes your own journey to success that much sweeter. Success to me isn’t about what we have accomplished or how many mountains we have climbed, but rather what have we done with all that we have learned on the journey, and who we have uplifted and inspired along the way!

 

Sometimes real strength comes from letting others sparkle and shine because they too, deserve it!!! xoxo

 

 

Kallie is the Creator and Editor of Smitten By.

You can visit her Etsy shop 

or read more about her HERE

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