From Pedestals and Pits to Balance: Why Comparison Steals Our Joy

Have you ever noticed how quickly your mood can shift when you compare yourself to someone else? One moment you feel good about yourself, the next you’re spiralling – either putting someone on a pedestal or silently throwing them into a pit.

The truth is: comparison is the killer of joy.

When we compare, we create a polarity in our minds. We’re either better or worse, higher or lower, more than or less than. That tug-of-war isn’t just emotional – it fires up the primal brain, leaving our body and mind on edge.

But balance is possible, and when we find it, our nervous system can finally relax.

“What I admire in you is also within me to a greater or lesser extent – I’m just too humble to admit it. What I resent in you is also within me, to a greater or lesser extent – I’m just too proud to admit it.”

The Fear of Loss: Putting People on Pedestals

When someone deeply supports or aligns with our values, or we admire them and want them to support us, we often put them above us. We admire them, crave their approval, and might even obsess over their presence in our lives.

Why? Because the primal brain sees them as a source of “supply” – the approval, validation, or love we believe we need to survive.

The problem? This dynamic creates the fear of loss. We start fawning, appeasing, or pretending, just to keep them close. It becomes a fantasy that this person should always live in alignment with our highest values, and never challenge us. But fantasies rarely match reality. When they don’t, we’re left disillusioned, resentful, or even depressed that the idea we had of them, doesn’t match reality.

The Fear of Gain: Throwing People in Pits

On the flip side, when someone challenges our values, our primal brain perceives them as a threat. We want to avoid this challenger at all costs. To our primal brain, they become the like a predator, and we feel like prey, running on the instinct to avoid them.

This triggers the fear of gain – the fear of being forced to take on what we don’t want from them - like their opinions, ideas, problems - financial health or otherwise, or their emotional “baggage”.

We respond by putting them “in the pit”, projecting judgement, effectively rejecting them, or even rallying others against them, in order to agree with you that they are wrong and you are right. Having to avoid this person takes a lot of energy and can contribute to having chronic anxiety.

Pedestals, Pits, and the Power We Give Away

Both extremes – pedestals and pits – drain us.

• Putting others on pedestals, we minimise ourselves into the pit, where we inject their ideas, values and way of life into our lives. This is where resentment grows, because we feel we sacrifice what we really want, for the sake of their approval.

• Throwing others in pits, we sit on the pedestal, maximise ourselves, projecting our values onto others, tell them how they “should be” and do whatever we can to avoid being forced to deal with this person who we find so challenging - including colluding with others against them.

In both cases, we lose sight of who we, and they, truly are.

Back to Balance

The key is remembering theses simple questions:

“What do I admire in you?" - It is also within me to a greater or lesser extent – I’m just too humble to admit it.

"What I resent in you?"- It is also within me, to a greater or lesser extent – I’m just too proud to admit it.”

When we see both sides of others, we are also able to see both sides of ourselves. This shifts us from the reactive, primal brain into the logical cortex – the part of us that can reason, reflect, and create.

The Benefits of a Balanced Brain

Living in balance changes everything.

• We stop obsessing over others.

• We stop comparing ourselves to them.

• We stop replaying how they hurt us in the past.

Instead, we redirect our energy toward ourselves and what we are here to create. And when we do that, everyone – including those we once pedestal’d or pit’d – benefits.