Insides to Outsides

We’ve all heard the saying “don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle” (or end, or basically anything other than their beginning). True, and fair. Today’s let’s add a twist to that by looking at comparing our Insides to someone else’s Outsides.

Insides

We know everything about ourselves. From our outward appearance all the way to our deepest fears, anxieties, absurdities, raw bits, and everything delicate. What’s more, we think of these deeper parts as our “selves” more than anything else, and that surely we are more of those things than anyone else. After all, we live in our heads 24/7 so this is a natural way to view ourselves.

Outsides

We don’t have the privilege of being even a visitor in anyone else’s head. Instead, we only see what they present, and then we are left to our perception and interpretation of whatever that is.

Insides to Outsides

This leads to an asymmetry of knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of others. And, of course, we compare whatever we come up with (their Outside) against our full knowledge of ourselves (our Inside). Thank you very much, Psychological Asymmetry. This mismatch in datasets leaves us typically feeling terrible.

Imperfection

This speaks to our feelings of imperfection. We all know that nobody is perfect, yet we still get stuck in the Compares, as if suddenly perfection is all around us.

Here are Anne Lamott’s thoughts on Imperfection.

“Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy. Even (or especially) people who seem to have it more or less together are more like the rest of us than you would believe. I try not to compare my insides to their outsides, because this makes me much worse than I already am, and if I get to know them, they turn out to have plenty of irritability and shadow of their own. Besides, those few people who aren’t a mess are probably good for about twenty minutes of dinner conversation.

This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me. They can be real with us, the greatest relief. As we develop love, appreciation, and forgiveness for others over time, we may accidentally develop those things toward ourselves, too.”

– Anne Lamott, Almost Everything

Liberation

It is time to set ourselves free – WE ALL FEEL THIS WAY!

As introverted as I am, one of the first things I find myself doing when I’m in a new, awkward situation is that I get chatty. I make a friend or two. In doing so I not only ease some anxiety but it forces the Inside to Outside balance to a better spot by more closely aligning my Insides to the Insides of others. Do you do that, too?

Posing Class

My best example of chatting it up to ease the asymmetry shows up at posing classes, especially as a newbie. Imagine walking into a room full of beautiful ladies in bikinis, spankin’ hot bods, working the walks and poses together. Sass, attitude, poise, confidence – it’s the order of the day. Holy crap. These ladies are FIERCE! Then here I am fumbling to get my shoes on right and figure out how to stand up straight.

Would this give you a serious case of the Insides versus Outsides?

YES!!!

So I say hello to someone and ask a few questions, sharing how awkward I feel. I find out that they’re pretty new, too. They have a show coming up. The next person chimes in. The most experienced person in the room turns to help others. It turns out to be the most welcoming group ever – a bunch of mostly naked ladies invested in each other.

Who would have known that by looking??

Share

This human feeling is integral to our growth. The next time you’re feeling the Compares, pay attention. Are you truly comparing apples to apples, or is it a likely case of Insides to Outsides? Do you have a close person you can get really vulnerable with and share all your weirds? Sharing this stuff helps so much!

It turns out, we are all a lot more alike than we think – aka, we aren’t all that special/weird/different after all! I’m going to think of this every time I get stuck in my head, spinning, comparing. Insides to Outsides, step aside. Dive in, be bold, everyone else has their own version of the same thing going on, too.

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