LL Ep 9
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Safrianna: So compersion and competition compersion versus competition.
Ikenna: I mean, yeah, that could be the title because we've experienced a lot of different messages and beliefs and understandings of how relationships work.
Safrianna: So compersion compersion is a word that I didn't hear until I was reading "More Than Two". That was my first introduction to the concept in general, which yes, the concept in general, because our society doesn't teach us to celebrate other people's accomplishments.
Our society really ingrained us in the whole division of competition,
Ikenna: Dog eat dog world.
Safrianna: Dog eat dog world, survival of the fittest. Like that's a lot of pressure. Really
Ikenna: Gotta be the best.
Safrianna: Gotta be the very best, like no one, every was
Ikenna: it's like, how about instead? And that's, that's the thing like with, um, with Pokemon, you have people that, you know, you can trade things with people sort of like so that you can help each other get to that level of,
Safrianna: right.
And I had a really interesting conversation earlier today about competition. And community, and we've become disconnected from community in so many ways like Pokemon. Okay. I'm sure there are people that play Pokemon that are cut throat as fuck and like probably don't make very many friends in it because they're being dicks, but like a game like that can be friendly competition.
It can be competition that's coming from a joyous place, a fun place. But that's not where a majority of our competition comes from. A majority of our competition comes from not feeling good enough and feeling like we have to strive to outperform other people.
Ikenna: Yeah. Or else those people are going to be preferred over us.
Safrianna: Right. And when we think that there's a scarce number of people that can achieve. Certain things, friendships, accolades rewards, you know, et cetera, and have limited access or scarce access to certain, resources, certain benefits, et cetera. Of course people are going to fight each other for them.
Ikenna: Yeah.
And as someone who. Struggled with socializing. It was one of those things that I actually ended up doing a thing where I would do these weird social experiments, where I would have, you know, this idea of. What are friendships? Like what, what do they mean for me? Do I have friends? Do they consider me their friend?
And do we have to officially state it? Like I am your friends now, right? Like where, where is the, where is the line of, I consider them an acquaintance versus I consider them a friend versus I consider them a best friend or a romantic partner. The labels of, it was such a thing for me.
Um, and there could only be like best friends, like one best friend or, you know, so like in a group of friends, I would strive to be that person's best friend. Okay.
Safrianna: And by striving, you probably inadvertently pushed people away.
Ikenna: I mean, yeah, because I would be very, I'd have like this anxious energy about me, of
like, I wasn't really present because I was constantly worried about and hypervigilant towards what people were doing and how it might be because I'm causing them to act that way. So it's like, for example, I had some good friends in high school and I was. You know, hell bent on becoming some of their like best friends.
And I remember going into, you know, classes with them and would just kind of observe their. Demeanor all the time. So if their demeanor was more open and excited and friendly towards certain people, and I noticed them having a different, like somber, less excited. Attitude or demeanor in front of me, re reacting to them or trying to, you know, how would they hug me versus how they hug other people?
Like I would start categorizing all of these different things and making assumptions on how those friendships were like, what this actually meant. And that ended up making me paranoid over what those people. You know, probably those people didn't actually give a fuck. They don't even realize what they were doing.
They were just like, you know, they could have had a low spoons day and have just been kinda cranky or something. And I was the first person that they saw and then they finally relaxed. And saw another person then was more open. And finally, like I of course would have my insecurity as if me being like I'm bad at making friends.
I'm not, I'm not good enough. All of those things and would latch those insecurities onto any behavior. That I would be like, that's proof to show me that I'm not good enough. That's proof that they don't like me as much as other people, even though it wasn't said, or, you know, so I was trying my best to interpret someone's body language, even though I really suck at interpreting people's body language.
Um, but yeah, that was, that was kind of like my. Experience. Yeah. All throughout my life
Safrianna: and just that stemming from scarcity. And I need to secure these friends right here right now, or there will not be enough friends to go around and fearing what labels mean.
Ikenna: Yeah. And if, and if I wasn't good enough, then they were going to find someone else that was better than me.
And then they would want to spend more time with them. Which would take away time that I wanted to spend with them. And it would just be this, you know, I would be in competition with these other people that were awesome people, but I felt like since I wasn't stepping up so to speak, um, then, you know, I would just be pushed out,
Safrianna: yeah. And I'm curious with, cause I'm not a particularly competitive person, but there are things where. I acknowledge people can do things more ethically or more with more integrity.
And so I want to do it that way. Example, I felt like there were a lot of crystal gurus, really taking advantage of people when crystals kind of became more mainstream and it looked very prescriptive. Like this is your relationship with crystals. It can't be any other way. This is what they mean. And also things that we're making false promises like, oh, if you buy rose quartz, people are going to automatically find you more attractive.
Ikenna: Oh yeah.
Safrianna: And it felt so predatory. So I was like, oh, I don't like that. And I know I can do this. So I'm going to do it better, better being, more aligned with integrity and truth and acceptance of each person's unique state of being, instead of saying like, this is how it has to be. Uh, but other than that, like competition-wise, I, I haven't really felt particularly competitive.
I did however struggle with compersion. So I guess we haven't really defined compersion at this point. So looping back around compersion is feeling happy for someone else's happiness. That's what it basically is at its core. And my first introduction to this was in more than two, which is a book on polyamory and ethical non-monogamy good text, problematic author.
So if you're, if you're looking to read any of the materials, I recommend the website more than purchasing something by him at this point. Because I don't know what the author has done to admit to his domestic violence. , but anyway, side note, But I hadn't heard of compersion until reading about it in polyamory, but it's something that we all need to have the capacity to do.
Ikenna: We all have, we all have the capacity for compersion it doesn't have to exist just in a. Polyamorous.
Safrianna: Or romantic
Ikenna: Or romantic sense,, right?
Safrianna: It's compersion is feeling happy that your best friend got a new job or feeling excited that your kid had an opportunity in school to do something that they love or sure that your partner has another partner and they're happy with them.
So you're happy for them. I don't understand. Well, I do, I do understand why it's such a difficult energy and it's such a difficult energy because of this illusion of division that we are separate, that there is scarcity that we need to compete for the love, for the resources, for the time, for the energy, for the money.
Instead of everybody being able to do what they enjoy and us being happy that they're happy.
Ikenna: Yeah. And I mean, you know, in, in talking with other polyamorous people and experiencing my own struggles is, you know, we also put, you know, in the polyamorous community, we placed compersion on this pedestal of like, this is the ultimate, like, you know, that you are a regulated, supportive, Prime partner for your other partner who is dating someone else or other people, if you're experiencing compersion for them all the time, like that's, you know, that's the end goal.
Like you want that to, well, I mean, that's how I read into it. When I was reading more than two was that was like the prime feeling that you want to feel like that shows that like the whole stigma, not stigma, but like the whole misconception that polyamorous people can be polyamorous because they're more quote, unquote, enlightened to not experience jealousy
it's like no people who are in polyamorous. Relationships are not immune to those things. Like you, aren't going to hit compersion immediately for some things. You're not going to, you know, you're going to experience jealousy and envy. You're gonna experience those. The, the thing about it is that if in a polyamorous situation and you value your partners autonomy, and being able to make their own decisions based off of, you know, they're safe, sane, and consensual with other people, whether that be in a sexual or romantic way, you are also responsible to communicate about your jealousy and envy and, and struggles that you're having.
and the compersion is not going to be constant. Like there's days that I have loads of compersion and just be like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then like, the next day I might be kind of like peopled out and like wanting more one-on-one time or not like as much group time. And, the compersion might not be as strong or it might not even be there.
so like the, the feelings of hanging out in a group is less optimal for me. And. All of these different terms of like jealousy , envy, compersion, and all of these things exist in the polyamorous community, but also in monogamous communities in every community. Yeah.
Safrianna: Every person experiences, joy, every person, experiences, fear, every person experiences, jealousy or envy.
And. Can feel compersion I mean, I, I imagine that there are some people who've never felt compersion, and that of course, stems from deeply ingrained societal fear. It deeply felt. Belief in scarcity. And it's very hard to be happy for other people. If you feel like you're never going to get anything for yourself, if you are in, you know, a really dark place.
So if you've never felt happy for someone else, I see you know, it's definitely a hard thing to step into if you're still not. Able to experience happiness for yourself.
Ikenna: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's kind of, if you, if you're insecure and struggling with like a lot of negative. Feelings towards yourself. Like, you know, when Safrianna was first starting to date Justin, I was really burnt out with grad school and the time that Safrianna and I were spending together, we were both very burnt out together.
And it wasn't a lot of quality time. Like we didn't have a lot of shared quality time together because we were, you know, so tired and our schedules were so different and she started dating Justin and his schedule works more with hers
And, it was kind of like I was seeing this, you know, her pie chart of time being delegated much differently.
Like there was a change in how time was being spent with different people. That was just something that really caused me to struggle. Cause I was like, I had the negative connotation that like, I'm not a great person to spend quality time with. Cause I'm so burnt out. So I am just going to be an emotional wreck all the time.
Or won't really be able to truly enjoy certain games together. Like, you know, we play Guild wars two and like, Th this past and Guild wars and this past, this past couple of weeks where I've graduated from grad school and the past week that I played with them, like I was actually on board.
like, I wasn't getting lost all the time. I was communicating consistently. I wasn't My mind, wasn't going off into other spaces. So I can tell that I'm, you know, picking up the pieces from the burnout of. Being in grad school. So it's like, while I was in the midst of grad school, it's like the burnout was constantly causing me to have a bunch of negative, you know?
Safrianna: Yeah. You were out of your window of tolerance. Yeah. It's if you're out of your window of tolerance, you're not going to be able to experience something like compersion right. You're just too burnt out. You're either depressed or you're anxious or you're oscillating between both. There's no room for the positive emotions.
Ikenna: Yeah. Like that was when I was desperate to feel compassion. Like I was like, you know, my w you know, w you'll experience how, like, you can logically understand something, but your emotions are not feeling the same way.
Um, and that in congruence can be very infuriating because you're like, can I like feel the same that I think like, you know, so it's like I shipped you and Justin, since I've met both of you and was like, this is going to be great if they ever start dating. Um, and you did. And then since I was so out of my window of tolerance, it was like, you know, my logic part was just like, they're happy, Andy, like, there's nothing wrong happening. Like you're, you're safe. , Safrianna is still, still, she still loves you. Like, you know, all of these different things and my emotions that were tied in from different, childhood traumas and events that made me feel.
Really anxious in my attachment, just and out of my window of tolerance. It just made compersion impossible, which then made me critical over the emotions that I was feeling, which then would cause this cyclical loop of like, if you validate and support your emotions, even if they, even if your logical rational side of your brain doesn't agree with them, or it's like, this doesn't make sense.
Why are you feeling this? Trying to take yourself out of that critical lens and being like, okay, the logic part, like go into this metaphorical waiting room while I like sit and support these obviously very upset emotions and feel them because the critical part will just not make you feel . They'll just be like
you know, fuck those emotions, they're stupid. And then that'll just make them more riled. And then you're just in this constant cycle of spiraling into this. Like I have these emotions and I hate that I have these emotions. I just really want to have this emotion instead. And I'm a piece of shit for not having this emotion and then nothing, nothing comes from it.
Safrianna: No one benefits. Yeah. And, you know, thank you for sharing that experience. And just taking it away from strictly a relational lens, a romantic relational lens here, because we were talking about polyamory. Like this exact energy can show up if going back to the job example, like your best friend lands their dream job.
Meanwhile, you're struggling. Maybe you're, maybe you're a mom or a parent and you know, you're, you're at home wrangling your kids and then go into a full-time job that you don't really love and you don't feel supported at home. And so even though, you know, logically. That it's so exciting that your best friend got this dream job.
You're out of your window of tolerance, struggling with all of your life struggles. And it's hard to feel joy for that friend.
Ikenna: Yeah. And you, and you know, there's, there's that, um, sometimes I hear people say this and it, it, it was. It was definitely a thing that I felt like, you know, saying to you at times I was like, it must be nice.
Like, you know, that's not a supportive statement at all. It must be nice as not supportive. Um, it's coming out of, and we, um, jealousy out of your window of tolerance, just, you know, desperate to also be experienced it because, you know, if you see someone in their joy and you're like, I want that. And it's like, , for example, for me, I was like, I really want like to have this many connections as, as Safi.
Like, I feel like Safrianna is having, more joy in her life because she has more, intense. Connections with people, but I am in a space where I don't have any time or spoons to either create connections or upkeep connections. So I was like bitter about the fact that even if I wanted that, I couldn't even try to explore that because I didn't have that ability.
So it's kind of like also kind of being upset over. Our circumstances versus the other person's circumstances,
Safrianna: right. Going back into that energy of, of competition. And the reality is like, we might not even actually want what the other person has. We just want the feeling.
Ikenna: Yes.
Safrianna: We want the, like when we see people that are more regulated than maybe we are at the time. It's, it's extremely challenging because we want to be at the stage that they are already, but our own development goes at its own pace. And you're not a person that wants genuinely to have as many connections as I have because that's draining to you. It might bring me joy to have that many connections when, when they're functioning smoothly and
not everybody's in crisis all at once, of course. But sometimes that happens sometimes that happens. And then I'm out of my window of tolerance. Yeah. It gets a little hairy, but, at the end of the day, anything that's coming from that place of
misaligned competition. Not again, not fun. Consensual.
We're gonna see who's the very best like no one ever was. We're going to play this board game. We're going to go for a hike and see who can climb the highest, but in a low pressure way, like yeah, everybody wins because we all went on a hike together.
Ikenna: Like how many pokemon we can catch.
Safrianna: Um, yeah, there's just.
So much that competition damages when it's coming from that place of, well, I want what they, they have, or I want to one up them. I want to be the winner, you know, when there has to be a winner and a loser, right. No buddy wins actually.
Ikenna: Yeah. And I mean, there's also this internal competition that we have.
It's not necessarily a, you know, we have like, these our idealized self, like for like, I'll be better I'll be better next time. I will have this capability to be able to work out for three hours a day for seven days a week, every day, eat super nutritious and be the hottest version of myself. Like, you know, we have these idealized, like, , after I finished this, chapter of my life, I'll be able to do this, this and this, or , once I hit the weekend, I'll, you know, there's so many
posts out there that people make of like, especially teachers they're like, oh yeah, like on Friday I create this huge plan for my weekend to get all of this stuff done. And of course, like the weekend happens and they're so burnt out that they have to use it to just rest
Safrianna: oh right.
And
then there, many teachers collapse on their vacation.
Ikenna: Right. And that's why they're, , several people who are in similar styles of jobs like that will in fact beat themselves up over the fact that their idealized self that would have completed those tasks. They weren't that idealized person in that moment. And so they were like, I'm a piece of shit because I wasn't that perfect person for myself, that day.
And that sort of thing happens in terms of like, if I was that idealized person, I would be happy, so it's that anxiety of, , if we put that pressure on ourselves to be a certain way, That day, then we're going to be upset at ourselves. If we don't hit that and then be angry at ourselves.
And, be critical instead of realizing and recognizing, Hey, I might've actually needed that rest. And I'm proud of myself for being able to recognize that that is, that is what I need. So it's kind of. In the moment of distress around wanting more connections, but actually not really wanting more connected, but wanting the happiness that, that you had in that moment, when you were in new relationship energy with Justin, it's like I could have stepped back, which is hard to do when you're, when you're out of your window of tolerance, but ideally it could have been.
Taking more time for myself. Like I think I went on a few like self dates where I was like,
Safrianna: and you did, you were much happier when you did that.
Ikenna: Yeah. I was like, I'm going to treat myself to a nice drink and I'm going to embrace like a hobby that I haven't or a topic that I haven't really allowed myself to explore.
Like I love outer space. So I got this like really colorful book, all about outer space. And I enjoyed that at a bookstore where I was just like reading facts and, having a delicious drink and was just at peace with the fact that, I was enjoying being with myself.
Safrianna: Yeah. And. Something, we talked about in our last episode about how you kind of never really know what another person's going through. And I know we use the example of, of weight, like weight loss or weight gain, and it's really dangerous to make a. Towards somebody who's lost weight. Like, oh, you look great.
You lost weight because we don't know why right now if they come to us and they're like, oh, I wanted to be healthier. Uh, so I started exercising more and I've just been feeling so great since I've been exercising. Like we can have compersion and be like, oh my gosh, that sounds great. Like, tell me more about how you're feeling because of this.
And we can kind of be in the excitement with them, but. If we're making comments, if we're coming from a place of competition for being passive aggressive, even like, we don't really know what the other person is going through. And I'm thinking of a time in my past where somebody basically hated me. Hmm. Like admitted to my face
like I hate you because they were jealous of the life that they thought that I was living and the life that they thought that I was living was not actually the life that I was living, but they didn't know that they just saw the surface, but because they were coming in with a competitive attitude of, I want what you have, even though I didn't really know what I had instead of even noticing the energy of joy there, wasn't an actual energy of joy.
But on the surface, it looked like I had everything together. So really tapping into what the other person's experiences I think is important. Like making sure we have the information, making sure we're not misunderstanding something.
Ikenna: Yeah. And I think this is actually really an interesting thing because we're so like, we've, we've had several episodes already talking about like, Don't push your desires wants needs on other people sort of thing, but it goes the other way.
If you notice someone being happy for some or enjoying something of a certain thing, for some reason, we have this, some of us have this desire to do that same thing, because we think that it's going to cause us to have that same level of happiness and enjoyment as that other person that's having it. So like, You know, it can be to the extent of this person has multiple partners and seems very happy, because they have multiple doting on them.
I want, that could be, could be true. Could not be true, but other examples could be, this person loves this type of food. Like this person really likes Indian food or whatever, and just raves about it all the time and they seem so happy about it. I really want to like that. I really want to enjoy that. And you go to an Indian place with them and you find out that it doesn't bring you the same joy that it does them.
And that can also be devastating. Cause you're like, I thought this was the key to happiness here. Like when you see people be happy, which we try to, like, instead of exploring it ourselves to see if we like it, we sometimes take what others are doing and are like, oh, that's, that must be the answer. Must be the answer to why they're happy.
And that's not usually the case. Um, which is, you know, kind of fascinating thinking about it because that's literally what I've, I've done. Like in my life of being like, oh, this person's happy in their career. Like, you know, maybe it's this, I need to be in the same career. Yeah. And.
Safrianna: I feel like this is a good place to stop.
Ikenna: Yeah.
Safrianna: But I want to just come back around to the idea of division. Cause that's my, my big thing that I talk about is this illusion of separation and division. But there's this really interesting counterbalance in that, which is that we find our joy from within ourselves as an individual.
And we are most happy and content as a society when we can support the joys of other people and allow them their own experience. But it starts from within like our joy starts from within and only we as an individual, have the power to figure out what brings us joy.
Ikenna: Yep.
Safrianna: And then we can support others in their joy to yep.
Ikenna: Cause we can't off. We can't provide the joy to others as much as we would like to, if they are not in a receiving space of joy, you can try your darndest to give them joyful experiences. But if they're in their head about. Being insecure, being upset about other things. Like they're not going to enjoy it.
Safrianna: Yeah. And seeking answers outside of ourselves. Never really gives us the answers we're looking for. And that's why we, we need to be able to figure out what we're happy with in ourselves because I love what I love. And I accept that about myself and you love what you love. And I accept that about you.
There's no division in that. I don't have to like the same things that you do, but I can support you in that. And that's going to bring us closer together versus me trying to force you to like what I like or me trying to force myself to like what you like, because I see it bringing you joy. And I think it's going to bring me joy.
Good Lord. The things that bring you joy, some of them would never bring me joy. I.E. Overwatch.
Ikenna: Yeah.
Safrianna: And originally I was jealous that you found so much enjoyment in that, because I wanted to experience that with you. And I wanted to have the kind of fun that you had with that. But it's not for me. So instead I was able to feel it, feel the compersion
when you finally found somebody who loves playing it as much as you do, and you get to connect with them in that way. And it doesn't diminish the fact that we can connect over other things, right. We're not separate.
Ikenna: Right. And then there are also things that we connect with where your level of happiness and like investment in something as like a hundred percent fully into it, like Guild wars and mine is like
80%. Like I'm there. I enjoy it, but I can tell that I don't enjoy it as much as you, but it's, it's enough enjoyment for me that where I'm like, I still want to participate. I still want to be a part of it. Let me know when it's happening. Like, I still want to know the story, but it's not, you know, if you could play it every day and get your dailies, like
Safrianna: I would,
Ikenna: you would.
Safrianna: And if you could play Overwatch everyday, you would. Usually do at least one game, but anyway, yeah. So enjoying what we enjoy looking within for the answers and accepting that we are simultaneously an individual and a part of a collective that a collective community that can experience joy for one or another.
And that's going to be so much more healing than striving and competing to be number one or to have something that someone else doesn't have that doesn't benefit.
Ikenna: Right? Cause if we a collective being in happiness for ourselves and each other is only going to build the connections, whether it be metaphorical or literal with , all of us compared to the competitive nature that like tries to.
Safrianna: Like cut the connection. Right. And rank us, you know, it just never works.
Ikenna: Nope.
Safrianna: Well, it was one that was fun.
