Blog
Better with Gwyneth Paltrow
by Alison Miller
May 27, 2011
Gwyneth Paltrow. She is everywhere. She is an Oscar winning actress mastering foreign accents. She is in dramas, huge grossing blockbuster action flicks, comedies, and smaller indie movies that are really good even if few people see them. She is on Oprah (okay no more, but she has been on Oprah many times). And the woman can sing. I mean really sing! She was on at least 3 episodes of Glee. And not just on Glee…she totally rocked it singing, Cee Lo’s Forget You (in a version I honestly prefer to the original). She performed at the Country Music Awards and has been in talks for a record deal. She has a great newsletter called GOOP (www.goop.com) where she tells you what you can make, where to go, what to get, what to do, how you can be, and what to see. She is in fantastic physical condition, engaging in Tracy Anderson’s challenging workouts and even helping Tracy launch a business bringing her fitness approach to women everywhere. Oh, and then she is a mom, a wife, and really into cooking and healthy living. Enough for you? It was for me. And then yesterday, I went to my mailbox and there in the place of some mouth watering cake, pasta dish or beautiful salad is Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of Bon Appetit! I quickly scanned the magazine wondering “Why is she on the cover?” Well why else? Apparently, she is a now a cook book author too! “Okay. Enough” my brain says. “Seriously, could you do more and be more?” I lamented in my head.
So my brain was willing to accept her multiple talents and accomplishments up until this point and then for some reason being a cook book author temporarily put me over the edge! My mind responded to this culinary news by telling me, “You are not enough.” Bear in my mind, that when I fall down the “not enough” rabbit hole, my mind never really has a clear sense of what “enough” would be. Rather, it just tells me that I am not enough which is clearly a problem. I know as human beings it is so easy to compare ourselves to others and feel inadequate in comparison. My initial reaction to Gwyneth Paltrow’s accomplishment was to react as if I am somehow less because of all that she is. I was reacting as if her success is better than my success and that her success somehow negates mine. As if there isn’t room for both of us to be who we are! It occurred to me a few minutes after my trip to the mailbox (aka my head trip!) that there is another way to look at the situation. In Tiara, we talk about the idea of “better than” vs. “better with.” These are basically two different beliefs/views we have about ourselves in relationship to each other. When I get caught in the “better than” trap, I get tricked into believing that self-worth and feeling good about myself comes from somehow being better than other people. And I allowed this month’s Bon Appetit to trigger me into feeling that I was somehow “less than” since Gwyneth Paltrow seemed so clearly “better than” me.
Then I remembered what we teach the women in our programs and what it is that I truly believe. I believe that we are “better with.” Our world would not work without each other or without living in a connected, interdependent world where we all offer and provide unique skills, abilities, and make varied contributions. We need variety and we need each other. And if we continually make a shift away from needing to be “better than” to being “better with” sharing what we each have to contribute, our world would be a better place. I can see that I am better WITH Gwyneth Paltrow as she is a source of inspiration to me. As I see her out in the world expressing herself fully and making contributions, I am reminded of my desire to do the same. And I do believe that the way I live my life and the choices I make have a positive ripple effect on many others just as many people impact me. I also do believe that Gwyneth would not have been able to accomplish all she has done and be who she is without communities of other people. I know she is “better with” because we all are.
Where are you vulnerable to comparing yourself to others and the “better than” mentality?
How are you “better with?” What difference does it make to you to shift to a “better with?” mentality?
Great blog Alison. I am better with colleagues that offer additional services – others that I don’t – for my clients. I just had lunch with a colleague who does something similar to work of our corporate consulting firm. And instead of doing a compare and contrast I see how I can embrace his specialty as a value add to our clients. I also think it might be easier to bring him to the conversation as an expert and allow me to stay unattached to a given solution. I’m better with his services. Thanks for the perspective.
Love this blog entry! I’m especially vulnerable to comparing myself to others and the “better than” mentality at work. In some ways, the academic setting contributes to the “better than” mentality — Who has the most published articles?, Who has the most grant funding?, Who has the highest teaching evaluation scores?, etc. I’m sure that there are comparable metrics in other work settings.
I find myself sometimes measuring up the faculty in my department to determine where I fall, sometimes resulting in feeling “better than” and sometimes feeling inadequate. This way of measuring up never really results in anything all that positive, and usually leaves me feeling worse. I love the idea of shifting to “better with” – and there is NO QUESTION that I am better with the students, faculty, and staff around me. You blog is a good reminder that I can catch myself in the “better than” mentality and choose to shift to “better with.” Thank you for that.
Lately, I’ve been working with a particularly challenging student with complex learning needs and a challenging personality. When I find myself frustrated with this situation, I have been trying to think of the good things that will come out of it — that I will be better prepared to work with other students with similar needs, for example. But that’s focused on me — what I can get out of this experience. I like the idea of a shift to “better with” which acknowledges this student as a person in my community, and someone who I’m walking with in this journey of life. And no matter how frustrating things sometimes feel, I truly to think that we’re both “better with.”
Thanks for sharing your perspectives, and for this opportunity to reflect on what this means for me.
This is a great post Alison. We are all better with! … and Gwyneth’s cookbook “My Father’s Daughter” is amazing – and the BEST baked mac & cheese you will ever have!
Alison, great post about the universal “not enough” worry. The antidote is to cease comparison and to continually work on developing ourselves and our lives so that our world, our relationships and especially our relationship with ourselves is so rich and satisfying that “not enough” shifts to “not enough time in the day to enjoy how rich my life is.”
I’m weeks shy of my 57th birthday and I can say without a doubt I am living the most exciting time of my life. Things are happening I never thought possible. I wish that for you Alison and for all your readers.
Johanna Nauraine, psychotherapist
http://www.johannascouch.com
Alison, you are a goddess. Such a simple pair of words– “better with” — and life-changing for me, if I can just remember to use them to replace that other pair of words I so often use as a weapon (“better than”). Thank you.