The Non-Comparison Penny...

A few weeks ago I began a new adventure.  A group of four of us headed to Indiana to a REFIT® training.  Two of us to become certified instructors and two already certified coming along because 1. they love REFIT® and 2. they believed in us. 

Now if your a friend of mine on Facebook this is old news since we blew up your news feeds with updates of our adventure but some of may still be saying "What in the world is REFIT®?"  It's a revolutionary fitness community. It's fitness with values and purpose. It's fitness for all. It's fun! And for me it's been life changing. Keep reading and I'll give you more.

So the four of set out with 10 hours of road ahead of us.  We all knew each other prior to our trip but some of our relationships didn't go beyond the instructor-participant and social media type friendships.  One of the ladies brought a "Chat Pack"; you know those cards with really random questions designed to get a group talking.  One of the cards asked something along the lines of "If you could take a pill that would cure anything (other than disease), what would it be for?"  One of the ladies said she wanted a pill so she would stop comparing herself to others, and well, no one else could top that.  We dubbed it the Non-Comparison Pill or NCP for short.  Well we didn't have pills to pass around but the Illinois tollways had us digging in our wallets quite often and pennies abounded. So when one of us would start feeling insecure or questioning ourselves, we'd pass them a penny. Our Non-Comparison Pills became Non-Comparison Pennies.

When we got home and my newly certified friend was going to teach her first song I gave her a stack of pennies. And when I was freaking out and questioning my ability to do this whole crazy overwhelming REFIT® thing, my friend told me, "Give yourself space. Don't burn yourself out before getting started. I believe in you and know you will figure out how this works for you. You do not need to try to make it work like me or anyone else. Just you...Grab a penny. Put it in your pocket and go think about something else for a while."

And it's funny when something so small and seemingly insignificant as a penny can have such a big impact on you. For weeks now I've been receiving the message about comparing myself to others everywhere I go. In my time with the Lord, in conversations with friends and this morning when someone shared a devotional called "No More Perfect Moms". It's so good and I urge you to click on the link and read it in it's entirety after you're done here.

The gist of it is this though: it's human nature to compare ourselves and it goes all the way back to Adam & Eve. They literally had the perfect life and yet they let Satan fill their head with lies and desire for more. And then they acted it on by eating the forbidden fruit and caused a domino effect that you can follow all through the Bible right into present day. We've been contaminated with the perfection infection.

How often we find ourselves wanting more. The perfect house, the perfect kids, the perfect spouse, the perfect job, the perfect body. And how easily we forget that perfect doesn't exist this side of heaven!It's so hard to be happy when we're always feeling discontent, envious and disappointed. Galatians 6:4 says "Let everyone be sure to do his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work done well and won't need to compare himself with someone else."

REFIT®'s theme for May is Modification. God says the way to rid yourself of envy is to modify your perspective.  REFIT® posted this on Facebook, "The ability to stand in someone else's shoes and understand their point of view isn't easy. Most of the time we navigate life through our own perspective, and our opinions, behaviors and decisions are based on what we believe, think and feel...Understanding someone else's perspective requires just that: looking at things from their point of view...or standing in their shoes to see what they see. Many people have a hard time doing this because, quite honestly, most of us live with a "me perspective". Here's a ‪#‎truthbomb‬ for ya: UNDERSTANDING someone else's position doesn't mean AGREEING with it. ‪#‎whoa‬ As we begin our ‪#‎ModifyMay‬ journey, we believe modifying our PERSPECTIVE is so very important. The next time you receive criticism or are in a heated conversation -- stop and put yourself in their shoes. Allow yourself to see things form their point of view and look for nuggets of truth. Want to know a secret? Most of life's conflicts can be resolved when understanding is the goal.."

My challenge to you is to stop comparing yourself! Put a penny in your pocket, modify your perspective and dance.  Our class motto is "It's about participation, not perfection."  

Find a REFIT® class near you here: http://refitrev.com/find-a-class/ or dance along with their YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/ReFitRev.

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