Is Envy Holding You Back?

You’ve probably been told from a young age that envy is an ‘ugly’ emotion. Everyone tells you not to feel it: your family, teachers, religion, and your friends all denounce envy as unbecoming. Something to be ashamed of.

In reality, envy is an important part of human evolution, and when harnessed with mindfulness it can help you to get where you want to go in life. It can even help you to help other people — really! A healthy dose of unmaliciously coveting what someone else has can propel you forwards in a positive way.

But being ashamed of feeling envious, and trying to convince yourself that you don’t ever feel it, can become limiting. When you squash feelings of jealousy by telling yourself they’re inherently bad, you miss out on an opportunity to learn from these feelings.

Get More Aware

Next time you feel a touch of envy, ask yourself these questions:

• What exactly do I feel envious of?

• Do I wish I actually had that thing, or is this envy symbolic of a deeper need or desire?

• Do I feel badly towards the person who has the thing I’m envious of?

• Am I actually quite pleased that they appear to have something good?

For example: you scroll through the Instagram account of someone who looks like they spend a lot of time in a bikini by a pool, or working on their handstand with carefree abandon. You feel envious.

Instead of leaving it at that, consider whether it might not be the bikini body or the pool or the handstand that you’re envious of. Is it actually the confidence that you’d like to have? The freedom to spend time in that way? The unselfconscious attitude that would allow you to do what you really want to do with your life?

If there’s something deeper there, you can learn from it. Your envy can be a mirror that reflects back at you your true aspirations and fears. And once you recognise them, you can work on them.

If You Know That Envy Holds You Back, You Can Change It

Envy holds you back when you let yourself believe that you feel this way because someone else has something you can never have. Feeling a bit jealous doesn’t make you a bad person; but allowing jealousy to become your primary emotional state will have a negative impact on your life.

How do you know if envy is holding you back?

It’s quite simple: envy is holding you back if, when you feel it, you are disheartened and demotivated. It limits you if seeing someone else’s success makes you feel that you will not be successful.  

Instead, if you can study your jealous moments to learn about what it is that you really want — on a genuine, deep level — then you can use envy wisely. It becomes a tool for recognition, and from there you can see what you need to do move on.

Envy can be part of a healthy method for self-reflection: as you begin to approach these feelings with conscious awareness, you can notice when and why you tend to feel jealous. And with that self-knowledge comes the ability to make positive changes.

#life #envy #actingpure #selfreflection