Hey, their friends. Welcome back to Live Free Creative podcast. You’re listening to episode number 237: Professor Envy. Today’s show is going to be about the lessons that we can learn from this emotion of envy, which we also sometimes call jealousy.

I’ll talk about the definitions in a little bit. It may seem weird to learn a whole lot from negative emotions, which we’ve been habituated to believe are things we should just avoid, or if we’re feeling envious or jealous that we just need to get over it or there’s something wrong, stop comparing.

Research shows that there’s some upsides to envy, and we can learn some things about ourselves through the process of recognizing things that we desire out in the world that may not already be part of our everyday lives. I’m going to share a little bit more about that today, some personal examples, and hopefully you’ll have a better grasp of how to take advantage of learning opportunities that may come because of negative emotions.

Even if the negative emotion itself doesn’t feel great, there may be something behind it that you can learn from. Before I jump into the episode, I wanted to share this week’s segment, which is going to be a few peaks of the week.

Segment: Peaks of the Week

If you’ve been listening for a while, Peaks of the Week are just a few of my favorite things lately, and this is a chance for me to share them with you.

1. Fresh Flower Subscription

The first peak of the week this week is Fresh Flowers, and I’ve indulged. In subscribing for Mother’s Day, I bought myself a fresh flower subscription from the Bouqs.

If I rewind a little bit, I’ve always loved fresh flowers. I usually buy them when I go grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. They have great flowers, a pretty good selection, very affordable flowers. I like arranging them myself, so it’s fun. I took an incredible spring centerpiece workshop last week at a local shop called River City Flower Exchange.

They have locally grown, locally sourced flowers, cut flowers, which are beautiful, and they sell mostly wholesale. A couple days a week they’re open for retail and then they collaborated with Rea from Photosynthesis Floral, which is an incredible flower design company. And Reah is the owner here in Richmond.

I was really excited about the workshop. I went and had a fantastic time and just got this bucket of flowers and some great instruction on arranging and some tips and tricks and came home with this exquisite flower bowl of flowers, basically like this centerpiece, which I can’t use as a centerpiece because I have cats.

I put it on my mantle where the cats and dogs can’t reach it, and it’s just blooming still. It’s been about a week yeah, exactly a week, and the flowers are just opening, and they were gorgeous florals to begin with, but then having them. Arranged in kind of this asymmetrical wild way has been so fun.

Reminded me how much I love flowers. I haven’t been doing a lot of grocery shopping because Dave’s in charge of food this year while I’m in graduate school, so I haven’t been going and getting flowers. And on top of that, I’ve been gone a lot. Now that I’m going to be home for a little while, back in the rhythm of things, I realized that I just want to have flowers delivered.

So, I subscribed to the Bouqs Co. It’s an online sustainable floral business, and they have a subscription where you can have flowers delivered monthly. I’m going to arrange them myself, so they’ll just come the cut stems once a month and hilariously, I ordered it and then the next day I saw an advertisement for it.

And I didn’t remember if I, if my order had gone through, if I had finished it up. So, I ordered it again, and then when I went into my subscriptions, it turned out that I had subscribed twice, so I had to cancel one of them. I haven’t gotten the first delivery yet. I think it will come next week, and I’m excited to just sit back and enjoy fresh flowers delivered to my house once a month for the near future.

At some point, maybe after I finish my capstone, after the kids go back to school in the fall when things settle down in my everyday life, I may go back to just buying flowers locally myself. For now, I’m so happy for the ease of just knowing that beautiful, fresh flowers are going to show up once a month and I can just be excited and wait for them.

2. Amazon Photos (and Backup Bootcamp -use code LIVEFREE for $10 off!)

My second peak of the week is Amazon photos, and more specifically having organized photos within Amazon photos. Because of my relationship with Miss Freddy, I’ve talked about Miss Freddy’s backup bootcamp before I even have a discount code. If you go to the show notes, I don’t remember it right now, but if you go to the show notes, it is linked there, and I’ll make sure it’s linked again this week.

This past week was birthday week. I have. Milo’s birthday on May 1st, Dave’s birthday on May 3rd. It feels like a lot of birthdays and it’s so fun to celebrate them. And one of the things that I find myself doing on birthdays is wanting to go down memory lane a little bit and look at old pictures. So specifically on Milo’s birthday, I went back into Amazon photos because we had Miss Freddy helps us organize all our digital photos.

I can go into Amazon Photos, select 2009–which is when he was born, and all my digital pictures are organized by month. In the year folder of 2009. It is unbelievable. I can do this for any year up until 2020, which is, I think when I asked when we had Miss Freddy’s help initially, and I haven’t done a lot of maintenance, so this is my reminder to get back on top of my photo organization in an ongoing way.

3. Tepache Beverage

It’s a new beverage that I’ve been seeing around in some of my favorite local markets here in Richmond. It’s called Tepache. It’s a drink like kombucha in that it’s a fermented beverage. However, instead of being fermented with whatever kombucha is fermented with, Tepache is fermented with pineapple.

It’s a Mexican, I think it originated in Mexico. And the brand that I’ve been buy buying is De la Calle. It’s there’s like a whole line of amazing flavors. Mango chili. Orange turmeric, pineapple spice, grapefruit lime. I’ve tried a lot of them so far and I really love them. They’re super light and bright tasting and refreshing.

They are fermented. So, they’re super low in sugar, but high in flavor. They have lots of antioxidants. If you see one on a shelf somewhere in a local market or grocery store, give it a try. I think that you might like it. I am. I’ve been really loving it. So that’s what I’m probably going to be drinking all summer long.

I haven’t ordered it online yet. I know you can order it at delacalle.mx, like dot Mexico. There’s even a subscription. I haven’t gotten into that yet. I just buy it locally and so far, that’s been amazing. So, Tepache, who knew?

Fresh flowers, organized photos, and pineapple fermented beverage. Those my friends, are my peaks of the week.

What we can learn from Envy

I’m so excited now to dive into this discussion. We’re going to come to class and learn from Professor Envy today. First, I think it’s important, this distinction between jealousy and envy. It’s something that I didn’t realize until I was reading Atlas of the Heart, the newest, I think Brene Brown book where she goes over the, these buckets of emotion.

They’re separated by type, and the idea behind Atlas of the Heart is introducing us to the language. If we have a common language around how we feel, then we’re better able to navigate relationships. We’re better able to understand ourselves and the world. And one of the things that I’ve heard Brene talk about in interviews about Atlas of the Heart was how the distinction between jealousy and envy was confusing to her until she did this research.

What is the difference between Jealousy and Envy?

And that even knowing that they’re different, that she’s going to continue to use the word jealousy even when she means envy, which I think is funny and maybe goes against sort, the idea that we need to use common language around these words. However, here are from. Atlas of the heart and there seems to be some consensus in emotional, emotion-based literature and research as well.

Envy occurs when we want something that another person has. Jealousy is when we fear losing a relationship or a valued part of a relationship that we already have. Let me say that again. Envy is when we want something that someone else has that we do not currently have. Jealousy is when we fear losing a relationship or a part of relationship that we already have.

Let me go a little bit deeper in these definitions. Envy typically involves two people and occurs when one lacks something enjoyed by the other. Jealousy typically involves three people and occurs when one person fears losing something to another person.

So, an example of jealousy might be, A child feeling jealous of their sibling because the sibling is getting more of the parent’s affection and attention than usual, and the child wants it for themselves. Maybe they normally have a certain level of attention and affection when it’s starting to go. More if a new baby’s born in a family, for example, this is a very sweet form of jealousy, but that a toddler will be jealous of the baby because mom’s attention is now divided. So, there’s a three-person dynamic involved with jealousy.

Jealousy in research and emotion literature typically comes up in romantic relationships and sexual relationships. This is talked about a lot. How to invoke jealousy that people often are intentionally creating jealousy by withholding things from one partner and giving them to another partner.

You can imagine a relationship dynamic where someone maybe is dating and they want to make the other jealous, and so they give some affection to someone else in the presence of their boyfriend or girlfriend to incite jealousy. It’s a triangle. Jealousy is more of a triangle and envy is more of a balance.

If you think of a scale of justice and where one person has something that the other person wants, this balance scale is off. It’s just a two-part kind of hovering teeter-totter. That’s the balance of envy. Those are the research-based definitions of envy and jealousy.

Today we’re going to talk about envy, not about jealousy. Brene Brown says, I’m still going to use the word jealousy when I see a friend go on vacation and I say, oh my gosh, I’m so jealous of that cool vacation you just had. What she really is envious. And she said, I’m just going to say jealous, because that’s the way that we use these words.

Getting comfy with Envy

Take it for what it’s worth, there is a definition, and I’m finding myself feeling more and more comfortable with the idea of envy versus jealousy because I’m understanding it more, and because envy does have some benefits. If I think about it from the Professor Envy standpoint that I’m going to talk about today, then I can feel more comfortable with it.

It doesn’t feel like an all-bad thing where I’m feeling ashamed of. Being envious rather than I’m learning from it. And those are important distinctions. To go a little bit further on the definition of envy.

What 3 Things Make us Envious?

Now, envy is usually attributed to one of three things.

One is attraction, physical appearance, romantic attractions, social popularity. Those are all things that other people may have that we want.

Number two is competence. Intelligence, knowledge, career advantages. Those are also things that we may see in other people’s lives that we lack in ours and that we want.

And the third tends to be wealth, financial status, or lifestyle. So, attraction, competence, and wealth are all things that seem too often weigh heavy on the other people have this and I don’t side of the envy scale.

Historic Reflections on Envy

Stick with me for a moment while we go all the way back to Aristotle. I’m sure you’re familiar with Aristotle. He was an ancient Greek philosopher. He was born almost 400 years BC and we still rely on a lot of the initial thoughts that were recorded that he had regarding physics and biology and metaphysics, and logic and ethics, and so many things, including envy.

I’m going to tell you a little bit about what Aristotle talked about with regards to envy. An important characteristic that Aristotle noted about envy is that it’s experienced mostly towards similar others with whom competition is reasonable and not towards others who exceed the envy by a large margin.

So, the idea is that we most often feel envious of people who have things that seem reasonably within our ability to attain, but that we simply lack at this moment. I think this is so interesting, and I can see this in my own life. I’m going to talk about wealth for a moment. I tend to feel more of the imbalance of envy in my life with people whose wealth or their, my, my perception of their wealth.

Of course, we never know what’s really going on for people, right? But my perception of someone’s financial security is close to me. Like they’re, they live in my neighborhood, or their jobs are like mine and to Dave’s. They feel like maybe just outside of our comfort level or just right outside of like that, something that we’re striving for but not quite there yet.

That feels more like envy to me than, for example, Elon Musk or Kim Kardashian. I don’t sit around musing about how envious I am of the multi-billionaires of the world or even the multimillionaires of the world, people who are so far outside of the margin of what feels reasonable to me or like me. I’m not very envious of those people. I just ah no, like it, it doesn’t even a factor into my mindset where people who are more like me, who are just beyond just in the place that I’m aiming for, but I’m not there yet. I feel more envious in those circumstances.

Does that feel true for you too? This is what Aristotle taught about envy, that it was, we were more likely to feel envious of people who were like us than people who were so far outside of our competition, given this easily imaginable alternative reality. Where we could possibly have what someone else close to us or like us has.

Two Ways to Even the Envy Scale

That’s where we feel this gap. And that gap is what causes the envy. That’s the tilt of the scale. And there are two ways that scale can be evened out. Can you think of what they are? This is the difference between Professor Envy and malicious envy. Professor Envy in the research is called benign envy and malicious envy in the research is called malicious envy.

Imagine a scale tipped a little bit. I’m thinking of one of those like old fashioned metal scales that have like the triangle in the middle, and there’s the bar across the top and the two hanging baskets. And one basket, let’s say, has three gold bars in it, and the other one has two. How do we balance out?

How do we close the gap of the difference if we’re staying within the realm of the scale itself?

There are two ways. What does malicious envy want to do? Malicious envy–the three bars on the other side and says, if I take away one of your bars, then we’ll both have two and the scale will be even, and the envy gap will have closed.

Malicious envy is aimed at pulling down the envied person from their superior position. Malicious envy is when we see that someone else has something we want, and we wish they didn’t have it anymore. We wish that promotion they had lost. We wish that money they just got, that they would lose it. We wish that beautiful relationship they have would dissolve when we’re operating from a place of malicious envy.

We want those who have the things that we want to lose them, to bring them down to close that gap. Aristotle, again. Aristotle said that envy is the pain at the good fortune of others, and malicious envy soothes the pain by taking away or wishing harm. Meaning that they come down from whatever the pedestal is that we see them on above us.

Professor Envy or benign envy doesn’t operate that way. Professor Envy sees three gold bars on one side and recognizes the two gold bars that we have and says, I’m going to set out for that third gold bar to balance the scale.

In emotional research, there is something called a functional approach. It comes from the work of Arnold, who’s a researcher, published a great paper in 1960 who defined emotions as felt action tendencies. This means that the reason that we feel an emotion is to motivate an action, and we can almost work backwards to define the emotion that we’re feeling based on the action that it promotes.

Changes in action readiness are the distinguishing feature of different emotions, and so we can recognize when we’re in benign envy or in malicious envy by what our initial action desire is. Do we want to pull someone down or do we want to build ourselves up? We can use Professor Envy or benign envy as motivation to improve, to become better, to earn more, to learn more, to even just go inside and dig out a new confidence that we didn’t have before.

Where malicious envy is an activation to pull down the other to maybe speak badly about them, to maybe not actually remove the wealth that they have, but in our minds look for the things that are wrong with them to balance out the things that we are envious of so that scale doesn’t feel so, so different in our mind.

In a paper that I’ll reference in the show notes. He talks about how positive consequences of benign envy are motivation. That doesn’t mean that the experience of feeling envious itself is positive. Feeling that imbalance of envy is often a very negative emotion. It doesn’t feel good. And knowing that there are these two different actions that can come of it, even if just emotional action of what thoughts do we go to next?

What plan do we make because of our envy when we recognize the disruption or the gap, this inferiority in one way or another that we perceive. And again, this is all emotional lives are not necessarily entirely true. Someone else may say, no, you’ve got just as much money as they have. And yet if you feel the difference, if you feel some sort of a difference based on your perception. Then you can still feel envious, even if your bank accounts may look the same. Maybe then the envy stems from the lifestyle or how they’re managing their money, or how they’re choosing to live, or the way that they feel, a sense of freedom around it, that you don’t feel whatever it is it’s an emotion, it’s a feeling.

But what does that feeling lead you to do? What does that lead? What’s the plan that comes out of it? What’s the action? Motivation? Do you want to wish them harm and actively, either actively or emotionally pull them down? Or do you use it as motivation and recognizing your own desires? Maybe the feeling of envy as you scroll through social media is the first place that you’ve allowed yourself space to recognize something that you want that you hadn’t given space for.

You didn’t know that you wanted it until you saw someone else has it, and you got that stir of envy, that kind of buzz in your tummy that made you a little bit frustrated. And the negative experience of ugh, I’m just so jealous, is what we probably think.

But what we maybe actually mean is that we’re feeling envious of this gap. What do we do with that? The research shows that we can maybe with awareness, use it as motivation, use it as self-awareness, learn from Professor Envy so that where we go from that place can be beneficial. Can I tell you another interesting couple things about envy?

One is that we tend to be more envious of people who we think don’t deserve the thing that they have, that we don’t have. If something has come easily, we perceive it as easily to someone, and maybe it’s something that we’ve been working hard at and we still don’t have it, and they do.

We tend to be more envious in that circumstance than when we see someone work hard and achieve the thing that they want. Even if we’re working hard toward the same goal, that deservedness seems to mediate our level of envy, how much we feel about the gap. How easy was it for the other person to achieve it, and do we feel like they deserve it?

Another interesting aspect about envy is that it seems to emphasize the role of personal control. So, if we feel like it’s within our control to actively change a certain aspect of our own situation, if I feel like, oh I didn’t realize I needed a third gold bar, and it’s within my control to go get one, to balance that out, that seems too actively mediate the envy that I feel, because I feel like it’s within my control to close that gap.

Where if I feel like it’s, I’m stuck and the other person doesn’t maybe deserve it, that confessor that the imbalance feels a lot more impactful when I feel a lack of control and when I feel like the other person doesn’t deserve what they have or that I deserve it and they don’t that’s more, it gets sticky. There’s a little bit of maliciousness there.

Can I use my motivation? Can I use Professor Envy action to recognize, okay, I don’t have a third gold bar. I really want one. I don’t feel like it’s within my control right now, but what this is where optimism and problem solving, like what steps can I do to move in that direction?

What is something that I, that is within my control right now? Even if it’s not the easy obtainment of the gold bar, what is something within my control that can assuage some of the feelings of envy that I have that can, if not add a gold bar, what do I add to my side to balance that out a little bit with contentment, with gratitude, with satisfaction, what is within my control when I feel that gap of envy instead of trying to pull someone else down, which will never.

Help us feel better if we can turn into, okay, I recognize a desire that I might not have known I had before, or even that I did know that I had before, and it feels like I’m being slapped in the face by all these people who have it and I don’t yet. That yet is key. What do I do now with what I know and what I have to move forward toward what I want?

I love a quote from this article. Any kind of envy has an important signaling value. That is envy tells the agent what they might care about whether they realize it or not. This is Professor Envy. Envy has signaled value. It will tell you what you care about even if you didn’t realize it before. Here’s a couple important distinctions that you can consider when you feel that envy a rise.

If you want to move into Professor Envy energy and you want to move from a place of motivation and self-awareness, focus more on the object of the envy than on the person. Don’t worry so much about who, but think about what and consider what is it that I want here? What is it that I feel a gap in balance of what they have and what I don’t have?

What lack am I feeling? If you focus on the who. It’s more likely that you’ll move into the malicious envy of wishing them wrong or wishing that they lose the thing that they have. If you focus on what and use it as awareness or a signal of something that you desire that you might not have realized it’s going to be easier to move into learning and self-awareness and action and motivation, then maliciousness next if overcoming our disadvantage is unlikely.

Then it’s more beneficial for us to reevaluate the situation based on our values. Consider if that is not something that I’m likely to have, then how do I move forward with what I do have? How do I reevaluate my values, reevaluate the situation, place more emphasis on the things that are available to me and move into gratitude rather than staying in a place of rumination on what I lack.

Personal Envy Examples

I want to give you a couple examples from my own life recently in how I am using Professor Envy to inform and motivate rather than to sit and stew in negativity and frustration. The first one I may have mentioned a couple years ago. I was hosting a retreat and one of my friends who again, like me, similar trajectories, similar lifestyle, similar career path, this is like a key target for Professor Envy, right?

Like someone right within my zone, decided she was going to go to graduate school and applied and got accepted to a positive psychology program at Columbia. And when I heard about it, me. Full body went into, oh my gosh, I want that. And it was from the get-go, it was Professor Envy, but it was such a strong signal of that’s something that you have and me seeing you do it is giving me this bright flashing light that’s something that I want.

In my life. I had said for years I would never go back to school. I didn’t want to go back to school. I loved finishing my bachelor’s degree and just moving on. And when my friend Talia told me that she had been accepted to this program, I recognized how much I wanted that too. I wanted it for her and for me.

And so, feeling that gap. I recognized it so was something that I could control, the stars aligned for it to be a Professor Envy that I hadn’t thought about it until I saw someone else with it, and then I thought, oh, that’s something that I want.

Envy and Social Media

I felt this sometimes with a couple online people. There are a lot of studies about the envy and jealousy that have arisen in our world filled with social media where we have access to all these other lives that we didn’t ever know about or seen before. I’ve noticed sometimes things like, again, a few years ago, there’s a girl who follow, who I follow online, who was throwing all these cool dinner parties outside, like in the middle of nowhere. And I kept feeling oh, not only do I want to go to one of those, but I want to throw one.

And I like, that’s so cool. And I was feeling, I didn’t feel like I wanted her to not do them, but I also was like, oh gosh, that’s something I’d love to do. And you know what I did this fun party, a surprise party for a friend, this is years ago, where we like called tables and chairs and catering everything out into the middle of the woods to do this fun Pinterest worthy birthday party surprise.

It was fun, and it was so much work. I think it opened my eyes to like, oh, it’s a lot of work to pull something like this off. And it tempered my envy that when I see big parties or big kind of cool, fancy things like that online, I know what goes into it now a little bit better. And so, it’s so much easier to not feel envious because now I know what goes into it. I think the piece is that deservedness that I feel like, oh, you deserve to have that party girl because you have put in the work. Because it’s so much work to do something like that. And that’s the piece that sometimes we miss.

We see a lot of people’s successes. We see when things are clean, when things are beautiful, when things are shiny, when things are making money. And we don’t often see all the hard that goes into making it happen. We don’t see the hard that goes into pulling it off, and so it’s so much easier to feel envious of the final product when we don’t know all the baggage that has gone into it.

I think another place where my malicious envy has maybe started to transform into Professor Envy is with social media numbers themselves. And this is for most people who aren’t using social media as part of a business or to be an influencer, which is most people, it’s hard to, maybe you get caught up in it anyway, but.

Having been online and running a business online for over a decade, there was a season, and gratefully, I’m not there anymore, but there was a season when I would be. I would feel envious of the gap between someone else’s numbers on social media and my own. And sometimes I regret to say even that malicious envy of “You don’t really deserve it. It’s so easy for you. Why is this coming so easily?” And “I wouldn’t be sad if half your numbers dropped tomorrow because they were all bots or something like that.”

And that sounds so rude to say it is true. This like malicious envy is malicious. It’s this idea of Get off your high horse, I’m going to knock you down off that high horse because I need to feel better by you coming down.

It’s not a good feeling. It doesn’t feel good in the moment. It doesn’t feel good later. It’s not the energy that we really want in our lives, and yet sometimes that’s our natural reaction is for me to feel taller, I need you to be shorter. And that isn’t true. Sometimes that’s where we operate from.

Operating from Intention

Recognizing where the role of social media really needed to fit in my lifestyle. That it could be an, like a piece of my business, it could be an arm or a branch or this like a, an appendage rather than the whole. That was helpful for me and recognizing that I am not my Instagram and this you can use for any of these things. I am not my appearance. I’m not my bank account. I’m not my achievements.

We can get so caught up in those things being directly reflective of who we are, and in that way, feeling directly reflective of the amount of fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction that we have in our lives. And that’s not true. That’s a big lie of envy, that as soon as you get there, as soon as those scales balance out, that then you’ll get to feel all the other things you want to feel.

And it’s not true. So, where I am now with social media is an okay place. I still don’t want to spend all my time there. And part of that is recognizing a lot of people who have big social media followings are spending a lot of time there. And that’s not a tradeoff that I want. Also, it isn’t my main goal.

It isn’t as important to my other values as I once maybe thought that it was. And that enables me to put it down and to cheer people on rather than being frustrated or annoyed that someone. Who I felt was like me or a contemporary to me in social media when they continue to grow, rather than feeling annoyed by that or the malicious gosh, I wish their numbers would get smaller. I wish they’d plateau like I have. I can just be excited for them and cheer them on rather than feeling like it directly affects me.

Professor Envy can teach us about what we really want and sometimes what we think we want and the initial feeling that we have of envy is because, not of our own belief, but because of a belief that has been imposed on us.

Because some, someone else said that it was important to have a lot of social media followers. And we clung to that, and we feel that envy and we feel that frustration and then we examine it, and we step back and say, but is this something that’s important to me? Is this something I really want? Is it what I want to feel?

Professor Envy can teach us that maybe what we want is to feel relevant. And one way to do that is to have a big social media following. And another way might be to become more deeply invested in our com, in our communities, or to have closer relationships with our neighbors and friends.

What is it that we really want? I think that’s a good question that Professor Envy can teach us when we feel that rising of, there’s an imbalance here. That signal can prompt the question, what is it that I really want?

I’ve been working with both a therapist and a developmental coach, and it’s so interesting because I’ve been asked this question a few times over the last several months, and what usually comes up for me when I think about what I really want is ease and peace, and those things don’t come from hustling for more.

They come from a wide and deep acceptance of what is. They come from putting things down rather than picking things up and seeing the imbalance and that envy that I can feel sometimes knowing what I really want is ease and peace in my life, allows me to see it.

I can take a deep breath and recognize that it’s okay that other people have more than me in whatever realm, and to find a place within where I am right now that I can feel grateful and yearn for and be motivated for creating more space in my life for peace and ease in whatever way that looks like.

Let’s talk about resentment

Now to finish this out, as you’re thinking about in your own life how you can learn from Professor Envy and use those feelings that might arise as motivation, as contemplation, as self-awareness, I want to just talk for a moment about resentment. Resentment is part of envy. Resentment is the frustration and anger and better than that’s hidden in our envy when we feel a perceived injustice or unfairness.

So, we see that difference. We see the scale is imbalanced, and the balance is entirely within our control. Yet we are not asking for it. We’re not setting boundaries. Our expectations are letting us down because they’re based on things we can’t control, like what other people think. Brene Brown talks about this in Atlas of the Heart with the following quotes.

I’m not mad because you’re resting. I’m mad because I’m so tired and I want to rest. But unlike you, I’m going to pretend that I don’t need to. Does that sound familiar? What we feel initially is envy of the other person taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon when there’s still chores to be done.

What is missing is what I desire is rest. What’s in my control is rest, and yet I’m going to pretend that I don’t need to. I’m going to suppress this desire. For whatever reason, for another expectation that I have of myself that I’m a hard worker or that rest needs to be earned or some other belief, and then we’re going to feel resentment. Not because we can’t rest, but because we won’t.

Here’s another one. I’m not furious that you’re okay with something that’s good and imperfect. I’m furious because I want to be okay with something that’s good and imperfect too, and my perfectionism won’t let me. Resentment that envies of someone’s ease with life sort of being fine the way that it is.

And we’re holding so tightly to the idea of what we think should be, that we feel this envy and resentment, rather than recognizing that we can accept what’s real in our lives as well. Even if they’re unperfect, we can accept them. So, as it relates to envy, you know the question that came up with envy is what do I really want?

What do I see? What am I feeling this envy around? What is it a signal of for me? How do I learn from Professor Envy? To motivate me within my own life or to cause himself awareness. So that’s the question.

What is it that I really want? The next one when it turns into resentment is, what do I need but am afraid to ask for not only what do I want, but what do I need right now that is within my control, but that I am preventing myself from receiving. I’m sabotaging myself from this desire.

The next time envy arises for you naturally. It’s a natural emotion. It’s something that comes up whether we’re looking for it or not. The question is, what will you do with it the next time it arises for you? The next time you feel envious. Pay attention to what the signals are for you do.

Do you automatically move into this sort of malicious envy of wishing that the other person didn’t have what they have or wanting it to go away for them? Do you automatically move into a sort of professor envy, this benign envy of, okay, I see that and it’s signaling to me that I want something, or I recognize that isn’t really in my control anyway, and so I’m going to evaluate my values around it.

How can you use this natural emotion for your benefit knowing that the experience of feeling it will probably be negative because it’s doesn’t feel good to compare like that, and it’s natural. It’s something that comes up for us all the time. I think that it can teach us, and that’s the purpose of this episode.

I’ve recognized in my life over the last few years the way that envy is more of a teacher than anything else. I feel it arise and I ask, what is it here that I want and how do I move into that? Or how do I recognize that? Yeah, maybe I want it, but it’s also not that important to me. See if you can use envy as a professor in your life so that you can move in the direction of your true goals and desires.

Maybe it’s the signal that you need to understand what you really want. And to give you the motivation to start taking steps in that direction. I’m super curious how this episode is landing for you. What do you think about it? Is it easy for you to come up with circumstances that you feel envious in, or can you think of a recent one and reflect on it?

Was it Professor Envy? Was it malicious envy? Can you move it from one into the other to be more beneficial in your life? My goal is always just to help you feel a little bit better, feel a little more intentional. Recognize how you can live the creative, adventurous, intentional, beautiful, fulfilling life that you desire.

An envy can help you recognize what you desire. It’s a backdoor way of going about it. And, if it’s going to arise naturally anyway, we may as well use it to our advantage, right?