Skill #43: Transform Your Envy

Ballet class was one of my favorite activities as a young girl. Until Christina arrived. Christina, (fifty years later I still remember her name which is telling) was a tall, long-legged, short waisted girl with a Swedish mother who watched our class through the one-way mirror. She was blonde and blue-eyed, and her legs looked even more beautiful in the pale pink tights we were required to wear for class. She had a way of moving that was captivating, and I was sure her dancing was more graceful than mine. I remember distinctly wishing that she would be absent or maybe even move away. Professor Troyanoff, the ballet master, while kind to each of us, became especially attentive to the beautiful and talented Christina. I wanted to be like her. I wanted her height, her long legs and her blonde hair. I had many strengths as a dancer: musicality, good lines, strong legs, good jumps. But I didn’t have what Christina had. And I remember how my stomach could get in knots with the feeling I later understood as envy. Envy began to ruin one of the things I most treasured in life.

Just recently while facilitating a group, I felt a pang of envy again as a group member shared her excitement about receiving a grant that would allow her three months overseas to study her heritage, travel, and rest. “I wish somebody would give me $50,000 to travel oversees and study something I was passionate about,” I said to myself. Ugh. Envy again.

Literature is saturated with stories about the deadly effects of envy. If you are familiar with the Bible you might remember that Cain committed fratricide against his brother Abel, so envious was he of Yahweh’s favoring of his brother. Joseph’s brothers had him sold into slavery out of a deep envy. Just last week in church we read the story of the prodigal son and heard again how the envy of the elder son kept him from living a fuller life and from enjoying the good life he did have.

If the Bible isn’t your thing, how about a look at a fairy tale. Cinderella was the victim of the envy of her step-mother and two step-sisters. So envious were they of her beauty and kindness that they spent their lives trying to keep her down. Or perhaps you favor Shakespeare? Iago, the villain in Shakespeare’s Orthello, used his envy so masterfully that he successfully turned Orthello against his wife, Desdemona. In this case the envy not only destroyed Iago but destroyed Orthello, too. Yes, envy is destructive.

No wonder envy is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. So often, though, we sweep envy under the rug. We do not want to admit our envious nature and we are often ashamed of it. What is this powerful emotion and why do we need to transform it?

In his book, Urgings of the Heart, Wilkie Au suggests two things about envy.  First, the root of envy is a longing for the fullness of life. We all long to feel fulfilled, to have a rich, good life. So envy is always related to wanting what is good and to a despair that we may not attain it. But if we do not take time to notice our envy, to study it, to let it teach us, then we turn it into poison. We hurt others, we try to limit their success, we put them down, we compete with them. Second, envy is always found when gratitude is absent.

So how do we transform our envy?

Know and name your greatest strengths: What are your best gifts? Are you using them? If you haven’t already taken the Clifton Strengthsfinders by the Gallup company I highly suggest it. For $15.00 you can take an online test that will identify your top 5 strengths and get a wonderful assessment about your gifts and how to use them. My top strength is individualization. I work to make every therapy and coaching session specific to that individual. Nothing is “canned”. I do the same with my workshops and retreats. I also entertain from this place as I create hearth for friends and family. When I remember that this is my top strength, many other things fall into place. And I am much less prone to envy.

Celebrate your strengths and build on them: Have people in your life who love you for the very things that you are good at. If people try to limit you or keep you down, move on. It can be as toxic to be the envied as it is poisonous to be the envier. Envy will only be a negative energy in your life. Live and work from a place of strength.

It can be as toxic to be the envied as it is poisonous to be the envier.

Look for and name the strengths of others: Take the time to carefully name the gifts and strengths of others. Acknowledge how their strengths are a positive thing in your life as well. My office manager is a kickass organizer and payer-of-attention-to-minute-detalier. She loves tasks and I love this in her. I praise this in her. I do not have this gift and even if I did, it is not how I would want to spend my time.

Allow your envy to teach you what you want in life: If there is something you really want to do, put yourself into action. If I really want a three month trip away from the office then I need to sit down and figure out how to make that happen. Perhaps I cannot get a three month trip but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a month. If you want to ride horses, learn to ride horses. If you want to be the best in your field, then do what it will take to get you there. Pull yourself up without putting others down. In order to transform envy you have to be responsible for yourself.

In order to transform envy you have to be responsible for yourself. Click To Tweet

Actively appreciate what you do have: The practice of gratitude should never be underrated. When we are grateful for who we are and what we have, envy wanes. Envious people focus on what others have and they do not have. They focus on scarcity. Grateful people focus on what they do have. They focus on abundance.

Envy is always found when gratitude is absent.

Notice the abundance of the universe: There is enough. You are enough. Practice this mantra everyday and see what happens. We are living in a world that teaches scarcity. There will never be enough money, fuel, food, jobs, time, power, strength, love. I challenge you to look for where and how there is enough.

Practice living abundantly: What can you give away? Time? Talents? Treasures? When we live abundantly, we know that we are enough and that there is enough. I have extra money. I have extra stuff. I have extra food. I have talents that can be used. Give of them freely. Living generously chips away at the poison of envy.

I will never be Christina. I have wide hips and strong legs. But I can dance from my best self and that is where the deep gift lies. I may never get a grant that gives me three months to study abroad, but I can make arrangements to give myself time and money to study and travel.

So transform your envy, because life is messy and envy makes is messier.

Amy