Is Envy Ruining Your Life? Or is it Actually Helping?

I used to feel restless when my fiancé would go for his runs. It would exasperate me and sometimes even send me into annoyance.

This feeling was not exclusively tied to his physical exercise – it was intertwined with the salads he ate, the lack of sugar he put in his coffee, the 5 minutes of uninterrupted silent meditation he needed each morning; you see, it was all a ruse intended to make me feel inferior.

My therapist was very aware of this fact. We spent a summer discussing it. 

“He’s always trying to start a competition with me,” I told her one afternoon. I felt so heavy at the time, yet delicate, like a stone with a fracture.

Envy has been shown to be correlated with depression, unhappiness, and low self-esteem. Just one example of this is a study that was published in 2005, which evaluated 500 students for jealousy. The key takeaways found that adolescents with low self-esteem were more likely to be possessive (jealous) of friendships, as well as aggressive and lonely. 

Envy can also make people angry at both the perceived or real injustice of their low-status positions.

On the flip side, experiencing “benign envy” is much more likely to activate motivation to improve oneself, according to this 2011 paper. A series of studies conducted on college students correlated the experience of benign envy with aspirations to work harder, whereas the experiences of malicious envy and admiration were followed with minimal action for change. 

When I think back, these findings make a lot of sense. I grew up within financial insecurity. Not much in my childhood was stable, so as I developed I felt more and more deprived. Into my early adulthood I would drive past large houses and get angry at the people inside. Resentment would boil inside me as I pictured the owners– always as the worst type of people imaginable. In my mind, those who were rich and fortunate were selfish and uncaring, and they were taking resources from those that really needed them. This was malicious envy, the kind I was describing earlier. And, like the study results showed, it actually pushed me away from achieving progress on my goals. 

Research literally backs up the old saying that “hate hurts you more than the other person.” We cannot hate people for having that which we wish we had, even if it seems like they don’t deserve it.

I know how simple that sounds on paper. It’s almost laughable, yet so true. For me this truly encapsulates both the beauty (and pain) of life– the constant untangling and mending of these loose threads that bind us with one another. The need to feel without infringement, while also acknowledging the source and reasoning for that which pains us.

I do not want this message to be misconstrued. I am aware there are systems in place that make life especially harder for certain groups of people. There are many reasons to be upset at these systems; we can and we should campaign for change. However, we are talking about mindset here, your one and only sacred space. We need change on both the large and the individual scale, and when it comes to your own thoughts, you should protect them fiercely from any notion that you are not enough. 

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Malicious envy has not only tainted my perception of myself-- it has also driven wedges between my relationships. That summer of jealousy I was describing earlier was difficult. I was blinded by my own insecurities, and constantly egged on by traits I wanted but didn’t have. I thought I was angry at my fiancé, but really I was angry at myself. This feeling of anger, this resentment that I was experiencing, extended past houses and my fiancé’s workout routine. I was deeply envious and resentful of the people I followed online, friends who were successful in their careers, strangers with perfect bodies in tiny bikinis, influencers traveling to far and beautiful places.

And instead of actually doing something productive about this anger, I built up walls. I did backflips pushing the blame onto people and things for my lack of action, because it was a lot easier than taking a hard look in the mirror at my own shortcomings. 

It's a ruthless cycle. As I made excuse after excuse for my inaction, I became more and more angry. I truly was digging a hole of shame and allowing myself to rot in it.

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I know I’m not the only one who has felt this way. My friends complain of feeling stuck; that they want so badly to do something but cannot actually make the first move to do it. So how do we attempt to chip away at the seemingly impenetrable wall that malicious envy has built in our minds? 

I think about how certain experiences can be utterly life-changing. One that constantly comes up for me is the story of my fiancé’s dream to be an astronaut. I’ve written on this before, and I will continue to, as this one conversation is inextricably tied to my emotional healing.

My boyfriend at the time told me that he wanted to be an astronaut one day. And I found that to be so absurd that I laughed in his face. But he was dead serious. 

“I’m really going to do it one day,” he told me. 

And this literally broke my brain. How the hell had I gone through life thinking I wasn’t built for so many of the things I wanted to do, yet this man, who had no education in space or track to achieving this dream, was as confident as he was?

It really got me thinking. This same man showed me again and again that it didn’t matter to him if he didn’t have experience with something. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t perfect. He just wanted to learn for the sake of learning. He would see an expert beautifully paint a portrait, and then pull out his own canvas and brush with a smile. He was excited at the idea of trying and growing and getting better. That is what we call being motivated by benign envy. 

He believed in himself and his ability to achieve. That is the difference between getting frozen at the thought of your goals vs. believing that you can achieve them. To not see life as a competition, but as a level field where you can gain what you need from those around you.

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I promise you the things you want in life aren’t out of reach. Many times we expect our dreams to come gift-wrapped and on time, but life is funny. You can pray for strength and find it through devastating circumstances. You can ask for stability and it will manifest in new responsibilities. You can wish for water and get a flood. I think there are many reasons people don’t know what they value. And don’t chase the things they value– it’s that we are too focused on their pain to realize that there is opportunity right under our noses. You see, there is always room at the table of your dreams. The sad truth is that if we don’t think we can do something, most of the time we won’t. 

So next time you see a coworker achieve something incredible or a piece of art that is jaw-dropping, instead of shunning your perceived “lack-of”, what if you tried a different approach?

Perhaps if we learn to practice listening to our insecurities with CURIOSITY and COMPASSION, it will become a lot easier to hear what we want through the anger.

Xx,

Renee

Discovering Your Root Fear

None of us meditate enough (me included). It’s one of those things that I dread doing but need desperately. When the pandemic first hit, I needed to find hobbies to fill all the new time on my hands, so I finally sat my ass down and tried to meditate every day. I remember the first time I did it. I laid a towel in the backyard and set a timer for 20 minutes, preparing myself for the worst. I was ready to battle demons in my head to get through it. But It flew by.

I found that my mind was like a television set, switching through my thoughts like channels. The hardest part was trying not to follow each thought down a rabbit hole, which I didn’t accomplish whatsoever my first time. It wasn’t until I followed a few guided exercises that I started to get the hang of letting thoughts drift by instead of engaging them.

Once I started practicing, I discovered meditation could be used for a lot of things. You can relieve anxiety by focusing on your breath, or you can do powerful visualization exercises to access deep emotions, like hidden fears.

Fears can hide?

Yeah, and they can do it quite well. If your day-to-day fears are like fishing lines, your hidden fears are the fish at the end, wiggling you around in all kinds of crazy directions. You can recognize these deeper fears by reeling your line in. To say it non-poetically, a deep fear, or “root fear,” is, well, the root of the many things that scare you. It is an overarching theme describing your innermost anxieties. It is an explanation for misunderstood emotions and sudden fears.

The fishing photo is cute, but it implies a level of simplicity that unfortunately doesn't come with finding your root fear. It takes trial and error, and some quality time spent with yourself. I’ve put together a diagram to help you visualize how to trace the fishing line of fear down to its root below.

The diagram represents our thoughts, which often start within the green circles, and spiral down through the orange circles until they eventually reach our root fear, circled in red.

Acknowledging our root fear is instrumental to changing our thought patterns, and not buying into them. It doesn’t mean our root fear will go away, but once we understand why certain things are triggers, we can do damage control to prohibit falling prey to believing that our root fear is true (because 99% of the time, it’s not).

How can I uncover my root fear?

Now that we understand what a root fear is, we can work on finding it. You’ll need to be patient and caring when attempting to make contact with these deep emotions. Things that are hidden like to stay hidden, and pulling in the fishing line may bring a lot of other, unexpected feelings or memories as well.

Meditation is our friend here (Jay Shetty also talks about using meditation to find root fears in his book “Think Like a Monk”). I highly recommend using meditation, but you can also use a pen and paper to help you map it out like I did in the diagram above.

Find a comfortable place, put on some calming music, and close your eyes. Think of a recurring negative emotion you have. Maybe you are afraid you upset your mom the other day with something you said. Or perhaps you are angry because you have acne, and it makes you feel ugly. Something that you can’t seem to get out of your head is a good place to start. Now ask yourself what you are really afraid of? When you come to a conclusion about that, take your “new” fear and ask yourself again, what are you really afraid of? Keep doing this until you have an ~aha~ moment.

Pro-Tip: Anger is just fear wearing a fancy costume. It is a defense mechanism, and very often shields us from confronting vulnerable emotions deep inside.

My own root fear meditation went something like this:

Surface Fear: My ADHD prevents me from doing anything productive or worthwhile.

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Fear Level 2: I will never find a good job, or get a good salary.

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Fear Level 3: I am always going to feel unfulfilled.

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Root Fear: There is something wrong with me.

Remember, doing this can bring up many emotions, so please be gentle with yourself as you navigate them. Whatever you choose as your surface fear, make sure to focus and ask yourself the question “But what am I really afraid of?” And see how many levels down you can get.

Keep asking yourself the same question with each layer of fear you tap into, until you feel you have uncovered the root. Root fears are usually very simple in comparison to the long-winded stories we weave them into.

Okay, so now what?

You may be wondering what the point is to all this. Knowing my root fear has changed the way I think about my day-to-day anxieties, and how I approach certain situations. Because I know my root fear, I know going into critique situations or reviews to wear a thicker skin, and have a support network nearby to talk to afterwards. Knowing my root fear also makes it easier for me to take a step back when my inner critic gets a little too demanding, and remember fear isn’t something I want to be motivated by.

Our root fears are not true. They are usually things that were ingrained in us as children, things we internalized and now blindly lead us around. Our root fear is like someone from out of town giving us local directions – it is usually completely unaware of what the hell it’s talking about. But also like someone from out of town, we should show it kindness and not hatred.

I have a close relationship with my root fear, and I soothe it every so often when I feel it acting up. Because I know it so well, when someone or something triggers my root fear, I know to be wary of it, because it may not have the best intentions in mind for me. Remember that our fears exist for good reasons, so we shouldn’t try to get rid of them. They are more than welcome to sit in the car, just don’t let them drive.

I would love to hear about your own root fear. Please comment below and let’s strike up a conversation :)

Don’t let your fears stop you ;P

Xx,

Renee

How I Got Over My Fear Of Dying.

Let me set the stage for you. I’m 21, in college, and laying in my shitty dorm room bed. It’s another sleepless night, and I can feel the seconds ticking away, hyper-aware of the fact that I have to wake up in only a few short hours. I turn over and tap my phone. It’s 1:30AM. I sigh and take in my surroundings.

In the dimness, the once familiar shapes of textbooks and heaps of clothing turn into ominous, looming figures. I close my eyes against what I hope is just my trash bin, but unfortunately the environment of my mind isn’t safe either.

Eyes shut, all bets are off. When my mind has nothing else to focus on, fear takes center stage. I am greeted by the image of an old woman shivering in a hospital bed. She is confused, in constant pain and close to death. I hate this story. It’s a repeat offender during sleepless nights.

I can’t talk about this without giving credit where credit is due: we are supposed to be afraid of death. It’s human nature and it is a healthy fear, but sometimes it can inch over into unhealthy territory. And when you are that afraid of something, it can feel very lonely. 🙁 Unfortunately, talking about death is pretty taboo.

Aside from the occasional viral internet video, I don’t talk about or encounter death on a regular basis. It makes people uncomfortable, almost like talking about it will spread death to them like some kind of infectious disease. And of course, it can be an extremely sensitive topic for some. But you have to admit, it’s a bit strange we don’t talk about it more, considering it’s something we all experience in our lives at some point. And maybe if we talked about it more, we’d be able to confront these fears head-on, instead of in our beds in the middle of the night.

Those nights seem very far away from me now. I haven’t lost sleep over the thought of dying in years. It wasn’t until recently that I was reminded of those painful nights. I was at a friend’s birthday party and she told me she actually hates celebrating her birthday because she’s positively terrified of getting older. Well, I knew exactly what she meant. I wish I had known someone else to confide in back when I was going through it, so in the spirit of sharing knowledge, let’s get into how I overcame my fear of death.

“Monkey-see, monkey-do,” is something I constantly remind myself of when I get into self-pity mode, and wonder “what is wrong with me!?” My mother has gone on tangents of her own about death throughout my life, and they have never been positive. My memories surrounding the topic of aging and death are riddled with my mother having me promise to pull her life support if she is ever with disease, and with her begging to never be put in a retirement home. Every time we see someone old just living their life out in public, I know a multitude of anxiety-induced pleas from my mother are coming. I’ve even heard my mom say if she was ever diagnosed with a horrible disease or was close to immobile, she would take her own life, quietly and alone.

She tells me these things nonchalantly. They are not nonchalant things to say, though. If you are like me, you are probably horrified to even read these things. This is not to shame her– parents are allowed to have their own fears and unresolved issues. But all of this meant growing up, I learned aging and dying was something to be feared and protested against. I learned to dread it, to hate talking about it, or even seeing it. If this sounds like you, welcome to the party.

Cue laying awake at night, when I cannot be distracted by screens, class, or conversation, my mind finally allowing deep fears to bubble to the surface. Without distraction, our minds can finally ask for help. I picture my brain giving me smoke signals, begging me to process and deal with my fears.

I recall a significant conversation I had with my father one day over the phone. I called him while I was in the car, just to catch up. At some point we got onto the topic of Alzheimer’s disease. I told him I was horrified by the idea of succumbing to that (it runs in our family). He pretty much shrugged it off, saying “Well, worry about that when you get there.”

It was a real-life example of the serenity prayer, something I now hear quite often.

I asked him if he was afraid of death, and, although very simple, I’ll never forget his response. He said, “No. We’ll all die one day, nothing we can do about that. And even if you do get some kind of disease, you may not even be fully aware of what is happening. There is probably much less suffering than you actually think.”

Obviously, my fear didn’t disappear overnight, but hearing those words helped. I familiarized myself with the notion that I had no control over certain things, so why contemplate how they were going to happen? Why plan for something I could never fully prepare for? As I learned to let go of my control over smaller things in my life, it became easier and easier to breathe through my anxiety surrounding the big things, like death.

If this advice seems pretty straight-forward, it’s not. We can all nod our heads and agree we need to let go of the things we can’t control, but when the iron is hot and you feel yourself starting to panic, it’s not so easy to say om.

Trying to let go only helps so much when you have a mind that is in overdrive. I mean, what if you genuinely can’t stop thinking about it? When I have a thought-loop like this, it can feel tortuous.Getting distance from the thought is a huge tactic that has helped me; aka not letting myself sit for too long unattended. Again, simple advice, but hard to implement.

Sometimes the best thing to do is drag yourself out of bed and go for a walk. Or make a cup of tea. Clean up your room. Journal. It’s cliche, but true: move a muscle, change a thought. You don’t need to distract yourself, but try not to stay stationary in bed.

If you like to pick apart your mind like me, there are introspective routes. I am not a therapist, but if I were going to recommend targeting the fear of dying, I would tell you to figure out what it is you are actually afraid of. You may be surprised, because it’s probably not death. Dig deeper: what aspect of death frightens you? Is it losing your appearance? Your mobility? Is it pain, or disease? Being alone? Maybe a combination of these things? Though slightly different, all of these fears point towards one major thing: loss of control. Is this starting to seem repetitive? 🙂

If you cannot control how you look, are you afraid people will value you less? Are you afraid you will value you less? Without mobility, are you worried you’ll be depressed? Are you scared you’ll lose touch with nature? With pain or disease, are you afraid your quality of life will decrease? Are you scared it will be too tough to bear? Are you worried of what your life may be like in solitude, perhaps even without a spouse?

When thinking through these things, it is important to keep a level head. Don’t allow the fear to swallow you. Give it loving attention. Be compassionate, and try to understand from a distance, as if you were talking a child through a fear of the monster in their closet. The child part is essential. You need distance from fear in order to look it square in the eyes. We need to give ourselves room to be afraid. Only then can we give ourselves room to comfort those fears.

We all wish we could plan out our lives to some degree. We want to determine which path our career will take, who will love us and how, where we will live, etc. So the idea that as we get older, we may begin to lose hold on what happens when, and how, can be scary.

But even if we worry about it, nothing is going to change. Really sit with that for a minute.

Letting go of control is a practice. You will never be perfect at it, but the more you do it, the easier it will be. It makes life, and the scary things that inevitably come with it, more bearable.

As a dear friend often reminds me, you can’t control anything in your life, even the things you think you can. Good times are as fleeting as bad times, and we’ve got to learn how to roll with the punches.

If you'd like to learn more, I'd recommend listening to this incredible podcast episode by How To!

Let me know if you are going to try any of these tactics, or if you have your own. Hope you are all staying well out there.

Xx, Renee