What Is It About?

Napkin Version

Most of us have a good sense of empathy which helps us to imagine what others might be going through.  This can be handy if someone needs our understanding or support, or if we need a bit of motivation to  go after something important to us. 

However it can be challenging if we see their experience as something we really want, but also difficult for us to obtain.  Regardless of the intensity, feeling envious is often a signal for us to place more focus upon our own goals and personal growth.

ENVY V JEALOUSY

While both emotions are very similar, this guide considers the key difference as being Envy is when we aspire to have what the other person has, while Jealousy is when we feel we already deserve it.  So if we are afraid of losing something, Jealousy may arise, but not Envy.

  • When we have envious feelings arise in ourselves, it can help to identify what we might be missing in our life, that matters most to us.   N.B.  This can often be something at a deeper level than the thing of the surface we are envious of.

  • It can then help to back ourselves by appreciating our skills, experience, and gifts, along with our ability to develop ourselves.

  • Now we can start to look at different ways to improve our quality of life (which may or may not be related to what we were originally envious of).  See the Working Through Envy section below for more detail.

Handling Envy

In The Moment

Training our brain to use a relevant process helps us to focus more effectively and move on more easily. Using it often will also help our brain to catch Envy sooner, making it easier to manage.

Self-Reflection

If the emotion feels quite troubling, it’s usually worth checking if something else is going on first.

By resolving things in ourselves and clearing any other residual emotions, we can reduce the intensity of the emotion - now and when we encounter it again in future. 

Doing so also makes us less likely to ‘attract’ other difficulties that leave us feeling the same way.

See the Processing and Clearing an Emotion page for a generic process to resolve and clear an emotion.

Working Through Envy

The actions we choose to take in response to an emotion can make a significant difference to how well we adjust and move on from it.

The more we take genuine actions that are uplifting and ‘right’ i.e., are good for ourselves and everyone else (including the environment and other living beings) - for now, and over the long-term, the better our experience of life becomes.

Once we have accepted the reality of the situation, the following can help us to move on from Envy:

  • Looking at what is behind our envy, and determining if we can provide it to ourselves first e.g. we may want a promotion at work, but if we are doing it to feel more respected, we could work on our self-respect first.  Aside from feeling better in ourselves, we may find others respect us more, and better opportunities start arriving.

  • Appreciating it’s difficult to feel satisfied if we compare ourselves to others to decide how ‘successful’ we are.

  • Acknowledging we often just get a snippet of someone’s life – if we knew the full picture, we might not be so envious!

  • Understanding what is important to us and what we would love in our life, then prioritising it, and taking positive action towards it. 

  • Checking our intuition to know what direction would be good for us to take at this time.

  • Ensuring our goals are enjoyable, meaningful, and completely aligned with our true selves.

  • Visualising each goal as already achieved until we feel like it is, then see it is.

  • Breaking our goal into believable and achievable steps.

  • Taking action, and working smart to set ourselves up to succeed.

  • Starting with what is doable, then improving from there.

  • Backing ourselves and trusting our ability to develop our skills, build our resources, and to stay connected with our intuition to attract the right opportunities (and whatever else we need) as we go.

  • Fostering a healthy sense of optimism, and developing the patience, endurance, and courage to overcome any obstacles. 

  • Doing what we can to enjoy every step, to help us to thrive as we go, and to build a positive momentum that works in our favour.

  • Appreciating how far we have come, what we already have, what we’ve already achieved, and everyone who has helped us

Clearing Residual Envy

Emotional energy can stick with us, even after we have worked through and resolved whatever caused it.

There are a number of ways we can clear the energy, including doing something physical in nature, imagining the emotion leaving our body, or for more intense emotions, there is a variety of different therapies and alternative forms of energy healing that can also help.

  • The short video below has been created to help imagine emotional energy leave the body, using the following visualisation process:

    • Imagine holding a ball of energy in your hands, and ‘charging’ it with the feeling of love, and anything else that would help to offset it (especially any feelings that were missing in the situation)

    • Imagine any residual Anger energy flowing out of your body, into the  ball, and being transformed into the positive equivalent.

    • Once all the residual energy has left, imagine the ball shooting far out into the atmosphere and dissolving into pure white light energy.