Category: Lifestyle
Summary: How to deal when that feeling of envy fills you up to the very top. How to use that energy to fuel your dreams rather than drag you down.
You've felt it before.
The pin pricks traveling all over your body.
White hot, making you sweat.
Yet somehow giving you a chill at the same time.
Your heart is hammering.
Your mind is racing.
Thousands of questions fill the empty space.
But the only answer you get,
Is the silence that surrounds you.
That is until, the outpouring of words
begin to slam themselves against the walls of your mind.
Now they begin to take over.
As you slowly begin to lose your grip on your emotions.
Anger.
Sadness.
Anxiety.
Revenge.
Judgement.
All of these emotions pass by fleetingly.
Trying to decide which of them will make nest in your mind today.
What causes all of this you may wonder?
Ah....it is a monster so common that people forget to fear it.
A beast that everyone deals with,
Yet few know how to conquer.
You may know it as the green eyed monster.
That's right...
Envy.
Have you ever looked like this? I know I have...more times than I would like to admit. This month we are focusing on our "bad" habits. I put bad in quotation marks because I like to be of the mindset that nothing in you or about you is inherently bad. You are a work of art just the way you are. That being said, there may be traits or qualities that we are not proud of, or that we wish we could make better. Just because something is a work of art, doesn't mean it cannot be further shaped into a masterpiece.
That is the goal of this month. Spring cleaning , but of ourselves rather than our physical space. Looking those bad habits dead in the eye and telling them "you don't control me. I am in charge of my actions, feelings and destiny". In order to hopefully help you with overcoming your unwanted habits, I thought it would be beneficial to share what I consider mine. This blog is about full transparency here, my unwanted habits are not always going to be pretty. But I hope that by sharing my experiences, and the journey I am taking to overcome them, I will give you the inspiration and tool kit to do the same for yourself.
I honestly couldn't think of a stronger unwanted habit to start with than jealousy. This pesky emotion has plagued my life for quite some time. Contrary to what some may believe about me, I was not always a jealous person. I can actually distinctly pinpoint the age where jealousy was taught to me. Yes, you read that correctly. Taught to me. You may be thinking to yourself..."Steph...what? People don't teach each other jealousy." And in a way you are right. No one sat me down in front of a chalkboard and gave me a step by step lesson on what it means to be jealous and all of the things that would spark it in my life.
However, I learned it by allowing the opinions of others to influence me. (That is a whole other blog topic that we will dive into one day). I won't bore you with all of the details; but the story boiled down to, I was secure in a relationship in my early teens. Happy, content. Others began to tell me their thoughts and opinions about my relationship and the actions of my partner. It wasn't so bad when it was just one person. But as more and more people agreed, and as it was said to me over and over again, I began to question my own thoughts.
What if they were right? That is where it started for me. And for a long time that is the only place it lived...in my romantic relationships.
Constantly wondering what my partner was doing. Nights alone wracking my brain of all of the horrible possibilities; and wasted nights with them where I allowed this feeling to take over and spark animosity. Unfortunately, this emotion followed me from relationship to relationship. Different partners, same bad habit. I am sure I don't need to go too far into detail. Anyone who has felt this feeling can relate to how consuming it can become. It was easy to blame the emotion on my partners. I was only jealous because they didn't show me I could trust them. I was only jealous because they were not giving me enough attention. And while some of those statements may have truth to them; when I noticed my jealousy spilling over into other areas of my life, I could no longer blame them for my feelings. I had to take a hard look in the mirror.
The first step in my healing was to take note of all of the times that I felt jealous in my life. That's it. No huge commitment or gargantuan first step. Just take note of the times that that feeling crept its way into my brain. I did this for about a month or so; just observed myself. For me, it boiled down to three different instances.
Romantic Relationships
Success
Physical Appearance
These were the three categories that I found myself allowing envy to take over. And folks, let me tell you something...it was not pretty. In each of these scenarios envy disguised itself as a different emotion, and it wreaked havoc on my mental health, and that of those around me. It took time, but I began to notice that jealousy was the root of all of these other emotions and so I began to dig deeper into what specifically was causing them and what I could do to remedy it.
Romantic Relationships
In my romantic relationships it presented itself as aggression and revenge. I would get so angry about attention that was being given to others. It would make me hate the women who the attention was being given to. Half of them probably didn't even know, nor did they deserve the animosity I felt towards them. The first thing I taught myself here was: those other people did not commit themselves to a relationship with me. They made no promises to me, so their actions should not affect me so deeply. That allowed me to focus my anger on my partner (not a good thing either but at least it was no longer directed on some poor innocent bystander). He went out and partied without me, I got angry...so I went out and partied without him...and made sure to post it publically to try and spark the same feeling of envy and rage in his soul that he sparked in mine. Let me pause right here folks to give you a quick tip: Revenge never works. It may bring you a momentary feeling of false peace, but it does nothing to help you grow. Hurting another person does not help you in any way, shape, or form; and it does more harm to you and your mentality than anyone else's.
And the irony of my revenge...he never even cared. He congratulated me for getting a life and getting out there. I was dumbfounded, but that was what I needed. Those times in my past relationships where I felt worthless and like no matter how I tried I couldn't win their affection; those are what taught me that I was seeking acceptance and love from another person. That quote "you can't expect someone to love you if you don't love yourself" seems so taboo but it is ooohhhhhh so true. I was getting infuriated, hurt and jealous because I was seeking validation in my partners' actions. How they treated me must be indicative of my worth. WRONG. I began to realize that I had issues with my self worth, and that that was the root cause of all of these negative emotions.
I envied her, because he gave her attention. But in my mind he gave her attention because she was more fun, better suited to him, cooler than I was. She was deserving of his attention more than me. Me problem. I envied that he went out and partied all the time and left me home. He left me at home because he must be ashamed of me, I must be boring, I must ruin his fun. Me problem. I envied that he would post his ex, or other girls publicly..but never me. It must because I am ugly, or because he doesn't want anyone to know about us. Me problem. You see...even though some of the things this partner did were definitely not in the top 10 best things a partner should do, my own insecurities within myself lead them to be much deeper than they were and allowed these toxic situations to perpetuate even further.
How different could it have been if I had been confident in myself? If I knew the kind of love I wanted and deserved. If I had the mentality to say, "you know what, I don't dislike her because she is pretty. It actually has nothing to do with her at all but the fact that you give her attention that I don't receive and that I think I deserve". Either my partner would have acknowledged this and we would have worked it out, or he would have continued the actions I did not like, and because I knew my worth and values, I would have walked away. Boom..turmoil ended.
This brings me to my first tip. Stop trying to empty their bucket and worry about filling your own. All the time I spent envying other women and my exes for living their lives, it had little to no effect on them, but had a huge effect on me. They continued to do what they wanted, and I continued to wallow in my own insecurities and let the turmoil continue. I learned that envying someone does nothing to them, except maybe be an slight inconvenience in their day or it may even encourage them to keep going (depending on what you are envious of). You hating them will not make them stop living the way that they want to, but it does do a lot to you…negatively.
Success
This next one is the one that really opened my eyes. This is what showed me that my jealousy was a me problem and not just limited to my romantic relationships. I remember being in college and looking at people on Instagram and seeing how kick ass their lives seemed. They had that fancy NYC apartment, or that big girl job that made huge bucks! They had the dream relationship, or they got to travel the world somehow for a living. Everywhere I looked people were thriving and here I was, doing the same thing I was doing 5 years ago.
Here jealousy expressed itself first as anxiousness "oh my gosh everyone has their ish together and I don't I am a total failure and everyone knows it! I will never amount to anything!" Then, as judgement. I found myself criticizing these people. Yea she lives in a fancy apartment but I bet she pays an arm and a leg for rent. I am sure she is actually miserable and just posts this stuff for likes. Yea she/he has this super successful job but you know what I bet they have no work life balance and honestly I would hate to work that much anyway, sucks for them. Oh, they have the perfect relationship...well I bet he likes other girls pictures and they have drama behind the scenes. She travels all the time and gets into these places, well how is she getting that money? What is she doing to get into those places?
I am embarrassed to admit that although these may not have been my exact thoughts they were pretty darn close. Like I said...not pretty. I allowed my envy to be so powerful that I actually believed this BS that I was telling to myself. I had allowed it to nest so deep into my head that I was focused on hating others for what they had, instead of chasing it myself. Luckily, after the time working on myself I began to notice that I didn't like when people were wrongfully judged. I also began to see value in myself, and the things that I could accomplish. Again..my self worth, or lack thereof was a ME problem. So I spent a year focusing on that (another blog about that) and that allowed me to see life in an entirely new perspective.
That brings me to my second tip. Next time you find yourself judging someone for something they have or are doing, take a moment to pause and ask yourself this question: Are you really mad at them for what they have or are you mad at yourself for not taking the opportunities to get it for yourself? You see, often when we are judging people, it is because we want what they have. But it is hard to admit to yourself that they have what they have because of hard work. Sure sometimes people are lucky, or things just happen. But I guarantee you 90% of the time they have what they do because of commitment, determination and grit. No one wants to admit that they could have the same things if they put in the same effort. Now you may be saying, "but Steph! I have kids or I have this job or I have no time" or whatever your reason for not going for it is. Trust me, I have a million of them too. But here is the thing, time is a limited resource but you are in control of how you spend it. I used to think I had no time, but then I realized I had no time management. I had no time but I somehow watched Netflix for an hour and a half a day. I had no time but my screen time recorder on my phone told me that I was on it for 6-8 hours that day. I had no time but I always had time to read 3-5 chapters of my favorite book before bed or to play my SIMS (SIMS addict over here LOL).
What I am saying is you make time for what matters, and maybe you are just blissfully unaware of how you are spending your time; I know I was. And please, do not think this is me saying give up the things that bring you joy. I still play SIMS (planning on doing it after I finish this blog post actually), I still read for fun, I even still watch Netflix; but I have learned to manage. Instead of an hour and a half a day, I watch it maybe twice a week. Now I have an hour and a half at least 5 days a week to pursue whatever my current dream is. I still play on my phone, but 6 hours a day is crazy. So I limit myself twice a week, can't go on before noon and can't go on after 8pm. Now my mornings and evenings have time where I won't be distracted. Don't envy someone for what they have, if you could be taking active steps to attain it for yourself.
Physical Appearance
This one is a sore spot for me because it is something that I still struggle with today. It actually ties into next weeks blog about comparison as well. Physical appearance; I swear no matter how happy some people seem no one is 100% happy with how they look. Maybe you wish you were thinner, curvy, stronger, had more hair, had a bigger butt, had a smaller nose, had dark hair, had blue eyes..whatever it is that you are craving for yourself. Unfortunately our society today and social media do nothing but fuel this internal fire. It can be extremely difficult to love yourself when you are bombarded day in and day out with images of what society tells you is perfect. Again, see my tip about limiting social media (and I will post a blog on cleansing media tricks). This ties back into my earlier point about loving yourself. It is not a one stop shop okay? I have been working on this and am still doing so!
Some days, I look in the mirror and I feel like the baddest woman on planet Earth, and other days I feel like a literal potato. That's life! The trick is to not be hard on yourself on those days when you are full on potato. Acknowledge the parts of you that you love (physical and not) and recognize that absolutely NO ONE is perfect and EVERYONE has flaws. Don't let these feelings get you down and absolutely don't let them turn to envy. For me envy presented itself here as sadness. I would think, "Oh I will never look liker her" or "Oh I wish I had ____" fill in the blank. Then I would let it get me sad and I would sit on the couch and wallow in my own pity party. I could have been so much more productive than that. Which brings me to my third trick.
Find out what you like and use it as inspiration. Instead of depending on society to tell you what is "hot" or not figure out what speaks to you, and then go after it. You think curvy is sexy? GREAT! Follow curvy people and see how they do it! You think rocking a short bob is the way to go, awesome! Save up that cash and go get that cut! You think changing how you look every day is the way you want to feel because you feel like a different person each and every day...I salute you! And YOU DO YOU! Your physical appearance is just as unique as you are and should not bring you anything but joy..and if it does you are in luck because you have the power to change it. Granted some things are harder than others to change, but with the right mindset and determination anything is possible.
The Growth
I told you, this blog is all about growth. And I just shared with you the three areas in my life where I struggled the most with jealousy. Now, not to toot my own horn but I want to show you how much I have grown in these areas to show you that YOU CAN DO IT TOO! So here it goes my 3 areas of previous envy, which are now energy!
Romantic Relationship
This man right here, is my everything. I met him, by chance, in the midst of that solo healing journey I was talking about. He appeared to me at a time in my life where the last thing I wanted was a relationship, yet somehow he was exactly what I needed. We were honest about our pasts, our faults, our expectations and our non negotiables. Now, our relationship thrives because of it. Do not make the mistake of thinking that we are perfect, we are not. We have our bickerings like any other couple, however there are three things that allow us to get through it every time. First, the fact that I took that look in the mirror and took the time to heal. I entered this relationship with experience in my tool box, and even though I may not have known exactly what I wanted from a relationship, I knew exactly what I did not want.
Having the ability to admit fault, and to look someone in the face and say these are the places I have been that I am not willing to return to; it takes guts but it helps set such a strong foundation.
Another thing that helps us is that thing called sheer dumb luck intervened and brought me a man who is the most genuinely kind-hearted person I know. Someone who accepts the faults of my past and present, and who is willing to help me grow as an individual. I know luck is not always on everyones' side, so for this step I recommend making a list of your values and the things you crave from a partner and manifesting that! Send it out to the universe and make an active effort to be that person yourself. You attract what you are...so attract the best to yourself by being the best version of yourself. And don't settle for less.
Third, open communication. In my post The Lost Art of Communication I discuss how communication, true communication, is not something that many people have in today's society. And let me tell you, before this relationship I was riding the struggle bus in this area too. I gave you a brief glimpse of that in my romantic relationships section above. But I am lucky enough to have someone who forces me to be open about my feelings, including jealousy; because even though this is the most solid relationship I have ever had...that feeling still pops up from time to time. However, now instead of letting it rule my emotions and make a home in my brain, I bring it out into the open immediately. "Hey it bothered me today when I saw you grabbing a drink with so and so can we discuss it" or "I am feeling a little upset right now...give me five minutes to calm down and then we can discuss it" or whatever the situation is. Having that foundation of knowing that we can talk about anything as long as we are open and respectful has been the ultimate building block of our relationship. Not only with jealousy, but in all areas good communication is key.
Success
Now, I would be lying to you in this section if I didn't admit that my current romantic relationship played a part in me growing in this area as well. Like I said, I have been blessed with a partner that supports me fully and that also pushes me to chase my dreams and accomplish my goals every single day. Having that kind of tough love and support is what I needed to help shape my mindset. I am going to try to help shape your mindset with this blog so that if you don't have someone in your life like that yet, you can still gather that inspiration!
Remember how I told you earlier that I was envious of everyone who was living their best lives, and how they seemed to be thriving while I was just twiddling my thumbs? Well after examining it, I realized that I wasn't thriving because I wasn't making any moves to get to where I wanted to be. I was just a sitting duck, waiting for opportunity to come knock on my door. And although I do believe in manifestation and that things that are meant for you will find you, I also believe that to attain what you want you need to put in some effort.
I began to use envy as my energy. Oh she has that fancy apartment...how did she get it? I would DM people, ask them what motivated them, what steps they took to get where they were today and then I would implement a version of that that worked for myself. Again, not getting mad at people for putting in effort that got them to where they are now, but instead holding myself accountable to put in that same effort. My biggest source of envy was travel. I wanted to see the world, experience different cultures, feel alive! But I didn't have a ton of money (that I thought I needed) in order to do that so I gave up before even trying. After learning that you get out of life what you put into it, I started doing some research of my own and found some great tips for traveling on a budget and how to make the most of my life with what I currently had, while working towards more.
I chose this picture above for success because success to me is following my dreams, and in this picture I am doing just that! I am in a beautiful place, with people I love, doing things that I would see on Instagram. I got to experience a different culture, try amazing cuisine, and get a tan! And I did it in a way that I could afford. Once I tackled that dream it gave me the fire to continue tackling others!
Physical Appearance
Like I said above, accepting yourself and healing your unwanted habits is not a one stop shop...and I still have those full on potato days. But one thing I have learned about physical appearance, and loving yourself in that regard, is that it takes a lot of understanding, grace, and compromise. I had to make peace with the fact that I was never going to be the most beautiful woman in the world (no matter how many times my parents told me I was) and that that was okay. I didn't have to be the thinnest, or the sexiest, or the prettiest...it is a competition I would never win, because everyone sees everything differently. I just had to be the most beautiful version of myself and I had to learn to feel beautiful for myself and no one else.
To be honest, an event in my life that really put things into perspective for me was my car accident. Prior to that accident I was very concerned with superficial features on myself. I thought everyone would notice this mole on my inner arm and think I was gross. If I got a pimple on my face I was terrified everyone would see nothing but that and think I was ugly until it went away (superficial I know...I grew okay). When I got in my accident, I got a pretty bad gash above and on my eye, my father told me it was so deep he could fit a quarter in it. They told me they would be able to save my eye and stitch it up, but they warned me that there was a chance that I would have a huge scar on my face, and that I wouldn't look the same anymore. When I looked in the mirror I bawled...not because I thought I was ugly , half my face caked in blood and a gnarly gash but because I was so thankful. I was alive. Not only alive but I had no broken bones (even the doctors were amazed, based off of the severity of my accident everyone expected me to have multiple broken bones) and my eye somehow survived, and my vision wasn't altered. Who the hell cared about a scar! I still had my life! That moment showed me how superficial some of my previous concerns were, and I no longer judged myself so harshly on trivial things, and anyone who did didn't have space in my life anymore.
And you know the best part, I accepted this fact prior to them stitching me up...and after they did...I healed amazingly. The scar is barely noticeable and I look the same as before. I believe everything happens for a reason and I choose to believe that because I had learned that valuable lesson (and because of the skill of that doctor) I got a second chance with my mindset of my physical appearance. Now I don't sweat the small stuff, and the things I don't like about myself I work on. For example, I feel fat in an outfit...I decide to change my eating and workout habits to get myself to a place where I feel comfortable with how I look. Or also I study fashion and clothes a little bit and find companies and or styles that I like and feel fit my body type well. I don't like how I look in pictures so I look up posing tips and or tips on how to take better photos so I can feel my best self. The resources are out there you just have to find them!
Checklist:
If you are looking for the abbreviated version or the summary recap of the actionable steps you can take to help overcome jealousy in your life here it is!
Feel free to fill this out anytime you feel envy creeping up on you! Or if envy is not one of your unpreferred habits but you like the idea of this checklist here is a blank copy to fill in however you feel would be helpful for you and your chosen habit! Enjoy:)
I hope you found this blog useful and allow it to help you on your Spring cleaning for yourself journey! Remember, why live for tomorrow when you could live for today? Let's take on the day! Thanks for reading!
Comentarios