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Introduction
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Rahim Thawer
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23 min read
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The Matrix of Envy in Our Social and Sexual Lives[image: Post image]
*Introduction*
We all experience envy. We feel envious when someone else possesses
something we want or we wish we had. In these instances, being a have-not
is probably hard to change, hence the tendency to get upset or suppress the
emotion as much as possible. The object of your desire could be someone
else’s achievements, their physical stature, friendship network, sexual
prowess, or popularity. However, the desire to *want*something is distinct
from the experience of envy. Rather, the person in possession of the things
or traits we desire becomes the target of our envy (Rodriguez Mosquera &
Hurtado de Mendoza, 2010).
As a psychotherapist, I think it’s important to talk about envy
specifically because we’re often not allowed to: envy, after all, is a
religiously and culturally sanctioned emotion. It can be helpful to explore
whether envy triggers feelings of inferiority or a strong sense of
injustice (particularly if you believe the person who possesses what you
desire is undeserving or experiences systemic advantages). What’s confusing
for many is the strong societal or cultural imperative to temper any sign
of envy, despite our consumerist culture’s deep reliance on envy as a means
of selling products and services and lifestyles. The shirt from your
favorite designer doesn’t sell itself — the hot model you want to look like
captures your attention and then gives you a false promise to be them, for
a price. In the therapy room, we can illuminate that unarticulated psychic
relationship (and phantasy
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about you and the model to “treat” the potentially destructive sequelae of
envy.
*The Matrix*
Envy activates a matrix of affective orientations (meaning “many kinds of
moods and emotions”). It can feel hard to talk about the matrix of envy
even when we give ourselves permission and attempt to erode the stigma.
Nevertheless, envy operates in our social and sexual lives with the same
frequency as basic anxiety. Consider your level of agreement with the
following statements (adapted from Lang & Cruise, 2015) as a starting point
to explore your own relationship to envy.
1. When I envy others, I focus on how I can become equally successful in
the future.
2. I sometimes wish that popular and attractive people would lose their
social advantages.
3. I can appreciate others’ successes without instantly evaluating my
own self-worth.
4. Envy of others motivates me to accomplish my own goals.
5. When I experience envy, it’s often connected to another person’s
wealth or physical appearance.
6. When I experience envy, it’s often connected to another person’s
structural privilege and social power.
7. When someone has something that I want, I fantasize about taking it
away from them.
8. I feel ill towards the people I envy.
9. Feelings of envy towards a person can cause me to quickly dislike
them.
10. Feelings of envy towards a person lead me to find ways to get closer
to them.
11. My envy is rooted in the pain of social disadvantages and inequity.
12. It’s frustrating to see other people succeed so easily.
13. The bitter truth is that I generally feel inferior to others.
14. Seeing other people’s achievements makes me feel overlooked.
15. Seeing other people’s achievements makes me feel resentful.
16. Feelings of envy torment me and then invite guilt.
17. I’m envious of other people’s sustained relationship models —
whether monogamous, open, or polyamorous.
18. I imagine that most other people of my gender have a better sex life
than I do.
19. When I feel like I’m lacking something, I try to re-focus on
gratitude.
Regardless of your level of agreement with these statements, I’m certain
that they each evoked a range of feelings. This is precisely the matrix of
envy that I now want to explore with you.
[image: Post image]
*Envy vs. Jealousy*
If you’ve ever said, “I’m jealous of that person’s salary,” you’ve mistaken
envy for jealousy. Envy and jealousy are distinct experiences with some
overlap. Envy emerges in the context of two people whereas jealousy
involves a third. I often think about jealousy as a reaction to the threat
of losing somebody. When you are in a romantic relationship and your
partner begins to devote once protected time and affection to someone else
— another partner, a co-worker, an ageing parent — you might feel like that
third party is responsible for taking something from you.
Beyond romantic relationships, jealousy also shows up in early childhood
(or in adulthood for that matter) when a parent/teacher/employer gives more
attention/praise to one child/student/employee over another. In each of
these examples of jealousy, we’re talking about something we already
possess (some kind of relationship) that feels threatened by a third
person. Jealousy sometimes invites a tempting opportunity to intervene with
the third person through disruption, deception, controlling behaviour, or
expressions of anger. Of course, this type of “acting out” is often frowned
upon socially (because it’s accurately labeled as manipulation), and in
some cases, constitutes emotional abuse. The signs of jealousy are visible
and more easily identified than those of envy.
Let’s return to the example of a romantic relationship. If I compare myself
to the person to whom my partner is attracted, that’s where envy comes up.
When I experience envy, I’m immediately thinking about something I lack or
wish I had, which takes me to a place of sadness and grief. The comparative
function of envy makes it a two-person (dyadic) phenomenon, while jealousy
involves a third (triadic).
In order to define envy, psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1957) draws on its
association with greed and its roots in the earliest relationship with
one’s caregiver:
*[Envy is] the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys
something desirable — the envious impulse being to take it away or spoil
it. Moreover, envy implies the subject’s relation to one person only and
goes back to the earliest exclusive relation with the mother….One essential
difference between greed and envy, although no rigid dividing line can be
drawn since they are so closely associated, would accordingly be that greed
is mainly bound up with **introjection*
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and envy with **projection*
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(p. 181)*
*Expressions of envy*
Some people experience benign envy — a kind of “frustrated desire” — while
others experience malicious envy (Lang & Crusius, 2015). I often identify
malicious envy in my patients (and myself) when it can be described as
sitting in the pit of your stomach as you start to feel hostility, shame,
sadness, and resentment. Altogether, envy is a highly embodied emotion
(akin to a physical sensation), yet, unlike joy or sadness, it doesn’t come
with a universal facial expression because it’s often so well disguised.
If envy didn’t have a malicious component to it, it wouldn’t be considered
a deadly sin in Christian theology. From Shakespeare’s Othello (1603) to
Gossip Girl (2007), our society reminds us regularly that envy can lead to
destruction of some kind: destruction of the self, the other, or of social
relationships. However, these cautionary examples don’t consider benign
envy that is often fleeting or even motivating. While English and Spanish
have only one word for envy, the benign-malicious distinction is made more
explicit in German and Russian (Lang & Crusius, 2015).
We know that envy is experienced across cultures and arises in the context
of social comparison. Episodic envy is what most of us would be able to
admit most readily; that is, feeling envious of someone else’s attributes,
status, or skills in a specific setting or in the context of a particular
incident (Cohen-Charash, 2009; Navarro-Carrillo et al., 2017).
Dispositional envy, by contrast, is more difficult to manage (and admit to)
because it entails a person experiencing a sense of inferiority more
chronically, and then uses competition and comparison as a conceptual tool
to navigate the world and nearly all relationships (Navarro-Carrillo et
al., 2017; Rentzsch & Gross, 2015). If you experience dispositional envy,
you’re likely in a lot of emotional pain. It also means that you are
probably in touch with your own experiences of shame. Delving into the nuances
of shame
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might be a useful starting place for self-exploration and healing.
*Envy in a sexual context*
What are things we can be envious of in a sexual context? You may be in
awe, and slightly envious, of people you know who have been able to
maintain a long-term relationship through good times and bad. I’m sure we
have all met that couple that seems to have negotiated the terms of their
long-term open relationship effortlessly while being fiercely committed to
one another. They look like a superhero team when they’re out in public and
the one you happened to have slept with sings the praises of his partner as
post-coital pillow talk.
They’re obnoxious! No, wait. I’m just envious.
Maybe you feel envious of the number of partners others have, or the
frequency of their sex. Maybe you’re in a relationship and you envy others’
singleness. And who isn’t envious of at least one other person’s physical
features? Here’s a unique one: being envious of other people’s ability to
engage in sexualized drug use; envious that they can use drugs and pair
that activity with sex when you are more risk averse or have a lower
tolerance for substances. Are you envious of people’s sexual networks and
communities, someone’s sexual CV? Perhaps you’re envious of other people’s
sexual fluidity, that they’re able to be with multiple people and multiple
genders, and you wish that was you. Or maybe you’re envious of other
people’s partners because they just seem to be more open-minded and willing
to try the things that you wish your partner would be willing to do. Is it
others’ bravery or sense of adventure that leaves you feeling green
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I facilitated a workshop recently in which a participant stated they
experience envy of people who don’t have to deal with the aftermath of
childhood trauma in their sexual encounters. For the person without such a
history, beyond consent, no further discussion of triggers and possible
dissociation is required.
[image: Post image]
*Gay envy*
Do you envy someone’s access to sexual spaces? As a cisgender gay man, I
can go to a sauna or a bathhouse where guys have anonymous sex. I know some
of my trans masculine friends have been envious of my ability to access
those spaces. They might be thinking, “Hey, that would be fun and if I were
able to participate in that space, there would be emotional rewards for my
masculinity, my gender experience. And, it’s an unfair that it’s not as
readily available to me!”
I’m also thinking about the currency of gym bodies and online profile
photos in gay culture that attract all the taps, woofs, and swipes a sister
could ask for. I’ve had the experience of hanging out with friends and just
as we’re about to part ways each of us quickly logs into Grindr —
naturally. We’re either looking for the next thing or feel like we’d be
remiss to not make ourselves at least visible on the fresh grid of
thumbnails in that new neighbourhood (that’s just a few kilometers away
from home). I almost always peek over at the other person’s phone and on so
many occasions have thought to myself, “Hey, what the heck? How come
they’ve got so many unanswered messages, so many taps?” In truth, anytime
I’ve had more than three conversations going simultaneously, I’m
immediately overwhelmed and unsure of where to invest my time. Yet when I
look at someone else’s busy grid, I’m not overwhelmed on their behalf. I’m
envious.
Has a gay man ever told you a story about spontaneous sex where one of the
partners was just ready to bottom without any notice? How do these people
have so much control over their digestion and the confidence to bend over
at a moment’s notice? Being a receptive partner for anal sex is just so
fun. I’m envious of guys who can do it easily, for a long period of time,
and with multiple people in a week. This begs the question: what exactly is
it that I want that they possess? Perhaps it’s sexual availability,
versatility, confidence, or the absence of anxiety.
Ask yourself: How does envy interact with your sexuality and sexual
experiences? Does envy of others motivate you to do things differently for
yourself? Does your envy make you feel inferior and immobilized? When I
consider my own experiences of envy in the context of relationships and
sex, it’s almost always in this amorphous space before I know a person that
I presume they possess a superhuman sexual prowess. This is because envy is
fuelled by fantasy and imagination. Once you know about the other person’s
mundane life, your envy starts to fade. Nevertheless, let’s say I’m online
and swiping my life away looking for the right matches. If I see people who
have attributes that I don’t possess, that I feel envious of, behind the
screen of my phone, I certainly feel more emboldened to send them a tap or
swipe right. Screens provide a solid emotional cover. And who knows? Maybe
they’re into me too. If I can disrupt the compulsion demanded by the app, I
try to ask myself: do I actually want to meet this person if they swipe
back? Or, is this an exercise in confidence and conquest? Or perhaps an
exercise in low self-esteem and self-fulfilling prophecies?
When we’re searching for mates online, I can’t help but wonder: does the
low stakes virtual space allow our envy to become unruly? Behind a screen,
we might allow ourselves to be more adventurous and bite that lower lip
with interest more than we would ever do in person. However, desire isn’t
the problem here. Rather, it’s more the exhaustion of desire — when it’s
specifically driven by envy — that leads to the casting of a wide net for
partners, which in turn means being vulnerable, engaging with the reality
of your superficial envy, and managing endless rejection.
In the last decade of working in queer men’s health, there have been many
clinical issues and programmatic topics that have come to the surface on
the teams and in the boardrooms where I’ve sat: homophobia, HIV stigma,
internalized racism, sexualized drug use, depression, isolation,
suicidality, body image, and shame. I’ve never heard a conversation about
the role of envy in our lives as queer guys. Many of us grow up
experiencing envy around masculinity at an early age. We’re envious that
other boys fit in and get celebrated easily. Many gay men have told the
story about a straight friend they fell for early in their coming out
process. I’d speculate that it was less about love and more about envy: “I
want to be you, but I’ll settle for possessing your straight-passing
advantages by proximity to you!” If this is true — that envy is a critical
feature of gay men’s lifespan development — we urgently need to examine its
trajectory as our individual and community interventions will fall short in
its absence.
There’s a thriving party n’ play
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subculture (also known as chemsex) in gay men’s communities in many
countries around the world. PnP can refer to sexualized drug use with any
number of substances being used to facilitate and enhance sexual
encounters. The substance that draws most attention is crystal
methamphetamine for its addictive qualities. From a lifespan development
perspective, I’d suggest that the desire to parTy gets its wings from
creating a space where envy and shame can be mitigated or completely
erased. That is, a celebration of many masculinities and unlimited
intimacies
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can be accessed without the painful judgements or comparisons embedded in
our social world.
*Activators of envy*
Different factors are going to trigger your experience of envy in social
and sexual settings. Envy, like shame, is a social emotion. It doesn’t just
occur in a vacuum. If I feel envious, it’s inherently in relation to
someone else. Consequently, envy is often activated when we observe:
- Advancement of others;
- Happiness and life plans of others;
- Exchange of affection or praise between others;
- An ease of asking and receiving by others (whether it’s due to
systemic privilege or extroversion).
In a way, these are all narcissistic injuries — perceived slights against
our self-image. This is about feeling overlooked, ashamed, or inferior. For
some people, envy can arise in specific contexts, e.g., being in a
classroom and sharing an answer, only to listen on as somebody else with
whom you feel a kind of competition, shares a slightly better answer. Any
interpersonal context where you feel inferior or ashamed, out-performed,
sidelined, overlooked — those are situations where you might be
experiencing a narcissistic injury (or wound).
Are people with narcissistic personality disorder more likely to experience
dispositional envy and therefore more regular slights? Possibly. Yet it
makes no sense to downplay injuries that have not received such a
diagnosis. We all experience narcissistic injuries and they are an
important part of matrix of envy that needs to be examined.
*Working backwards*
If you have difficulty identifying the contexts that activate your envy,
you may need to work backwards. For example, one of the ways I know that
I’ve been envious is when I notice my own schadenfreude
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(by now you’ll notice the English language is lacking serious nuance), the
German word denoting the experience of finding pleasure in someone else’s
suffering or humiliation. In some contexts, the signal may be noticing your
sadism when you’re sprinkling salt on someone’s wound with an “I told you
so.” A common experience that rarely gets talked about is seeing a person
you know who is normally drenched in privilege finally having a tough time
in life. You’re unlikely to be outwardly joyous about their suffering, but
you might register it as a leveller of the playing field, which, in turn,
brings you some personal satisfaction.
Shadenfreude and sadism aren’t the only diagnostic criteria for envy. They
can also be a reflection of your disowned parts
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as seen in another person. Think of a individual (or a television
character) you despise. Consider what specific qualities they possess that
make you cringe. Think about how much you wish you could smack them and
“turn off” the parts of them that really bother you. That’s your sadism
(desire to punish) — it wants the other person to feel some pain so they
will change. Just like you did. What you dislike in them is in fact a
mirror of the parts of you that you disowned at an early age because they
didn’t fit with your survival strategy at the time. Now, they arouse an
anger or pity in you that conceal your underlying envy (Terry, 2014).
In sum, sadistic pleasure (Rosenberger, 2015) and schadenfreude can be
signs that you’ve encountered someone who possesses attributes that are
connected to one of your disowned parts. And, you though you don’t like
them or enjoy seeing them suffer, you also envy them on some level.
Another way to work backwards is to notice your sense of competition as an
indicator of envy’s presence. Here’s an example: Let’s say I’m invited to a
house party — it’s the pre-game before a group of us go to the bar. I’ve
been invited by my friends. But when I show up, I realize most of these
guys are white. I think, “okay, whatever, I’m here doing my thing, I’m
going to pour myself a drink.” I see another South Asian person and he’s
talking to a couple of really cute white guys. I immediately become flushed
with both jealousy and envy. This is just how envy, white supremacy, and
internalized racism operate in the real world. I feel competition with the
other South Asian person for the attention of the white guy. I experience
the white person’s attention and gaze toward the other person who looks
like me as a narcissistic injury. It’s not lost on me that my experience of
episodic envy reifies the racist idea of people within a racial group being
seen as “the same”; still, the sense of competition is indicative of my
envy.
*Defenses against envy*
How do you protect yourself–or defend against–the experience of envy? After
all, there isn’t a recommended script for how to deal with or articulate
your envy in a way that would be helpful to you or others around you.
Defenses are just things that we do, sometimes subconsciously, to put some
distance between us and another feeling that is hard to tolerate.
So, what do you do? Do you take up more space? Do you shrink yourself to be
less visible? Do you dance in the center of the room? Do you drink more to
help you feel unaffected by anything? And why do we summon defenses against
envy? Well, if we sat with it, we’d have to accept that we might be lacking
something and then we’d either be grieving or endlessly re-evaluating our
values. For example, if I’m envious of my friend who has muscular arms and
earns twice my income and I’m to simply sit with it, I’d be grieving. If
take the time to I re-evaluate my values, I may begin to counter-identify
with the culture that celebrates his progress and teaches me to use it as a
measuring stick. Admittedly, a defense can also be quite adaptive. If I can
challenge the call to compete and not get sucked into my own shame, I can
think about my own strengths and simply be curious or enamored by someone
else’s.
Envy, in other words, activates a web of affective orientations — many of
them defense mechanisms — to help us cope with this feeling we want to rid
ourselves of. Based on my observations as a therapist and introspection in
my own life, here are all the things that I’ve seen come up:
- Motivation: “I can accomplish things too. I just need to focus on my
goals.
- Gratitude: “I’m grateful for what I have and where I am in life.”
- Adoration, inspiration: “I’m happy to see others do well. I want to
celebrate them and take in some positive energy for myself.”
- Counter-identification: “I need to re-evaluate the roots of my envy
and simply work towards wanting different things. This might mean adopting
a new belief system and reducing exposure to people who propagate a more
dominant value system that is designed to work against me.”
- Greed: “I’ll just accumulate more money in my pocket, buy more things,
increase the hours clocked at work, or continue to superficially expand my
network of friends. If I have everything, I can’t be envious of others. In
addition, if I make good use of people I know as resources for my
advancement, I’ll be untouchable.”
- Grandiosity and hostility: “That other person may have more money or
more friendships, but they don’t work as hard as I do. No one does, really.
I wish them well but wouldn’t be sad if they lost everything.”
- Grief: “I’m sad about not being in a relationship. I’m sad about
missed opportunities. I’m missing a life I used to have or once imagined
would be within reach.”
- Self-pity: “Things never go my way. I’ll never be like that other
person.
- Shame: “I’m feeling super discouraged; inferior to others in this
moment.”
[image: What does your matrix of envy look like?]What does your matrix of
envy look like?
In many ways, envy and shame are intimately connected. Envy of someone’s
relationship status can activate shame about being single. Envy makes you
aware of what you don’t have access to and throws you into a grief cycle.
Let’s return to internalized racism and the online hookup scene. Let’s say
I’m logged in to Grindr and though I’m not looking for anyone in
particular, my swipes and taps lean heavily toward men who are tall and
white. How awful to go from tacit to explicit awareness about structural
envy and, by extension, internalized shame? The way envy operates here is
stifling because I’m grieving all the things I’m not while also
de-sexualizing other people who look like me (I don’t hate myself as much
as my examples suggest, I swear!). When a meeting is eventually arranged
with an appropriate suitor, if it’s envy and shame that have driven me to
this encounter, how can I even focus on being present and enjoying sexual
pleasure instead of being caught up in performance anxiety?
*Being envied by others*
What does it feel like to be envied by others? How do you know when it’s
happening and does it make you uncomfortable? In all honesty, I’m not sure
when I’m being envied, but I do know that I have been. Most of us likely
have been envied at some point. We all possess something another person
wishes they had (more of): attractiveness, intellect, status, money, style,
clothing, popularity, and so on. Have you considered how many of your
friendships might have begun because one or both parties were slightly
envious of the other? In these cases, mere proximity can quell the
aggression of envy and turn it into something else. Envy, in other words,
can certainly breed hostility and contempt, but that’s not always, or
necessarily, the case.
Given that when we experience envy, our defenses may range from seeking
proximity to the destruction of the other person, it’s unsettling to
consider that someone’s envy of us is constantly permeating their
motivations to be nearby.
Being envied can come with a myriad of responses and consequences:
- Increased self-confidence;
- Fear, uncertainty, power, joy;
- Relationship strain;
- Target of the evil eye
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(*al-ayn *in Arabic, *nazar *in Urdu).
In my culture, I was taught that there is joint responsibility to prevent
the consequences of envy — or nazar
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which translates as `someone else’s gaze.’ It’s commonly believed that
“showing off” can attract someone else’s negative gaze, which can then
hamper your growth. Having contempt for someone else’s gains or possessions
is discouraged and people also use amulets, dark eyeliner, and attributions
to a higher power to deflect others’ envy. In the milieu of popular culture
(read: Instagram mental health memes), we tend to be told that we should
wholly accept a compliment without deflection or false modesty — to own our
achievements and to publicly celebrate our worthiness. Despite the
different types of socialization, people often respond to a compliment or
redirection to an object of potential envy (wealth, accolades, possessions)
by somehow depreciating its value: “Yes, the high GPA is great but it cost
me so many nights of sleep!” or “My director’s salary is nice but you won’t
believe the amount of admin it comes with!” or “We’re happy to have found
this home but the bank owns most of it!” [I feel you need to finish this
point — there’s this inclination, and so now it relates to envy how…]
[image: Post image]
*Envy as a micro-aggression*
So far, I’ve explored envy in the context of everyday interpersonal
relationships, and when there is an imbalance of systemic power that favors
the target of envy. But what happens when a person from a dominant group
(one with historical and societal power) envies a someone from a target
group (one with historical and societal disadvantage)? I’d argue that it’s
sometimes experienced as a micro-aggression, especially if there is a false
presumption of unfairness.
In their paper, Clark, D. et al (2014) explored Indigenous students’
experiences with racial micro-aggressions in Canada and identified that
these students were often the targets of envy due to a presumption of tax
and tuition subsidies that they either received or for which they might be
eligible. Why does the feeling of envy operate as a micro-aggression? The
projection of “not having” by non-Indigenous students discounts the
historical events and the foundations on which such policies and programs
for equal opportunity are built.
In a similar vein, I’ve had some of my white therapy patients talk about
their envy of certain social justice activists, in particular Black and
brown folks who have gained notoriety (sometimes in the form of a large
social media following). It’s not a malicious envy but it does come with
the complexity associated with processing their own narcissistic injuries
in the arena of activism. A more extreme example of this would an
able-bodied athlete (let’s call her Joan) being envious of athletes with
disabilities. Sound bizarre? Well, there are two explanations for this
actual occurrence. The first is that Joan is grieving the loss of the
centre-stage (an entitlement) that comes from being ascribed a privileged
social position. The second possibility is that Joan has a phantasy
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about being seen as an inspiration to others and she imagines that she’d
receive more love or attention if she was understood as successful despite
living with disadvantages (this is rooted in a childhood conflict, no
doubt). She wants people to know she’s *that good.* Either way, her
grievance, narcissism, and envy play out as micro-aggressions. An athlete
living with a disability likely had to fight against being reduced to
inspiration
porn
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regularly and would find the external romanticizing of their struggle as
offensive.
*Processing and managing envy*
You experience envy, but now what? And, I told you it’s normal, so should
we just move on? No.
Talking about envy and all its dimensions should help us understand it
better. With any luck, we can also reduce its stigma. Once we’re primed and
ready, we can actually begin considering what processing and managing envy
might include.
First, you need to identify if your experiences of envy are episodic or
dispositional. It might be one or both. If your answer is `neither,’ your
denial may be protecting you until your mind and body are more prepared for
this conversation. Next, consider if your experience of envy tends to be
benign or malicious. If it’s malicious, don’t jump to self-criticism — that
will only activate your shame and replace one emotional wound with another.
Ask yourself, when it comes to both the object of desire and your target of
envy, what is your endgame? Rosenberger (2005) suggests that the aim of
envy is to either acquire (possess) or destroy (sadism). If you want to
harm someone or see them fail, that will likely create more misery for you
because constant comparisons and glimpses of their success will consume
you. If, instead, you say, “I want to be able to experience gratitude for
what I have and legitimate rage for what isn’t within reach for me,” that’s
much more reasonable. My strong recommendation is to create space for both
the positive and negative and work on containing each. Too much of either
and you lose the authenticity of your experience in the world.
Some targets of your envy such as celebrities, will always remain at the
distance. However, there are others with whom you might want to have a
conversation. Talking about a stigmatized emotion like envy might feel like
opening a wound to selectively allow its toxicity to exit peacefully from
your body. (Of course, having a conversation also depends on the other
person’s temperament, If the object of your envy is a sadist, this kind of
opening would probably back-fire).
What is a good way to invite a close person, family, friend or lover to
speak about envy?
1. Attend to someone else’s potential narcissistic injury: I might say
to a sibling, “Hey we were at that family gathering and people were paying
a lot of attention to this thing that I accomplished, and I was a bit
worried that you were being overlooked because you’ve done some great
things too.” This overture might open a window for them to talk about that.
2. Anticipate and reflect on what makes you feel overlooked: I might say
to a partner, “the wild sex life you’ve had brings up a kind of envy for
me. I think I need some reassurance that you’re into me even though my
sexual history looks different than yours.”
3. Reveal your failures: The power of psychological phantasy means that
people will understand your successes in an imaginary context that doesn’t
include your struggles. Brooks at al. (2019) suggest that successful people
can mitigate malicious envy directed toward them by revealing some of their
struggles and failures. Humanizing the targets of envy helps make the
emotion much more manageable.
Again, envy isn’t necessarily destructive. With self-awareness and some
emotion regulation skills, envy can become a communicator and diagnostic
tool. It will reveal to you exactly what a toxic world has taught you, and
then, armed with those insights, you can decide if the drive to possess
what someone else has needs to be extinguished or pursued with caution.
[image: Post image]
*REFERENCES*
Brooks, A. W., Huang, K., Abi-Esber, N., Buell, R. W., Huang, L., & Hall,
B. (2019). Mitigating malicious envy: Why successful individuals should
reveal their failures. *Journal of Experimental Psychology: General*, *148*(4),
667–687. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000538
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Clark, D. A., Kleiman, S., Spanierman, L. B., Isaac, P., & Poolokasingham,
G. (2014). “Do you live in a teepee?” Aboriginal students’ experiences with
racial microaggressions in Canada. Journal of Diversity in Higher
Education, 7(2), 112–125. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036573
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Cohen-Charash, Y. (2009). Episodic envy. *Journal of Applied Social
Psychology*, *39*(9), 2128–2173.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00519.x
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Fam, J. Y., Yap, C. Y., Murugan, S. B., & Lee, T. (2020). Benign and
malicious envy scale: An assessment of its factor structure and
Psychometric Properties. *Psychological Thought*, *13*(1), 66–84.
https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v13i1.389
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Klein, M. (1988). *Envy and gratitude, and other works, 1946–1963*. Vintage.
Navarro-Carrillo, G., Beltrán-Morillas, A.-M., Valor-Segura, I., &
Expósito, F. (2017). What is behind Envy? approach from a psychosocial
perspective / ¿Qué se esconde Detrás de la Envidia? aproximación desde una
perspectiva psicosocial. Revista De Psicología Social, 32(2), 217–245.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02134748.2017.1297354
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Rentzsch, K., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Who turns green with envy? conceptual
and empirical perspectives on Dispositional Envy. *European Journal of
Personality*, *29*(5), 530–547. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2012
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Rodriguez Mosquera, P.M., & Hurtado de Mendoza, A. (2010). I fear your
envy, I rejoice in your coveting: on the ambivalent experience of being
envied by others. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*;
99(5):842–54. doi: 10.1037/a0020965.
Rosenberger, J. W. (2005). Envy, shame, and sadism. *The Journal of the
American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry*, *33*(3),
465–489. https://doi.org/10.1521/jaap.2005.33.3.465
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Terry, P. (2014). Beware of pity which conceals envy. Psychodynamic
Practice, 20(3), 280–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/14753634.2014.916842
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