How to make envy work for you
I have an acquaintance who I have been following on social media for years, even though most of her posts fill me with jealousy. It seems like she’s always on some other tropical vacation. How many beaches can one visit?
When I showed my husband her last post from the dunes, he suggested I unfollow her.
“It’s not that easy,” I told him.
“Actually it is,” he said.
Envy, the feeling you get when you notice that someone is better off than you, is something many of us can relate to, says Robert Leahy, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy and professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College, who explores envy. But we often feel both shame and guilt, he said.
“In pop psychology, people might say you should never be jealous,” said Dr. Leahy. “That’s absurd. You are human.”
Envy is usually confused with jealousy, Dr. Leahy said, but they are different. Jealousy brings perceived threats to relationships, he explained, but jealousy shows up when you experience threats to your status.
And while jealousy can fuel feelings like resentment or defeat, it can also be motivating, he said.
So how do we make the tendency to ‘compare and despair’ work for us? I asked experts for advice.
Acknowledge it.
If you feel a wave of jealousy, admit it first, Dr. Leahy said. “By making room for jealousy and noticing when it shows up, people aren’t afraid of it.”
It’s okay to be jealous of a friend, Dr. Leahy said. Your emotions are probably more complex. “You can think: I love my boyfriend, I appreciate what they do for me and their good qualities, And I’m jealous of them,” he said. “You don’t have to reduce your thoughts or emotions about someone to feel jealous.”
Don’t react impulsively to jealousy, says Manuel Gonzalez, assistant professor of psychology at Montclair State University. studied envy. Instead, examine what you fixate on when you’re jealous, he said. What problems does it bring with it in your own life?
Use that information to clarify your own desires and ambitions, said Dr. Gonzalez. Then, he said, ask yourself: Why am I jealous of this person? How can I use this person as a role model? What can I learn that can change my own situation?
I told Dr. Gonzalez about my beach friend and explained that I don’t even like the sun. He bombarded me with questions: Is this a feeling of jealousy because she is at the beach, or because she has extra hours to lounge? Did I long for more free time? I admitted that I was.
“Is this an indication that you should start taking more vacations?” Dr. Gonzalez asked. I told him I was probably jealous of all the time she spent with her family, posing by the water in matching shirts. “So maybe this brings up how she seems to prioritize family time,” he said.
Compensate for envy by cultivating gratitude.
If you’re overcome by jealous thoughts, recognize them, but try not to give in to them, Dr. Leahy said. “Think of envy as a telemarketing call,” he said. “You can choose to notice it, but not pick up the phone and do anything about it.”
You can also combat jealous feelings by practicing gratitude, “since it’s difficult to be in both states at the same time,” says Christine Harris, a psychology professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has researched the emotion. If you’re overcome with jealousy, she said, make a list of all the things you appreciate in your own life. (You can write it down if that helps.)
“Envy drains you, gratitude fills you,” added Dr. Leahy added.
And rest assured that jealousy can diminish over time, Dr. Harris said. Her research has found that young adults are more jealous than older adults.
But if jealousy makes you depressed, angry, overwhelmed or causes you to avoid people, it may be helpful to seek counseling, Dr. Leahy said.
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