By Vicki Uwannah
With the ever-increasing rise of self-help literature and social media coverage on mental health, admitting that we experience a vast array of emotions has become less of a taboo. We’re finally recognising that our general wellbeing, our productivity at work and our ability to have meaningful connections can be dependent upon our resilience or mental state at a particular moment in time. Underpinning our resilience is our emotional experiences and reactivity to the world around us. Sadness, anxiety and even anger have become the negative emotions that we have come to accept as inevitable and even normal. But how often do we talk about the other seemingly unpleasant emotions such as jealousy and envy? Not very often, but this is something I have recently come to grapple with, understand and finally accept.
My furore into the world of jealousy and envy came from an unlikely source – a lesson from a child. They had recently discovered the meaning of the two words at school and shared this with me; as although I have on many occasions interchangeably used both words to describe the same feeling, they are in fact quite distinct in their emphasis. My accidental teacher informed me of how jealousy is about feeling protective over something that is yours whereas envy is about desiring something that you do not possess.
I think it’s interesting to unpack the two. One emotion is about protection and fiercely holding on, the other is expressed as an intense desire. When we look at it through this lens, it seems perfectly understandable and human to experience these emotions at various phases of our lives. There will be moments where it is absolutely essential to protect. There will be times when our desire leads us forward into action, and to achieve great things. But there will also be situations in which we have no logical rhyme or reason for feeling jealous or envious, and it is at these pivotal moments in which we can dig deeper into our psyche and understand what is going on for us. Emotions can be a great communicative tool and insight into our thoughts and experiences. They can usher us into greater connection, slow us down so that we pause and reassess, or shift us into new directions. So upon receiving communication from within, we can then decide what next to do. We can tally the information in front of us with rationale and reasoning, before taking appropriate action.
Here are some prompt questions to guide your reflections on your experiences of jealousy and/or envy:
Is there really a threat here of losing something I hold dear? And what are the consequences of this loss?
What does it mean for something or someone to be mine?
Why am I desiring this specific outcome/situation/relationship? What meaning does it hold for me?
How can I positively move towards the direction of my longing in a way that still shows content for where I’m at right now?
These are all questions I’m posing to myself as I grapple with the ordinary human emotions of jealousy and envy. Let’s take the stigma out of it and see it for what it really is – useful information about our current state of mind and a guide for when we’re feeling stuck.
