I don't envy a lot and that isn't because I don't know anyone deserving of it People in my life are brilliant. My friends and family are great writers. They are driven designers, artists and poets who move me. It's easy to celebrate their recent success.
Being raised a Muslim, I use the Arabic phrase, mashallah, frequently. The most accurate way to represent the phrase in transliteration is masha Allah, which means, "What God has done." It is believed that saying mashallah protects a person from evil- eye. It changes the focus from potential envy to admiration, gratitude and respect.
Dr Emma Hepburn says that language and emotion are related. There is evidence that emotion words are beneficial to us. Both written and verbal language can affect how we feel. A threat response can be created by harsh words.
I may have been inadvertently protecting myself from allowing envy to get the better of me when I said a phrase that sought to protect the recipient from the threat of envy.
During the winter time, when I was about eight years old, I remember feeling very jealous of someone. I had never seen a cardigan like the one my best friend wore. There were little sheep and cows on the front, wool was spun into green tufts for trees, and the clouds were cream-coloured. I wore a thin black jumper that no longer reached the knuckle of my wrist. I imagined how wonderful it would be to wear a cardigan like that. I imagined how I would feel if my best friend accidentally spilled the powder paints on me. For a moment I thought I accidentally spilled the paint on to the cardigan. She was the only one who bothered to make friends with me after weeks of being alone. The colour of shame is blood, and as I stirred my paint to make my cheeks red, I realized it was hot shame.
Having finely tuned words for feelings is beneficial for us
Green is the color of envy. A monster with green eyes. Grass is always green. There is a dark emotion called envy. Anger can be made out to be sexy, but melancholy and sadness can be used to suggest a deeper character. There is something hidden in the shadows of ourselves. I think of the meme of a man in a robe standing next to a Frog. We are presented with a dichotomy of good vs evil with the understanding that shadow Kermit represents all of our dark thoughts and impulses. The dialogue in these meme shows conflict. My meme read, "But she's my best friend." Shadow Kermit wrote, "Fuck friends, spill the paint." My envy was that Kermit was the most colorful green. I would have felt responsible if something had happened to the cardigan.
In the pre-digital world, it was easy to envy. My peers were building their careers and grabbing life by the horns, all of which made me quit Facebook as quickly as I joined it. I didn't want to see the nights out, promotions and holidays that I was missing out on while I was at work. It was too difficult for me to not feel a type of envy when I saw things that I wanted for myself.
The emergence of social media has added a real-time vector to our culture of hyperawareness, thanks to the eye icon on my social media accounts. We are more aware of what we see and what we don't see. Not only do we get to see the lives of those we interact with, but we can also see the lives of those we have never met.
I left Facebook because I am a private person. I'm too shy. I don't have enough time to care for the baby or anything. I couldn't say that it was because I was so happy. According to Gail Collins-Webb, environmentalism is one of the hardest emotions to discuss within analysis because it is closely associated with the emotion of shame. She suggests that we should allow envy to tell us what to be thankful for. You are being told something. It is possible that a person is jealous of another person's ability to have lots of friends and create a network in a way that they can't. When you envy someone, what you are doing is projecting on to them that they have something you want. Isn't it worth asking?
Define what you’re envious of – it’s telling you something
One of my own goals was achieved recently by a close friend. She is deserving of her success due to her talent and hard work. It's easy to be happy for her. I was happy for her when she told me that she would like to achieve something like that someday. One of my friends achieved something that I had yet to, didn't even have on my radar, and while I applauded them, something about it bothered me. I had to admit that envy was the base note of my emotions. Negative feelings came up when I looked at this friend with envy. Collins-Webb says that if you can follow your envy it will tell you what you want and it will also tell you what your shadow is.
Carl Jung referred to the darker aspects of our personality as our "shadow selves". In his 1951 book, Aion, he describes how to become aware of the shadow. Any self-knowledge is dependent on this act. Shadow work is about learning from the unconscious and the darker aspects of ourselves. It's about figuring out where they come from, because sitting with those feelings may teach us something about what we want in our lives.
I was able to trace my envy back to my desire and feeling of injustice. I could see that the opportunity this friend had was the result of being rich and famous. I learned that I wanted something like my friend had, but not because they had it, but because I really wanted it. I was led towards a desire I didn't know I had and as a result set about trying to achieve what I wanted.
Words can change one's sense of self and perception. I don't envy a lot, but I know that a lot comes from not avoiding it. If I find envy sitting next to my praise and admiration, I encourage my gaze to turn inward in order to see what it is trying to show me.
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