I am embarrassed to admit that I did feel some pangs of envy as I watched the glamorous celebrities pose for the cameras on their walk down the red carpet. I will also confess that I periodically feel envious of those "perfect partners" who appear to have their relationships and lives completely under control. Why do I experience these feelings? What exactly is envy?
The nature of envy as well as the negative effects it can have on our mental and physical health. Historically considered one of the seven deadly sins (and appearing in two of the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament), envy is a “state in which the desired advantage enjoyed by another person or group of people causes a person to feel a painful blend of inferiority, hostility, and resentment.”
My reaction to those “perfect partners” is the more common type of envy, when the person who has the desired advantage is relatively similar to you. In addition, envy is more likely when the domain of comparison is important to you. It is an important role to me, so I am more likely to be envious of someone who seems to do well than someone who excels at downhill skiing (not important to me).
Envy can be a destructive emotion both mentally and physically. Envious people tend to feel hostile, resentful, angry and irritable. Such individuals are also less likely to feel grateful about their positive traits and their circumstances. Envy is also related to depression, anxiety, the development of prejudice, and personal unhappiness.
Not surprisingly, these negative mental states can impact physical health. Envious people can feel stressed and overwhelmed. In addition, most people don't want to hang out with an envious person because they are unpleasant to be around. As a result, envious people have fewer friends overall, as well as fewer friends who will help out in times of need. Worse, when an envious person receives help, she or he tends to feel resentful that assistance was necessary in the first place.
Since envy is an unhealthy emotion, how can you prevent it from occurring? The first step is to recognize and label these feelings as envious. This may be harder than it sounds. Because envy is considered a socially unacceptable emotion, many of us deny having these feelings both publicly and privately.
Once you have recognized and labeled envy feelings, you can try to dismantle them with a variety of cognitive therapy techniques and strategies, including:
- Self-Reliance and Perseverance. To "perseverate" is to repeat an action over and over. In this instance, the term is used to suggest that you repeatedly examine your thoughts to determine whether they are envious. If you find that they are envious at any given moment, remind yourself of how these thoughts don't help your life and can actually harm it. The more you can manage to catch and correct your thinking, the easier it will be to remain envy-free.
- Selective Ignoring and Distraction. When you find yourself thinking envious thoughts, quickly remind yourself that the other person's advantage isn't important in the grand scheme of things, and then focus on other thoughts (a pleasant memory, things that need to be done, etc) or engage in another activity. By distracting yourself with another absorbing thought or activity, you can stop your envious thoughts in their tracks.
- Self-Bolstering involves reminding yourself of your own positive qualities and advantages. This strategy doesn't seem to reduce envy itself, but can make you feel less angry and depressed in the face of your envy.
I think envy usually stems deeper than just comparing. It usually comes from our personal experiences and how we are treated. When I was younger, I was a size zero and very rarely did people comment on my weight. I felt content and happy with the way I looked back then and I had a lot of peace of mind in that department.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since the size zero debate, I became the target of abuse from both men and women (as for the latter, Im not sure if this was envy, but I was sure that men were being truthful). This made me feel very hurt, frustrated and angry as I found it difficult to put weight on and I was being judged on something that I couldn't change or control. This ultimately resulted in feeling a torturous sense of inferiority when I saw images of women with slim, curvy figures. I was always reminded of how horrible I looked when i saw these women and resented them for being blessed with better bodies. Now that I have managed to put on weight, I don't feel much envy, but I think there is always a part of me that is going to worry about being too thin or that there could be room for improvment.
As for women on here talking about their experiences of being envied, you've got to remember that it is them who are hurting more than you. These jealous women/girls must have been told they were ugly by obnoxious men, which is always a powerful source of feeing an overpowering sense of anxiety and inferiority. Not to mention, the images seen in the media are always an indirect way of saying "you are too ugly to be seen on TV or in a magazine". Ive always found that insecurity with regards to looks always stem from horrible personal experiences and a lack of evidence (e.g attention from the opposite sex) to prove them false. This always leads to constant anxiety and misery. As a result, they get very emotional when a man ignores them or if an attractive woman walks by. As for the latter, it is always because they assume as if it is fact that that woman is content and happy and knows she is beautiful. By comparison, the envier on the other hand is dicontent, miserable and is 100% convinced that they are unattractive and that no one is ever going to like them.
Envious people always obsess about how their rival better them and get increasingly angry and resentful about how life is unfair and how they are cursed with undesirable looks. Why would you cry about comments made by such people who have this sort of mentality? If anything, you should feel sorry for them.