Envy, resentment, and finding inner peace.
How do you feel when you’re scrolling social media and see that a colleague got a job promotion or a friend went on an amazing family vacation? How do you react when someone tells you good news about themselves? What is your inner dialogue when you compare your life to the lives of those around you? While we would all like to think that in each one of these scenarios we feel nothing but happiness for our family, friends, and colleagues, I know that for many of us, this is probably not entirely the truth. It is very rare to find a person whose automatic impulse is to feel genuinely happy all the time for the success of others.
Being envious and resentful does not make you a bad person. I believe that we all really want to be truly happy for the success of most everybody. It is only natural to compare ourselves to others though. If you think back within the last week, I guarantee every single one of us has had a conversation with someone else or have had internal dialogue that involved envy and resentment. I am sure we all have spoken or thought phrases like they are so lucky, or how were they able to afford that, or even worse, they don’t deserve that.
To be completely honest, I know I carry envy and resentment of others more often than I would like to admit. I hate feeling that way. I can reference quite a few times, especially in my professional life, where I have let envy and resentment get the best of me. I have worked hard to get where I am and accomplish what I have up to this point and when I feel passed over for an opportunity, untrusted, or unrecognized for the hard work I put in, I know that it completely turns my attitude upside down. These feelings cause a lot of disruption. For me, it causes resentment for others that have nothing to do with the feelings I am having in the first place. This resentment causes a desire to remain at arm’s length from certain people which then can lead to missed opportunities, organizational inefficiency, and personal problems. I know others can sense this attitude change and it is not inviting. It’s toxic and can suck you into a spiral of bad habits and despair if you let it.
What I have learned is that the root cause of envy and resentment is not the perceived fortune of others, it’s our own vulnerability. It’s our underlying feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. A consistently resentful person is someone who is not comfortable in their own skin. It is someone who doesn’t like what they see within themselves. That is a hard pill to swallow. It is so much easier to find fault in others than to take a good hard look at yourself.
Fighting back against resentment in our lives is more difficult than it would seem on the surface. Nevertheless, it is possible to cultivate more generosity of spirit and at the very least, quiet the cruel voice of envy.
Making peace with yourself
For me, I have had to make peace with myself. I have had to come to terms with the fact that no matter what I do, there will always be someone who is smarter, richer, more confident, etc. That is life, there is nothing we can do about it and that is okay. That doesn’t mean that I have surrendered my drive and self motivation, that is far from the truth. I will strive to be the best person I can be every day of my existence. There are a couple things I do when envy and resentment start to get the best of me though.
Recognize what makes you envious- The key here is to recognize the circumstances and qualities in others that trigger your envy. You will find that what you envy in others will probably reveal what you are most insecure about in yourself. Once you identify these triggers, you can utilize them as a starting point for the self improvement process (refer to blog #1).
Affirmation- Recognizing your emotional triggers can help you keep envy at a distance. You still might find it hard to be genuinely happy in others’ successes sometimes. When these feelings come about do one simple thing: remind yourself of your own strengths and successes. We are all wonderfully and beautifully made by God and there is nothing wrong with affirming how truly awesome you are.
Turn comparison back on yourself- For me, this is by far the most important part of this process. Before, almost all of my comparisons came from my perceptions of others. There is no winning in those juxtapositions, it doesn’t matter who you are comparing yourself to. I have completely changed my mentality and my comparisons now come from a completely different place. I only need to look as far as the man staring right back at me in the mirror.
