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“My best friend was promoted again,” he muttered, halfway through our conversation about something else.
In therapy, it’s the detours that often take us to the main point.
For over a year, Jonah had been trying to advance at his company. “It’s even more annoying because he told me he didn’t really care about the new job. It’s getting harder to pick up his calls. I know I shouldn’t feel this way. Why can’t I just be happy for him?”
“Is it true you’re not happy for him?” I pressed. “Perhaps you are happy, but your envy overshadows your happiness.”
“I don’t know. I’ve tried to practice gratitude; focus on the positive. But that didn’t work. Now I feel worse because I realize I’m both envious and ungrateful. If there’s any part of me that’s happy for him underneath all this, I can’t find it.”
“There might be a way forward,” I replied, “but I’m not sure gratitude’s the right path. Maybe we should start by looking at envy’s parts.”
He gave me a look like I misunderstood him. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do. But until I get myself promoted, I don’t think I can shake this one feeling.”
But envy isn’t one emotion. It’s two.
Understanding Envy: Two Emotions, Three Responses
Envy is challenging partly because it hides two emotions within it. The first is desire. I don’t mean the desire to become another person. It’s desire for some quality, possession, or circumstance we perceive as valuable, even if we dislike the person who has it. When we envy, we see something we wish to possess or emulate. If desire were missing, we wouldn’t be drawn towards the object of envy in the first place. Whether it’s a new car, someone’s talent, or their physical beauty, envy contains the pull of desire.
The second feeling inside of envy is the feeling of disappointment: the reaction to not having this special something, the recognition that what another holds is missing in our own lives. Neuroimaging research by Takahashi and colleagues found that envy activates the same region of the brain tied to the distress of physical pain, and so this disappointment is more like a deep ache. But with my clients, we talk about envy as the combination of desire and disappointment.
When the two emotions inside envy are made clear, three paths to address them emerge.
- Run a desire double-check. The first thing we can do is evaluate what we desire. Do I actually want what I envy? Or have I started craving something I don’t really want? Perhaps I wanted something because someone else wanted it, what the theorist René Girard called mimetic desire; it’s borrowed rather than truly our own. I may have been charmed by an expensive home, but when I examine this desire more carefully, it turns out to be thinner than I thought. If my desire doesn’t survive this double-check, one of envy’s underlying feelings falls away, and so the envy fades with it.
- Move closer to what’s attainable. When our desire survives the double-check, the next step is to ask if what’s wanted is realistically attainable. It might be possible to close the distance on our disappointment. I may not be able to afford my friend’s vacation, but perhaps I can move towards rest and play in my own life. And when I move closer to what I want, my disappointment softens, and so does the envy.
- Fully experience the disappointment. But what about when we continue to want the unattainable? What can be done when desire remains, but the disappointment does, too? When we envy another’s enduring marriage or a sibling’s inheritance? These are the most challenging cases, but in these moments, we must thoroughly experience the disappointment.
Disappointment will knock at the door until we open it. Once we turn the handle and allow it in, many disappointments will depart; they don’t intend to move in permanently but only ask for a hard conversation. Others will stay, but in time, they move to the far end of the house. Late at night, we might bump into them in the hallway, but eventually they leave the main floor. This makes room for other, more pleasant emotions to draw nearer in our everyday lives.
Experiencing disappointment is useful because it carries motion within it, but only as potential, locked until the feeling is felt all the way through. Once fully felt, it moves: disappointment’s wheels begin to turn, the feeling softens or departs, and the envy resting upon it softens too.
Back to Jonah: Understanding Leads to Action
When Jonah ran his own desire double-check, he discovered that the promotion represented something important to him. It was a symbol of recognition for all the hard work he’d put in. This double-check didn’t change what he wanted, but it clarified why he wanted it.
The second question took more time. With that new understanding, Jonah began asking how to close the distance on his disappointment. He realized that he’d never shared this hope for recognition with his supervisor, because he hadn’t understood it in himself until now. He had new steps he could take.
What remained couldn’t be reasoned away. The disappointment that this promotion wasn’t happening on his timeline didn’t leave, but after he felt it all the way through, it began to ease. And as it did, his friendship became comfortable again.
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Envy can feel impossible to overcome when it’s treated as a single emotion. But when our desires and disappointments are made clear, each feeling can be addressed independently: we can run a desire double-check, move closer to what’s attainable, or fully experiencing the disappointment underneath. It’s when we address envy’s hidden parts that we become less captured by the lives of others, and more fulfilled within our own.
“Jonah” is a composite character. His story draws on patterns I’ve observed across many clients I’ve worked with; no identifying details from any individual client are included.
