Ways of feeling envy, celebrating the process, second order emotions

In this week's In My Mind (IMM) I explore how you can turn envy from a sin to a learning opportunity, why you should celebrate the process because let's face it no one else will for you, and how we feel about the way we feel.

Ways of Feeling Envy

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins but could it be used positively as a place of learning?

Historically envy has been seen negatively and somewhat understandably when you consider that to be envious is to wish someone in a better position than us (from our perspective) were less fortunate. But the majority of the time, envy doesn't take a view of the other person as a whole, we simply see one aspect of their lives and that's what makes us feel envy. This is becoming more important as people share their lives on social media as we see highlight reels of people's lives (more on this later). Highlight reels leave something to be envied for you're able to see the glitz and glam of someone else's life. But we aren't truly able to be envious of the person as a whole, merely envious of what they're showing. So, let's sink deeper into what we're actually envious of. If it's not them as a whole person then what is it? It's a skill, or a behaviour, or an accomplishment, and these things can be set as our own goals. If you see someone deliver a talk on stage and feel envy towards that person it's likely the envy is actually of the way they deliver a talk (I could never be that articulate) or perhaps that they can hold a room's attention for longer than 3 minutes (I could never be that engaging).

Once we understand the underlying reason for envy we can translate it into actions, habits and behaviours to help up work towards those things while changing the language (and feeling) we use. If we are envious of how articulate someone is we can change how we talk about it and instead say how we admire that about them. By changing the script we turn envy (negative) into admiration (positive) and when we're admirable of someone we're more likely to put in the work that pushes us towards those same attributes. This might mean making a consistent habit of writing and publishing a newsletter each week (sign up for more like this below). It's only by changing the narrative in this way that we can move forward from envy.

Celebrating the process

Modern society celebrates winners, achievers and big accomplishments. Social media feeds (I told you there'd be more) are littered with everyone's awards like everyone is carrying a trophy cabinet with them and thrusting it into your face as you walk past them in the street. What you don't see much of is people making mistakes (other than grammatical, there's plenty of that), trying something for the first time, or admitting defeat. These things are celebrated, or even honourable in today's world.

Alex Hormozi believes that "people only root for those who don't need it" and claims that when you are still in the process of doing something, making mistakes and continuing anyway there will be no support. The best response you can get from someone in that time is "why are you working so hard at this thing?" But once you achieve success (in whatever way society deems success to be) people will either flock to your feet and praise you or tell you how lucky you have been to achieve the thing. In my experience those close to you, who have seen the struggles, will praise you while those one step (or further) removed will claim you were lucky. Do you know how many people are claimed to be "overnight successes"? Thousands. Do you know how many people actually put in one night's worth of work to becoming successful? None.

So how can we change this in our own minds so we don't need the support of others to continue? It's quite simple (to write, read and understand), make the process your success. Don't measure the outcomes, measure the inputs. If you want to be a published author, the only way to be "successful" is to have a published book. But if you change the goal to be process driven (such as to write 1000 words a day) you could be successful every day of your life. Celebrate and find joy in the process!

Second order emotions

We all have emotions, we are human after all. But when we have emotions about emotions life gets a little too complicated.

Buddhists believe that we are not our thoughts or feelings, these are simply things we experience before moving on with our lives. Yet I often find myself feeling shame about being frustrated or angry that I felt sad. These are what Chris Williamson refers to as second order emotions, we feel something about the something we feel. Sadness, frustration or even happiness can come into our lives at any point. We can experience them and move on, or as I've mentioned we can experience them, then experience a different emotion entirely based solely on experiencing the first emotion.

An example of this might be seeing your friends going out for a meal without you. The initial feeling is sadness or anger (or maybe some envy). At this stage the emotion is manageable, we can process this and move past it maybe by bringing it up with one of the friends. But if the second order emotions start we can become lost in a whirlwind spiral. Imagine you start feeling shame about how sad seeing that image made you, suddenly you're sad your friends are out without you and shameful about the fact you're sad your friends are out without you. Then you might feel angry that you feel shame about how sad you are. You can see how quickly this can descend into an overwhelming state.

How can we break the cycle? Learn to be comfortable in a negative emotion. I've never felt a second order emotion about something positive. I've never been so happy with something that I've become angry with how happy I am. That's because I'm comfortable with happy, I know how to sit with happy. I'm not so great at sitting with sad, or anger. If we aren't our thoughts or feelings, we should be able to sit with either, observe their effects, question their existence and intensity and then allow them to flow through us as we move on with our day. Accepting that they will happen, and allowing them to exist will stop the shamefulness and anger/frustration coming through