How many times do we wonder if all this from fitness enthusiasts is healthy; How many times do we end up submitting or complying with the moral precepts of our culture and thus transform the soliloquy “It bothers me a lot that my friend does better than me ”for a“ Surely it has been made so easy for him because he received help and he has not had to work as hard as me ”. Thus and in many other ways, envy occurs, which is why in this Psychology-Online article we will explain what is envy and its consequences.
The definition of envy used by Melanie Klein (1957) refers to the feeling of anger at another person who owns and enjoys something desirable, often accompanied by an urge to take it.
Envy then implies wish something that others have: intellectual capacities, abilities, money, beauty, power or possessions that, when unable to obtain it, causes a profound alteration of the mood (for example, sadness, anger or rage). As a result of these emotions, the person experiencing envy forms the expectation that
The human being who experiences envy also manifests a sensation of pleasure or well-being when the subject he envies is going through a bad time, so it not only corresponds to the pain or sadness of not having what the other has but I also know enjoy when the other loses it although the one who feels envy has not yet achieved it.
Envy comes mainly from the lack of not having something and seeing it in another person and wanting it. In envy there is an exorbitant regret for the discovery that another person possesses or achieves something that we believe that we should have, but that nevertheless, we cannot possess.
It bothers the person who experiences envy that there is an alien prosperity associated with an idea of injustice. "Why him and not me?" The meaning of envy in psychology states that this feeling impedes creativity and the development of one's own style or self-esteem. In the following article you will find the different types of self-esteem and their characteristics.
Below are some of the characteristics of one's own style that are limited in their development by envy:
- Your own style of coping with adverse situations.
- Your own style in observing daily or significant events.
- The order of priorities in the life of the subject.
- The objectives to be achieved.
- The style of relationship with others.
The creative person is original and true to himself. The person who experiences envy wants to be someone else (he wants to be the subject he envies) and to have what he has, in psychology it has been observed that these people they cannot enjoy what they have.
The jealousy are the feeling that occurs when we have fear of a possible loss of the loved object or something that you think you have. In the envy The fear of losing something is not mobilized but the not having something that has never been had. Although these two may be very similar, due to their social tint and their affect on self-esteem, they are very different.
The first thing we think of when reading or hearing something related to envy is that it cannot have any benefit. But it can be productive, if there is a healthy envy.
The healthy envy can help us create something and reinvent ourselves. "If he could, I'd like to try it too." "If she could get out of this precarious situation, I believe that I could also try it. "What needs to be evaluated very carefully is the pathological part to which the envy.
We must explore what things have influenced my own psychological development that cause me to move on to the pathological part of envy.
Here we share some aspects that will help you differentiate healthy envy from pathological envy:
- We must know if you want to grow with what you envy or you want to destroy what you envy.
- Observe if any Inferiority complex that causes feeling less and not feeling capable of reaching and achieving what the other has.
- Not knowing oneself (own abilities and capacities) and not recognizing the feeling of envy.
- Believing that you have qualities that you do not really have that when found in other people causes a deep psychological dissonance that cannot be borne.
Alluding to the massive intervention that Christianity has had in moral values, we can highlight the premise - You will not covet the goods of others - with which they face envy. This expression arises as one of the commandments that have been able to regulate behavior for many years but that unfortunately, it has also been used by some as a means to vituperate something so deeply rooted in the human being (the envy).
People have learned something that is sometimes even reinforced by the many phrases of personal improvement or advice that we hear. For example-It is better that you admire than envy the other, congratulate him for the achievement and success that he has achieved like this you will be able to overcome envy- and this can become healthy for the listener or reader if he manages to better analyze these phrases.
A person who experiences pathological envy he cannot admire because he lacks love. To admire someone, you love them first. You love what you see, you love that it possesses these characteristics that maybe you don't have, and that can be such a wonderful thing. What these overcoming phrases lead us to is that by feeling that by admiring the other person they will be part of that person (a phenomenon of projection), the recognition is incumbent on him as well. This process of massive congratulations and flattering personality alludes to a lack of ideals, a lack of self-esteem, and per se to others.
Envy is not transformed by congratulating and praising the other. Admiration can only happen when we are able to love and in order to love we must learn to value the abilities, qualities, ideals and own style that each one of us has (self-love).
You can shift your self-talk towards this thought: "I'm going to try to do what he did, let's find out if I did too. I can get the way he did, I learned from him to do better to get it, I will not destroy what he taught me grow up". That's love.
There are people who claim that self-knowledge is relatively superfluous and that this will not cause a change in what we are feeling. The truth is no one can choose how to feel at a certain point but they can influence how they understand it, and the understanding of what we are it can modify and restructure what we feel, including envy.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
