Envy & The Mirror I Don't Want to Face

I ran into a friend the other day at yoga. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, and seeing her stirred up something deep and a little crunchy for me.

I was surprised to feel genuinely open to her. I noticed actual, uncomplicated care flowing from my heart to hers. A real appreciation for her beauty, her success, and the way she has thrown herself out into the world and let herself be seen.

And feeling all of that highlighted the contrast of what I previously felt toward her. There used to be so much more indescribable static in our connection… what I’ve come to understand as envy.

We met over a decade ago in Bali. Back then, I immediately felt older, wiser, and a touch cooler than her. She was beautiful, yet seemed young and a little shy. Like she was still coming into herself, but hadn’t quite arrived (which makes me chuckle now, because had I “arrived?” And do we ever really “arrive?”) Even then, I was subtly topping her. Positioning myself above her to inflate and puff up my ego.

Over the years, I occasionally saw her in person, but I mostly watched her from the sidelines on social media. And she began to blossom. Like, FULLY blossom. Each petal that opened, each way she glowed brighter and bigger and bolder, drove a small, pointed nail into my side. It was subtle, but the sting was there.

Yep, this is what we call good ole’ fashioned female competition.

We also call it envy. Or jealousy. But at the time, I didn't recognize it as anything. It was so faint and foreign that it lived in me as a secret (even from myself). Because it was a subtle internal experience, something I never named, never said, and never did a single thing with, it could be argued that it wasn’t even there. Right?

But after seeing this woman the other day, I finally saw it. I saw the crunchy remnants of envy that had lived within me toward her. I brought this inquiry into therapy. My therapist had me sit inside the heat of this jealousy, envy, competition soup. It was icky. I squirmed and wiggled in my seat. I felt vomity. I wanted to bolt out of the room and never look back.

And then, after a few breaths, I settled.

I asked myself, what is this jealousy thing we women do?

I sat with it. And here is what surfaced…

Jealousy is: I want what you have. I want what you are doing. And every time I watch you have it and do it, it reminds me that I am without. It shoves a big, fat mirror in front of my face. And there it is. I see that you are what I am not. You have what I don't. You are the mirror I don't want to look into. So instead of looking inward, I blame you. I want you to go away. I want you to fall on your face. I want you to make a mistake, so the mirror cracks and is finally gone.

At the root of all of this sits the painful, exiled wound of my own inadequacy. My own unworthiness. My own feelings of failure. The story that if I were smarter, better, more beautiful, etc., then I would have what you have, and I would be what you are. Your blossoming holds a mirror that reopens this wound. A wound I’m not ready to feel or face.

This is jealousy.

In therapy, I fully groked that these feelings were never about her. She is actually pretty damn cool. These feelings were mine. My shadow. My wound. Unquestionably, one hundred percent, mine.

I emerged from that session with a weighted sadness in my heart.

Because the thing I unconsciously did to her for all of those years is the very thing I am afraid will be done to me. The thing that has been done to me. The thing that is probably being done to me right this second, as I share, as I let myself be seen, as I blossom in this small, silly world.

So what do we do with this? What do I do with this?

For now, all I have is the inquiry itself. To catch the subtle allure of envy the moment it moves its slithery tail. To feel the seductive pull to "other" a woman. To watch how I secretly hope she missteps, only because the mirror she holds up is too much to look at.

And here is what I keep circling. What if we actually held each other up instead? We dropped the eye rolls. Dropped the shit-talking dressed up as conscious, truth-telling. Stopped praying, in that small private place we don't admit to, that she trips and falls flat on her beautiful face.

I don't have a clean answer. I just know I am done pretending the mirror is her. And I’m far more interested in looking in my mirror and directly tending my wound.