It’s Not Easy Seeing Green

Or: The Function of Envy

This week’s topic has been a long time coming. Folks, we’re tackling envy.

If the past week of existing on social media hasn’t made you envious of someone else’s 2023 accomplishments among the sea of year-end curated round-up posts, color me jealous. Truly! This is a peak time of year for unhealthy comparison because our lives may not measure up to the picture-perfect images we see online. Even though I felt, on the whole, really damn good about my year, I still fell pray to enviously scrolling the feeds of folks who, based on ONE year-end post, I assumed must have lives better than mine. How fucking wild is that? (Like, girl — jump to conclusions, much?!)

If you get that way, too: 1) you’re certainly not alone, and 2) don’t get too down on yourself for getting envious; there’s an evolutionary imperative for envy to linger in our emotional tool belt. In prehistoric times, envy was a powerful signal that there was a need to go out and get some of what others had. A neighboring village develops a dope new irrigation system and their crops are flourishing? Wait, I need that, too. And thus we developed as a species, growing to new heights fueled by our innate desire to one-up each other.

Somewhere along the way, though, feeling envy became entangled with our worth. Nowadays, when we want something that someone else has, we come to the conclusion that we are lacking, and therefore at fault. Envy can be useful, but not when our current relationship to it is compare and despair. It’s a struggle to escape from this loop. Try as we might, comparison is an innate human impulse — it’s how we understand the world around us and our place in it.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s no “hack” out of comparing yourself to others. It is what we’re wired to do. It’s what we do with the data we gather from those comparisons that makes the difference. Compare yourself to others as a yardstick to measure your worthiness? That way surely lies despair. Compare to see what others have that you might like to also have, so you can take action? Now we’re talking.

Envy doesn’t need to be our enemy, but we must use it as intended. Envy can serve as a compass to point us towards facets of the lives of others we would like to incorporate into our own. Here’s a quote from the Liz Moody Podcast with guest Elise Loehren (author of On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good) that goes deeper:

“There's the information showing you what you want. […] this idea of expanders, which I think is such a brilliant reframe. I'm sure people tell you that you're an expander for them. The idea is to then figure out who is inspiring your envy or who is doing something that you want for yourself, if you can't acknowledge your envy. And then you use that person — not as a voodoo doll, but as a model for what's possible. It's this: if she can do that, I can do it too.”

Do you ever notice how you’re most jealous of what you’d most like yourself? If you have a lust for travel, you probably find yourself drooling over travel-hacking TikTok accounts or people with flexible remote jobs, and find yourself envious of your friends instead of happy for them when they tell you they’re going abroad. If you don’t care much about travel, though, seeing those things won’t sting. For some, mommy bloggers inspire massive envy, but for those with no interest in having children, they can scroll past unbothered. The key takeaway is this: if we don’t use our envy to inspire us to take action in shaping our own lives, it’s worthless (and makes us feel worthless in turn).

How do we spot envy so we can redirect it into action? Envy is a tricky beast to be sure (there’s a reason it got the nickname “green-eyed monster”) and sometimes it can show up like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Speaking for myself, envy likes to disguise itself in the judgement I pass all too often on others.

Pro tip: your criticism of others is equal to the criticism you turn on yourself. I have judged other people more harshly than I’d like to for years (workin’ on it!) because I have an overactive inner critic and hold myself to an impossible standard (again, workin’ on it). It makes sense that I’d also turn the same inner critic loose on others, although it helps no one.

Sometimes envy will sneak into the party and hide behind those judgements:

“Oh, she’s sharing her writing on the internet? How cringe!” (Read: I yearn to share my writing on the internet but I’m not brave enough to do it yet.)

“They’re shoving their partner down our throats! We get it, you’re in love!!” (Read: I’m longing for love myself & want a partner who will show the world they’re proud to be with me.)

“He’s changing careers? What does he even know about that industry?” (Read: I have massive imposter syndrome of my own but I’d be much happier if I got over it and did the damn thing.)

You get it? You get it.

So next time you find yourself falling down a comparison rabbit hole or judging how somebody else is showing up (on the internet or IRL), get curious:

1. Am I responding negatively because this person’s actions don’t align with my values, or because they’re doing something I wish I could do?

2. What does envy want me to know? What am I longing for that I could give myself instead of hating on people who seem to have it?

3. What is within my control to help me move in the direction of what I envy?

   (i.e. you might still be jealous that your high-earning friend can jet set to Paris on a random weekend, but if you take the baby step of creating a savings bucket and start an itinerary for your own trip, it might be easier to look at their travels as inspo rather than a knife in the heart)

4. IMPORTANT: Do I want the hard parts of what they have too, or just the highlight reel?

   (If you don’t want the uncertainty of being your own boss, you might wanna let go of your freelancer envy. You gotta take the good with the bad.)

Hope this helps — and happy 2024! I promise you are exactly where you need to be right now and nobody’s life is as “perfect” as it seems on the outside.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things (this week)

This is where I’m gonna be sharing assorted cool shit. It’s also a place for me to put you onto some of the coolest people I have the pleasure to know, pay it forward, and give folks their flowers. You can always scroll to this part if you’re a TL;DR type of person. I won’t judge.

Jammin’ On:

📚 My first book of 2024

First book of 2024 is in the books (lol). I “read” Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly on audiobook while cleaning my entire apartment. Highly recommend everything this woman touches — the Atlas of the Heart miniseries she did for HBO Max was marvelous and I listened to the Dare to Lead audiobook back in September.

I’m not usually an audiobook girlie but Brené narrates her books herself and has such great delivery and clarity of thought that I find I grasp her work better by listening than reading a hard copy.

🎙 Two podcast eps that rocked my whole WORLD

Would you look at that: another recommendation centered around the podcast We Can Do Hard Things! This time around, Elizabeth Gilbert was the guest, talking about her latest creative project, Letters From Love, her Substack!

I’ve been subscribed to Letters From Love ever since it was announced on Liz’s IG, but hearing her discuss the process of writing these letters and hearing two examples written by Abby and Glennon synthesized the wisdom of the practice for me and honestly shook the earth beneath my feet a couple times. I won’t try to explain the practice or do it justice, but trust me — do yourself a huge favor check out Liz’s Substack or the two episodes of WCDHT.

🧘🏼‍♀️ My favorite part of January, bar none

Lastly, I’d be remiss not to shout out my favorite ritual to mark a new year: participating in Yoga With Adriene’s 30 Days of Yoga Journey (this year titled “Flow”) on YouTube. Adriene is my GIRL and doing daily 20 minute quick practices with her and sweet pup Benji puts a smile on my face on the worst of days, clears my head, and reminds me I CAN be consistent (not to mention how much stronger I feel by Day 30). If you haven’t participated before, I promise it’s not a toxic, wildly unrealistic fitness “challenge” people like to throw around in January to prey on people’s reignited desire for weight loss — just a chill, fun, come-as-you-are time! Highly recommend.

Crafting Connections

This is where I’m gonna leave you with a big ol’ question. Something to ponder, have a moment with your journal over, or to connect about with me & other creatives in the comments. To not only (hopefully) connect to one another, but to connect the dots between the seemingly unrelated, and connect to yourself in ways you may not have considered yet!

What type of content or life news inspires the most envy in you? What might that mean about your own unacknowledged desires?

What do you judge others most harshly for? What might that mean about the metric your inner critic is using to measure you?

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts & musings! Also feel free to share the real nitty gritty of a seemingly “glamorous” aspect of your life below 👇 (I think we could all use the reality check!)

xx

Kat

Psst… [CTA related to topic of the week]…

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Resources & Ways to Work Together:

If you’re here this week because you downloaded the Workbook, thank you (!) and I hope you’re enjoying it! If you don’t know what workbook I’m talking about, it’s this one 👇 and you could grab a copy, too!

✍🏻 The Aligned Actor 2024 Workbook - A free Notion workbook chock full o’ journaling prompts & thought exercises to get you honed in on your career desires for the upcoming year, and clear on what actions to take to bring that vision to life! Prepare to, as we like to say in the biz, get specific.

✨Audition With Intention✨ Notion Pack - The streamlined, customizable digital home for your acting career that cultivates a space for mindful metrics, regular reflection, and goal setting so you can chart your own course in the theatre industry.

🔬 Courageous Creatives Lab* - Your calm in the storm of pursuing an acting career, and a holistic approach to acting coaching that fosters community, provides accountability, and encourages risk-taking and experimentation 🧪

(info on 2024 Cohorts launching soon! Comment “LAB” to be sent the juicy deets directly once available so you don’t miss a beat)

Coming Soon…Get Excited 👀

⚔️ Side Quests - Move forward on your creative projects by giving yourself the gift of time to explore them from new angles. Side Quests are free weekly Zoom meetings to fall down research rabbit holes, pull unexpected threads, and share your findings in community — you never know what might inspire a new direction!