Dealing with envy in friendships

While writing emails back and forth with a friend, we were describing our days to one another. Writing the highlights and the lowlights of our journey through motherhood. As I read line after line of her day I felt so envious of her life. Ashamed to be dealing with envy in my friendship with her at first, I then wondered can envy be a positive feeling?

There I was feeling like my life wasn’t good enough, that something was missing. When the truth of the matter was that my life is pretty fabulous and I can’t complain about it. I’m living a life where I’m attracting people and experiences that inspire me. And since I feel like I’m living a positive and intentional life, dealing with envy in friendships can leave me confused. But I still envied her life and started assessing why this was coming up for me.

I wrote to her telling her of my envy and she confessed that she envied my life as well.

How is that even possible? There she was living this gorgeous and beautiful life and envying mine?

It allowed us to both be vulnerable with each other, to say ‘Hey, I think your life sounds perfect, I want it…or elements of it!’.

When I assessed where this feeling of envy was coming from, I realized it was because there was more to life I wanted to live than I already was. There were elements of her life that I wanted to sprinkle into mine. There were experiences and people that I wanted to introduce into my every day.

Dealing with envy in friendship can highlight the desires you want to infuse into your life. It can bring you in alignment to your authentic self in ways you never thought possible.

Moving away from negative energy that is typically associated with envy to a positive one, has allowed me to be open to what I want to create in my life. It has allowed me to feel okay being envious of someone else, because it’s highlighting desires that I didn’t know I wanted.

Having envy pop up for you doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible person or that you should shame yourself for feeling that way. Envy can just be pinpointing you in the direction of your dreams.

Next time you find envy coming up, assess where it’s coming from and why. Welcome it positively and you never know what will come out of it.

Envy might help you create the life you’ve been looking for.

Enjoy this inspiration? Sign up for the newsletter to receive more, it’s free!