00:00:00: Music.
00:00:10: Everyone welcome back to a new episode of bitch breathe I am your host ricardia.
00:00:16: So first off a little pitch I am now starting to present my book that I'm writing it's called The Break-Up call
00:00:22: and I will be reading excerpts and stepping into dialogue with you about this subject breakups before during and after
00:00:31: and also about your own experiences so I'd really love to hear from you I'll put the link to gumroad that's where I'm hosting the whole thing into the show notes and if you'd like to write to me shoot me an email the address is bitch breathe at gmail.com and the I am bitch is a number one.
00:00:51: Okay so today I don't know about you but the subject I'm about to talk about is a little bit icky to me.
00:01:01: Envy the green monster of Envy so often there's so much.
00:01:07: Other stuff going on with envy that it's very hard to talk about it sometimes and.
00:01:13: Today we're going to talk about not just our own Envy how we feel it how can we transform the whole thing but we're also going to talk about other people's envy that.
00:01:24: Perceived towards us or that really actually is being directed
00:01:29: towards us I think it's a very very interesting subject it's a little bit gross like I was saying but I love getting into uncomfortable situations I suppose so a couple of years ago.
00:01:41: I had just finished reading this book I don't even remember what book it was or I think it was a fantasy genre something or maybe a crime novel but I was looking at the very back.
00:01:52: Sort of cover page and on it was a very attractive woman.
00:01:58: And a little bio you know how they like to put little bios underneath the authors spake and it said that this lady was a mother of three she was married and living in
00:02:08: a really beautiful state it was probably Vermont or Maine or some place of longing for me that I think is so beautiful maybe Colorado and she had her own company and
00:02:19: she just seemed to have everything and I'm sitting there thinking.
00:02:22: Jesus I'm looking at her birth year she's roughly the same age as I am and there it is that horrible feeling.
00:02:31: Of Envy this isn't even somebody I know personally apparently we don't need to know people personally to be envious of them but I just thought to myself huh.
00:02:41: So we're the same age I've got one kid I
00:02:45: I think I was still married at the time but I was probably on the rocks with that thing and my job wasn't going so well and I just thought wow I really suck compared to this lady and it gave me a really horrible feeling of
00:02:59: inferiority and even worse that uncomfortable feeling of strong jealousy which,
00:03:07: we refer to as Envy.
00:03:09: So I felt very inadequate in that moment but when we think about this in a grander scale.
00:03:17: And as a collective history of humans then.
00:03:21: Small Envy can lead to very very big bad things sometimes I mean Wars have been carried out because of Envy let's not even get into social media and when we see the feed of other people
00:03:33: and it's just one of those things that can be very dangerous to our Mental Health
00:03:39: and a real hindrance towards our own joy and happiness and gratitude for what we ourselves have actually achieved and even more importantly of who we ourselves
00:03:51: are so first and foremost I think I want to emphasize.
00:03:57: Just how human and emotion Envy is Envy is very very normal we all experience it and.
00:04:06: We know that it's there on the spectrum of human feelings but we don't necessarily talk about this one an awful lot like if we're feeling sad we might talk about it or angry.
00:04:17: Frustrated Happy Joy these are all emotions we.
00:04:21: Are mostly or often okay to talk about but Envy Envy is uncomfortable and we makes us feel ashamed because.
00:04:31: We're admitting that we feel inferior to somebody else and nobody likes a feel small or even talk about how small they feel.
00:04:40: So first of all I want to take out the shame out of the equation of envy.
00:04:47: And the experience of Envy because everybody knows about it everybody feels it and I think it should be perfectly okay to say I'm feeling a little envious about something.
00:04:58: The other day I was talking to a friend and I was about to say something negative about someone I knew because she had accomplished something that I didn't quite know how she was doing it in that amount of time and I just
00:05:10: caught myself and I stopped
00:05:13: because I was about to say something that wasn't really true it was envied that I was going to go for I was envious of this person for having accomplished something that I clearly
00:05:24: wanted to accomplish and I was so happy in that moment that I didn't go into what would have looked like gossip and instead.
00:05:31: It might be helpful for us to recognize that Envy shows us our ambition.
00:05:38: Envy shows us what we really want but that maybe we haven't yet taken the necessary steps for
00:05:45: maybe we've been a little lazy about it or we've procrastinated which could have anything to do with depression or just being busy working three jobs raising children
00:05:54: maybe there's a pandemic still in full force in terms of how you have to conduct your life and so.
00:06:02: Envy can be a very good signal for us to no you know what they're still this that or the other that I want to learn.
00:06:11: I want to accomplish and this is something that I want to be one day and there's nothing.
00:06:18: Nothing wrong with knowing that there still might be a bit of a gap between where we want to be and where we are now.
00:06:26: And by examining that and giving ourselves honest answers we can actually use this envy and channel it into.
00:06:35: Achieving some of those steps towards some of those things that we want to accomplish.
00:06:42: I also thought sometimes that my Envy wasn't necessarily real what do I mean by that
00:06:49: I mean that sometimes I would see somebody accomplish something or have something let's say when I was not happily single they would have a partner for example and I would think that I'm envious of that.
00:07:04: But when I dug deeper I realized I don't actually want a partner right now I don't want to live with someone right now I just think that I should be wanting that because other people think
00:07:18: I should have that to be more specific when I was single unhappily so I would often get the response to being single of
00:07:27: I'm so sorry it's so weird you're not meeting anyone or why do you think you're single and I have a whole episode on single Not Sorry by the way if you want to skip back to that but.
00:07:38: It was.
00:07:39: So strong that sometimes I thought I should want a partner more and so I would have this feeling that I'm envious of a relationship when actually I wasn't I wasn't ready for one I didn't want to be in one it was just sort of something that Society
00:07:54: I was reflecting back to me as something that I should want and so the envy that showed up was something that wasn't even real for me.
00:08:03: It was just Envy of something that other people had declared a necessity or a status symbol even
00:08:11: so what are some of the things that other people think we should accomplish or that we think we should accomplish because so and so did but that we don't actually want
00:08:21: we don't want to go through all that just to get there do I really want to study another eight years and become a doctor at this stage I love the idea of being a doctor but I don't want to take the necessary steps to do so so maybe,
00:08:35: no very surely I don't actually want to be a doctor
00:08:39: I like the idea of it the prestige the knowledge but I ain't going back to University for it
00:08:45: another positive aspect of Envy I find is the kind of energy it can
00:08:52: create an us it can really make us haul ass and get stuff done because we're now channeling it into something else
00:09:00: nothing that's super important again it would have to be our own motor our own motivation because there's this whole other side of envy that is dictated by certain,
00:09:13: mechanisms and trends that are in place in Greater Society let's face it all of Glamour or glamorous magazines.
00:09:21: Or fashion magazines capitalism advertising none of this would really work all that well if we didn't want.
00:09:31: And even more strongly Envy something that somebody else has
00:09:36: Envy is an incredible motor for us like I said to sort of get our drive going but it's an absolutely essential motor for economy for society and for advertising and big big business.
00:09:51: So just to sort of recognize that a lot of our Envy is not because we're bad person or because we always want what we can't have or what other people want it's because a lot of our
00:10:02: society and current situation is driven by creating in people and envy of other people.
00:10:12: That's how advertising works I want something that's being shown there oh look at that beautiful girl look how our thighs Don't Touch look at the kind of family she has all those healthy beautiful little smart children whatever it is that advertising wants us to believe
00:10:27: it's not necessarily our own Envy.
00:10:31: It's an artificial an artificially created for us by a greater society and by capitalism capitalism counts on us to want.
00:10:41: What other people have and to make us feel we fall short of Societies or our community's expectations.
00:10:51: And I spoke about channeling Envy earlier that it can be a great force it can be a drive for us.
00:10:59: And what I mean by that more specifically is looking at what it is we seem to want really really badly so much so that we're having guiltily maybe or not bad feelings about somebody else who does have that.
00:11:13: And I found that I couldn't necessarily push Envy away.
00:11:18: So what I instead had to do was to try and find a channel an outlet for it and for me one of the many reasons I love this book so much
00:11:27: this book by Gary Keller was a really mind-blowing situation it doesn't talk about Envy at all he talks about doing the one thing
00:11:36: that is so strong I think I'm paraphrasing now doing the one thing necessary so that everything else becomes either,
00:11:44: easier or not even necessary to do so meaning if there's something we really really want.
00:11:51: What is the one thing I can do today next week a year from now to make what I want actually a reality.
00:12:00: So what is the one thing that we can do to channel are envious energy into a productive energy and an accomplishing one for us and then going ahead and taking that first
00:12:13: step to materialize it because it comes up a lot and it came up a lot for me and my personal history.
00:12:19: I want to take a moment to understand for all of us that the Envy among women those of us who have female or female identified.
00:12:29: Is essentially a Triumph for patriarchy.
00:12:34: This won't take an awful lot of explanation I'm sure but for us to realize that when we are envious of each other.
00:12:41: We are playing directly into the hands of the patriarchy they don't need to divide and conquer us anymore they meaning that system and.
00:12:50: Male identified people who still believe in it and who thrive on it and who benefit from it they don't have to divide and conquer us because we're doing that all by ourselves by having envious
00:13:03: energy directed towards each other that separates us from us all by itself it separates us from our fellow
00:13:11: females and it separates us from ourselves because we ourselves are female or female energy and any wall that we build to another woman,
00:13:21: is essentially a wall inside us and to really become conscious of the kind of responsibility we have towards each other.
00:13:30: And again this is not about feeling badly about wanting something another woman wants but to understand that
00:13:37: if we don't work to dismantle the Envy dismantle the jealousy the competition among each other then we're working towards building it for the patriarchy
00:13:48: and may be a useful tool for that could be to replace thoughts of Envy because I don't think we can push them away and to really.
00:13:57: Channel them towards supporting other women.
00:14:00: Let's say you see another woman and she's just so accomplished her career looks Stellar she's dressed immaculately
00:14:09: sometimes I think of George Clooney's wife and see I can't even remember her name now but she just seems to be so perfect she's smart she's got a great career she married George Clooney witch
00:14:19: personally is not my guy but I know it is for a lot of people
00:14:23: and I think my God how does she do that you know how can you be all these things so if we met someone like this in real life to maybe just say it my God
00:14:32: you are an amazing woman.
00:14:35: You are so accomplished and to just Express whatever Envy we have and transform it in terms of admiration showing our admiration towards this other woman is such an incredible
00:14:48: magical thing to do in that moment but what if we cannot move forward from those feelings of envy
00:14:55: what if there's this one person in our immediate vicinity in our lives in our University our job our family who just always seems to do things better than we do.
00:15:07: He or she just always seems to be one step ahead a little bit smarter always more popular more this that or the other.
00:15:17: First of all if we can because the distance might not be great enough for us to step out of ourselves for a moment but first of all to understand.
00:15:26: Is this really true at the risk of sounding like Byron Katie I can only recommend her program the work is it really true.
00:15:34: It's in a different context how she uses it by just as sort of use that real examination and then too
00:15:41: give ourselves an honest answer of is this person really so much better at a B and C kind of skill
00:15:47: if we still decide that they are then to maybe understand that this discrepancy were seeing
00:15:53: is because we don't value what we do and who we are enough because if we truly valued our own individuality our own skill set our own whatever it is sense of dressing up
00:16:06: good at understanding or subjects that we really know well whatever it is to really amp up ourselves without sort of then elevating ourselves above this other person right we're not trying to flip the hierarchy here but we're trying to amp up
00:16:22: our own existent talents and skills and strengths there's one last aspect of Envy I'd love to get into ice somewhat.
00:16:32: Touched upon it when I spoke about Envy towards other women and now I'm going to go a little bit broader and talk about other people's Envy in general
00:16:41: so back in the day when I was an actor there was a lot of Envy to go around my own other people's the whole business is built on Hunger.
00:16:51: For a very small piece of a very small pie.
00:16:55: Is how it felt it was constantly in energy of scarcity and there was never enough for everyone to go around and what happens when everyone perceives.
00:17:05: Whatever it is they want as a rare resource you get envious right so it would sometimes happen that you walk into a room.
00:17:14: We're everyone's waiting for the audition and as soon as you open the door all eyes are on you and everyone is.
00:17:22: Evaluating now whether you are a serious competition for this role or not and I can tell you that energy that density of.
00:17:32: Hostility and insecurity and self-loathing even I want to say in some reasons.
00:17:39: It's not easy it felt like a punch in to the solar plexus when you walked into a room like that it was so uncomfortable nobody talk to each other very rarely the someone would say something,
00:17:50: I make a joke but it was more like do you have a pen so I can fill out the casting sheet that was about the extent of the conversation now keep in mind my own Envy could have been.
00:18:00: A cause for this like I'm so envious that that's what's being reflected back to me but I will venture or Venture a guess and say that it is also the business it's an incredibly competitive business it's a very very tough lifestyle and they're just.
00:18:15: Often isn't enough work for all of us to be famous and millionaires essentially.
00:18:20: So what do we do when we're in this kind of context and for me because I found it so hard to stomach this energy is that I stayed away from it as much as possible
00:18:31: that could have been
00:18:32: what led to the whole idea of having to exit the business in general because how can you stay away when you have to mingle and network with these people that me I stayed away as much as I could I went to the auditions I went to the film parties if it's,
00:18:46: looked like something that I should be doing because so and so was there it never ended up being that way but I stayed away as much as I could.
00:18:54: If it's just a mild case of Envy or jealousy then of course maybe you can just open up to this person
00:19:00: tell a story of how you were really jealous about this other actor or something and then sometimes what I notice people would open up and be like I know I felt the same way isn't it hard and then you could step into community.
00:19:12: These were rare opportunities but they did occur but the third one this is the one I want to put a lot of focus on because this is something I did not just inside the acting Arena.
00:19:23: But for most of my life whenever I felt somebody was feeling jealous towards me or in boarding school let me tell you it didn't just stay a feeling with a lot of them you were really seriously.
00:19:34: Taunted and treated badly if somebody who was popular decided that they were jealous or envious of you.
00:19:42: So what I would do this was a real strategy and I'm wondering I'd love to hear from you if you did this.
00:19:48: Is I would play small I would make self-deprecating jokes I would make myself look clumsy I would talk myself down.
00:19:58: So that other people could feel better about themselves essentially I was constantly compensating for other people's,
00:20:05: insecurities and I didn't even notice that I was doing this until well into my acting career and my late 20s early 30s.
00:20:16: If we play small in front of other.
00:20:20: Business people like my actors in front of other women in front of men especially whenever we play small we show other women.
00:20:29: That they should be small also there's nothing encouraging there's nothing empowering and there's no progress for the collective species when we play small.
00:20:40: I love when women play Big I just read about this other female podcast so she just actually mentioned in her Instagram feed
00:20:50: shout out to Padre Island by the way I love her podcast that she for the first time just made five figures in one month
00:20:57: and I was so happy for her because I know her podcast I know how much work she puts into it getting the guests in the hall editing and everything that she does and I thought great how encouraging maybe I'll make five figures with my podcast one day or with any kind of.
00:21:13: Business venture that I go into and there was so much joy inside me for two reasons for one I didn't feel an ounce of envy.
00:21:23: And the second was I felt empowered if she can do this then there's every chance that I that we can do that too.
00:21:31: And I want to finish on that note whatever it is you see that you feel you should have.
00:21:38: I learned this in Kabbalah once then it's already yours.
00:21:42: It's already yours just do that one thing find that one person and it's very likely you who can get you there.
00:21:53: I hope you're well I hope you found what you're really envious about and taking the courage to take that first step until then sending lots of love.
00:22:01: Music.
