Hello and welcome.
I am Ipek Williamson and I want to start with something that might surprise you.
Envy is not what you think it is.
Most people experience envy as a shameful thing.
Right?
Something to confess or hide.
A sign of inadequacy or smallness or not being evolved enough to simply be happy for other people.
Here is a different view.
Envy is actually one of the most useful emotions you have.
When you learn to read it correctly,
That is.
Let's start with what it actually is.
Envy arises when we see someone else with something we want.
And we feel the distance between where they are and where we are.
As painful.
That pain is the emotion.
And most people spend Lots of energy trying to make it stop.
Rather than asking what it's telling them.
Because Here is what Envy is pointing at.
Something you genuinely want,
Right?
Something that matters to you.
Something your analytical mind may have already dismissed as impractical or unrealistic or not for someone like you.
Which the body has not yet agreed to let go of.
Does it make sense?
Envy doesn't arise for things we are indifferent to.
If someone shows you a trophy for a sport you have never cared about,
You feel nothing.
MB is selective.
It aims.
It lands on the very specific thing that carries unfinished meaning for you.
And this is why I have come to think of Envy as a compass.
Not a really flattering or a comfortable one.
But an honest one.
It points without apology at what you actually want.
Before your fear or your practicality or your self-concept has had a chance to intervene.
Here is the distinction.
That make.
Everything.
Clearer and cleaner.
There is a difference between envy and jealousy that most people blur together.
Envy says,
They have something I want.
Jealousy says they have something I want and I resent them for having it.
One is information.
The other is suffering layered on top of information.
The goal.
Is to catch the envy before it becomes the jealousy.
To hear the signal before it becomes noise.
Now,
In light of what we have learned,
Let's try a practice together.
And keep in mind that throughout every video,
When there is a practice,
You are always welcome to pause the video and take your time in between prompts.
So now,
Think of someone whose life,
Work,
Or success has triggered envy in you recently.
Bring them clearly to your mind.
And now ask.
Without judgment and with genuine curiosity.
What specifically do I want that they have?
Name it as precisely as you can.
Not a general category,
This specific thing.
Now ask,
What would it mean about me if I allowed myself to want this openly?
The answer to that second question is often where the real work is.
The envy is rarely the problem.
What we have decided it means about us to want the thing.
That is what keeps us stuck.
Envy is not a character flaw.
It's a compass.
And once you know what it is pointing at,
You get to decide what to do about it.
May you follow your Envy all the way to its honest center.
And may what you find there be not shame,
But longing.
And may that longing show you exactly where to go next.
Namaste.
