The Mysterious Power of Envy

A person who toxically envies another feels alone, inferior, and chronically ashamed. She also is very destructive.

An often overlooked type of predator in our society is the toxically envious person. Envy can create a very nasty dynamic that we rarely understand or correctly identify. 

The aim of someone who is toxically envious is to harm or destroy a person (or that person's possessions or property) in an attempt to overcome their own shame at feeling inferior to that person. Usually mislabeled as jealousy in our culture, envy and jealousy are actually opposites. My professional definitions: Jealousy is fear that you will lose to another something you possess. Envy is covetousness or animosity toward another who possesses something you do not possess. 

Unfortunately, a person who is the target of envy almost never realizes that envy is the source of the problem in a difficult relationship (potentially any kind of relationship -- romantic partners, competitive professional colleagues, divorced parents with custody issues, difficult relatives, friends you feel weird around, etc.) 

As a target of envy, you will consistently feel somehow wrong, inadequate, insulted, ignored, isolated, attacked, or erased while in the presence of one particular person or group, but you will be baffled about why it's happening or what you've done wrong to warrant such treatment. I've heard a target of envy describe her experience as, "After I'm with a certain friend, I always want to take a shower as if to wash off toxic chemicals, but I never understand why I feel like that." If, with one particular person or group, you often feel judged or put down, consider their envy! Envy can be highly destructive but feel hard to describe. I discuss a lot more about the mysterious power of envy in my book, How Shame Runs the World.