Pocket Monster: Envy

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Jealousy is a thing, peeps.

It is the dead horse beaten on a regular basis when discussions of polyamory are on the table, but that’s because It Is A Thing. And it’s not the biggest monster in my closet . . . but I have one – it’s just more like a pocket monster. I carry it with me and occasionally take it out to play. You know, when I want to torture myself a bit!

Seriously though, jealousy gets a bad rap. No, I’m not saying we should aspire to jealousy, but it doesn’t have to be the horrible thing people think it is. It doesn’t have to be something we shame ourselves for experiencing. It can be, like all things, an opportunity to grow.

In an unrelated area of my life, I’ve learned that a hallmark of emotional maturity is the ability to be happy for others when they have what I hope to have, but do not. For example: if my best friend won the lottery, I would not be mad! I would experience both joy for her, and likely, a twinge of envy. Some people might not experience envy in that situation at all, while others may find themselves struggling to be at all happy for her.

In poly circles, some of us are able to feel happy for our partners when they are finding happiness with others – this is called compersion. It’s not a universal experience. It comes very naturally to some while others work to feel it, and still others never do nor find value in its pursuit.

Now, I will tell you that I identify as one of those people for whom compersion is a natural thing. When my partners are happy with their other partners, it brings me Great Joy! I would go so far as to say I sometimes attempt to facilitate greater happiness there by suggesting fun things they might enjoy together, or talking to them pre-event to share in their excitement. I am disgustingly poly, it’s true – but I do have that envy monster in my pocket.

Recently I had a partner do something REALLY BIG with their spouse, and I was SO EXCITED for them to do that thing together. I did not want to join, I did not want them to have a bad time, I wanted everyone to really enjoy themselves – but I was also so sad.

For me, envy manifests itself not as a territorial “that’s my partner and they should do fun things with me only” type of feeling, it’s more a “something along those lines would be a lot of fun, but I don’t think that experience is available to us” – very much like a best friend winning a lottery I will likely never win. And to be very clear: the lottery here isn’t the experience itself, it’s the experience with that particular person. I have never been able to substitute one person for another in my life. All of my relationships develop separately and are unique unto themselves.

So I felt pure compersion, and also envy.

And this means I have an opportunity to grow.

I have a future blog brewing about What Makes Things Special, and I know that writing that out will help me with this. But in the meantime, I also have the following tools:

• Focusing on being grateful for what I have as opposed to focusing on what I do not – because perspective has a lot to do with where we focus our energies. If I’m wearing myself out pining for things I do not have, then I’ll neglect the things I do and run the risk of them atrophying.

• Expressing happiness and feeling it returned – I’ve learned that when I’m feeling down, putting the emotion I want to experience out into the world allows it to come back to me.

• Looking forward to special plans I’ve made with my partners – because the fact is, I do a lot of amazing things with my partners and I can’t tell you another time in my life when my life was this much fun!

• Acknowledging that envy is not a product of a broken system, but a side effect of being human – as a human, I’m allowed the luxury of imperfection.

• Choosing to act out of love, instead of envy – and this is the key . . . because I could, in a moment of envy, decide to make my partners miserable. This is why jealousy gets a bad rap – it’s not the feeling itself, it’s the terrible ways people treat each other when they’re affected by it. Jealousy itself is just another emotion we get to experience and choose how to act in response.

So, I’m not at all ashamed that envy wiggled around in my pocket and wanted to play with me over this. I know where it settles in my body when I feel things that need fixing. It’s nearly always a perspective shift that needs to occur,  and I have a big toolbox full of perspective tweakers at the ready!

I’ll just keep on humaning, and letting you know how it goes.

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