#445 – How does your Ego profiteer from your envy?

You know envy is a feeling you'd rather not have. Yet, now and then, when you think of your friends' children's profitable careers or their family vacation in Japan, little red horns grow in your mind.

If you've also been there, know that it's not you: it's your Ego.

Your Ego is a hoarder by nature. It wants all the resources for itself because it believes your survival depends on accumulation for you and deprivation for others.

When your Ego thinks you're not getting enough, it deems it unfair that someone else gets what it believes you should get. So, it pokes your heart with its bony finger––they're getting what you wanted.

And just like that, the Ego wins: you're paralyzed, demoralized, enraged, and hopeless. You close your mind to the possibility of change (check!) and shut your writing app (check, check!).

But there's a way out: you can flip the script. When you see other people getting what you wanted, you interpret it as a sign that it's possible.

Last Wednesday, I spoke with a UA fellow on the phone. When she told me she felt she'd been living as half herself for years, I said: "I know that well! It wasn't until I declared that I am a writer that I didn't start feeling truly myself. And, unbelievable to me until then, I started to make money with my writing."

She responded that she used to feel envious when hearing that kind of stories, but now she sees them as proof that it's possible.

What will you gain when you flip envy on its head?

Love,

Carolina