Your Emotion: Envy

Webster’s dictionary describes envy as “painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage”. A synonym for envy is jealousy and all humans are aware of this emotion or comparison and contrast.  To compare is human.

One of my favorite books on happiness is “The Book of JOY” by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. In it, the authors discuss envy and how to reframe this natural emotion. They suggest focusing on values, not things and to focus on experiences and knowledge.

One of my new favorite words that I discovered in the book is mudita & this is happiness for others!

Muditā (Pāli and Sanskrit) means joy; especially sympathetic or vicarious joy. Also, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people's well-being. ... Mudita is a pure joy unadulterated by self-interest. When we can be happy of the joys other beings feel, it is called mudita. This is when you are happy for others & it is the opposite of envy. 

Here is a prayer for mudita that you can write down and say out loud whenever you are feeling jealous or even during times when you don’t have envy.

“As for the suffering, I do not wish even the slightest.
As for happiness, I am never satisfied.
In this, there is no difference between others and me.
Bless me so that I may take joy in other’s happiness.”

I wish you all happiness and joy as we start the season of fall.