Image via WikipediaJealousy and EnvyEven though care of the soul is not about changing, fixing, adjusting, and making better, still we have to find a way to live with our disturbing feelings, such as jealousy and envy. These emotions can be so sickening and corrosive that we don’t want to leave them raw, wallowing in them for years and getting nowhere with them. But what can we do short of trying to get rid of them? A clue is to be found in the very distaste we feel for them: anything so difficult to accept must have a special kind of shadow in it, a germ of creativity shrouded in a veil of repulsion. As we have so often found, in matters of the soul the most unworthy pieces turn out to be the most creative. The stone (Christ) the builders (the world) reject becomes the cornerstone.
Both envy and jealousy are common experiences. They are entirely different feelings, one a desire for what another person has, the other fears that the other person will take what we have, but they both have a corrosive effect on the heart. Either emotion can make a person feel ugly. There is nothing noble in either of them. At the same time, a person may feel oddly attached to them. The jealous person takes some pleasure in his suspicions, and the envious person feeds on his desires for what others possess.
We tend to think of jealousy as an emotion we can control with understanding and will, and we try to do our best with it. But in spite of our efforts, the human soul proves to be an arena in which great struggles, far deeper than rational understanding can reach, play themselves out. Jealousy feels so overwhelming because it is more than a physical response. Whenever it appears, issues and values our being sorted out deep in the soul, and all we can do is try to identify with the emotions and simply let the struggle work itself out.
Jealousy
Jealousy is not simply insecurity or emotional instability. The tension we feel in jealousy may be that of much greater worlds (God and the devil) colliding than can be seen by looking only at our personal emotions.
The end appears tragic, but tragedy, even in everyday life, can be a form of valuable restructuring. It is painful and in some ways destructive, but it also puts things in a new order. The only way out of jealousy is through turning it over to God and working through it. We may have to let jealousy have its way with us and do its job of reorienting fundamental values. Its pain comes, at least in part, from opening up to unexplored territory and letting go of old familiar truths in the face of unknown and threatening new possibilities.
T reduce jealousy to an ego fault is to overlook its complexity and also to avoid the deeper soul where jealousy is lodged. If we were to give jealousy an open hearing, we might find out something about its history in our life and maybe in our family, the circumstances that have called it forth at this time. These things are never obvious, and so we tend to focus on the obvious emotions and their superficial interpretations. We neede to go deeper and see the characters and themes at work.
When jealous feelings and images penetrate the heart and mind, a kind of initiation takes place. The jealous person discovers new ways of thinking and a fresh appreciation for the complicated demands of loving God with your whole heart, soul and spirit.
In a culture that prizes individual freedom and choice, the desire to possess is a piece of shadow, but it is also a real desire. Jealousy is fulfilled in true connection with another person. But this connection makes severe demands. It asks us to love attachment and dependence.
Envy
Similar to jealousy in the way it jabs at the heart is envy, one of the seven deadly sins and clearly serious shadow material. Once again we ask a difficult question: How do you care for the soul when it is presenting itself in the green ooze of envy. Can we give this deadly sin an open-minded hearing? Can we perceive what the soul wants when it wrenches us with longing for what another person has?
Envy can be consuming. It can crowd out every other thought and emotion with its strength. It can make a person distracted, “touched,” as we say, aching for the life, position, and possessions of others. My neighbors have happiness, money, success, children – why don’t I? My friend has a good job, looks, luck – what’s wrong with me? There may be a good dose of self-pity in envy, but it’s the longing that is so bitter.
Although envy may appear to be filled with ego, it is not fundamentally an ego problem. Envy eats away at the heart. If anything, the ego is the object of envy’s corrosive power. No, it is not an excess of ego, it is an activity of the soul, a painful process in the soul’s life. The ego problem is how to respond to envy, how to react to the sickening wishes it inspires. In the face of envy, our task – which should not surprise us now – is to find out what it wants.
Compulsions are always made up of two parts, and envy is no exception. On the other hand, envy is a desire for something, and on the other, it is a resistance to what the heart actually wants (peace). In envy, desire and self-denial work together to create a characteristic sense of frustration and obsessiveness. Although envy feels challenging – the envious person thinks he’s the victim of bad fortune – it also involves strong willfulness in the form of resistance to fate and character. In the thick of envy, one is blind to what God is doing in your life.
The point in caring for the envious soul is not to get rid of the envy, but to be guided back by God’s plan for them. The pain in is like pain in the body, it makes us stop and take notice of something that has gone wrong and needs attention. What has gone wrong is that our close-up vision has been blured along with our trust of God. Envy is an inability to see what is most important to us. Our love and trust in our God.
In the presence of envy’s misery, it is tempting to become a cheer-leader. “You can do it. You can have whatever you want. You’re good as anyone else.” But that approach falls right into the trap that envy sets up: “I’ll try to get my life on the right track, but I know the project is doomed from the very start.” The real problem is not the individual’s ability to have a good life, it’s his capacity not to have one. If we avoid the compensatory move into support and positive thinking, we can learn instead to honor the symptom and let it guide us in close care of the soul. If in envy the person wishes life were better, than maybe it’s a good idea to feel that emptiness deeply and thereby turn control of their life over to God. Wishes can be fluffy instruments of repression, turning attention to unrealistic and superficial possibilities as a defense against the void that is so painful.
In both jealousy and envy, fantasies are potent and utterly captivating, yet they float in an atmosphere somehow removed from actual life. Soul is always attached to life in some way. As symptoms, jealousy and envy keep life at a safe distance; as invitations to soul, they offer ways into one’s own heart where love attachment to God and others can be reclaimed.
The fact that jealousy and envy are both resistant to reason and to human efforts to eradicate them is a blessing. They ask us for a deeper diving into the soul, beyond ideals of health and happiness and into the spiritual world. Ultimately, these troublesome emotions offer a path to a life expedr4ienced with greater depth, maturity, and flexibility in our relationship with God.
Our task is to care for the soul, but it is also true that the soul cares for us. So the phrase “care of the soul” can be heard in two ways. In one sense, we ddo our best to honor whatever the soul presents to us within God’s plan, in the other, the soul is the subject who does the caring through the efforts of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, its suffering initiates a move toward increased spirituality.
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