Envy is usually very easy to spot. You just notice the weird vibe that someone gives off and you know when someone is jealous of you. But sometimes it can be difficult to notice, especially when someone is hiding jealousy under a friendly mask. Envious people may portray themselves as well-wishers, but internally they feel more pleased with the way you fall than with the way you rise.
In this case, it becomes important to discover the hidden emotions of envy so that you can protect yourself from negative influences.
In this short guide, we'll look at the top 10 signs of envious people.
When looking at these signs, you need to remember that the purpose of this is awareness, not harsh judgment towards someone or a statement that every envious person will have the same characteristics.
There are different degrees of envy, from a person who is generally good-natured and feels a little insecure, to a person with hostility, anger and hatred.
“A competent and confident person is not capable of envy. Envy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity."
— Robert A. Heinlein
They interrupt you and change the subject
One of the very subtle signs of envy is interrupting people when they are trying to talk about their achievements and successes. Or simply ignore what was said and move on to another topic of conversation.
When someone talks about their achievements, it can make the envious person feel insecure and remind them of their own shortcomings. Things he couldn't do.
Basically, jealous people don't interrupt you or change the subject to avoid the conversation. They do this to avoid comparison with themselves.
Because talking about others' successes reminds them of their own failures, it creates inner discomfort to the point that they cannot even listen to others.
Instead of being happy and interested in the success of another person, their thoughts are directed towards their own shortcomings.
Envy reasons
The reasons for this condition: dissatisfaction or need for something, lack of money, need, dissatisfaction with one’s appearance, lack of personal achievements.
Envy and its causes lie in a difficult childhood due to the fault of the parents, if the child was not taught to accept himself as he is, if the child did not receive unconditional love, but only received praise for fulfilling certain requirements (washing dishes, playing the violin). If the parents scolded the child for any deviation from the rules, using offensive phrases, as well as using physical force. If parents taught their child that poverty, restrictions, sacrifice are normal, but being rich is bad. If the parents forced sharing and did not allow the child to freely dispose of his things, if they crushed him with a feeling of guilt for the achieved happiness, joy, if they taught him to openly fear manifestations of personal happiness in order to avoid the evil eye. If parents did not give the attitude to expect good things from life, but instilled personal life attitudes such as “life is hard” or “life is a big problem.”
As a result, a person grows up who does not know how to enjoy life, who has a huge number of complexes, beliefs, self-restraints, and norms adopted from their parents. An envious feeling is instilled in someone who is internally unfree, who has been instilled with self-criticism, self-sacrifice, who has been kept in strictness and has not been taught to expect bright and positive things from life. Such a person grows up in restrictions and further limits himself, does not give himself freedom, does not allow himself to show joy.
What does envy mean? To envy means to live constantly in a system of comparison and identification. “Better - worse” is the main criterion for comparison. An envious person, comparing himself, begins to realize that he is worse in something else. In fact, these two concepts do not exist by themselves; they live in our heads.
The reason for envy is also explained by the fact that we communicate with ourselves around the clock, and whom we envy we observe only for a moment. So contradictions collide: the line of one’s own life and the flashes of brightness of someone else’s life.
Talking behind your back
As soon as you leave the meeting, the one who showed false gratitude in front of you begins to talk behind your back and discuss your shortcomings and weaknesses with other people. You will find out about this later, thanks to someone who heard this gossip about you.
As a precaution, if you know those who always talk behind people's backs, but when they are in the presence of those same people, they portray themselves as well-wishers and act "nice" and "nice" - stay away from them.
There is a high chance that they may be talking behind your back. This has nothing to do with you. It's just a habit of theirs and they do it to most people they encounter.
Signs of envy
Manifestations of envy: personal
As already noted, the main emotional component of envy is the feeling of irritation, annoyance, and bitterness that arises at the sight of a more successful and prosperous person.
Negative feelings appear even against the background of thoughts about this situation. Depending on how much a person is captured by this vice, they can be short and pass quickly, or occupy all the time and attention.
Psychology views envy as a phenomenon consisting of three levels of manifestation:
1. awareness of one’s low position compared to other people;
2. the emergence of a hostile feeling of irritation and dissatisfaction;
3. the transition of negativity into destructive behavior with the aim of harming the object.
The basis of envy, according to psychologists, is the awareness of a low position compared to others. For those who were able to cope with these thoughts, it does not develop into a serious, difficult emotion.
If you fail to fight, then it takes over your consciousness. Subsequently, it can be very difficult to cope with it.
Envy is multifaceted. In addition to anger, it includes resentment against life, a sense of injustice and one’s own inferiority, even to the point of self-flagellation. In fact, an envious person is a deeply unhappy person.
He is subject to this destructive passion, which does not bring pleasure, but contributes to the collapse of personality and relationships. A person subject to envy suffers himself and brings suffering to others.
Signs of envy from the outside
How to understand that someone is jealous of you? Very often, people who experience envious feelings carefully hide them.
Because of this, only some minor points in behavior can indicate them, especially when communicating with people you know well. But outsiders can also reveal their true attitude.
To avoid problems for yourself in the future, it is worth finding out in advance what these signs are.
Envious people brag about their achievements and successes
If someone starts boasting about their successes and virtues whenever they hear about other people's achievements, they are likely experiencing personal insecurity about their worth.
After hearing about other people's qualities and successes, they subconsciously feel that their own worth is being threatened by someone who may be better than them.
In their mind, they always have to stay on top and be better than most people in order to feel good about themselves and be happy with their worth. Envious people believe that their experience, knowledge and achievements are superior to everyone else.
How to overcome envy and benefit from it?
Envy can not only be overcome, but also turned to your advantage. To do this, you need to remember and constantly follow 5 simple rules in everyday life:
- Acknowledge envy. Most people don't like to admit this feeling. But it is quite natural, and there is no need to be ashamed of it. If you feel that you are envious, do not try to hide it from yourself. By acknowledging this feeling, you will already ease it.
- Explore your envy. Try to better understand what you feel and why. It is likely that it is in this state that you become aware of some unsatisfied need that you had not noticed before.
- Feel grateful. Sometimes envy helps you learn about some internal problems or find motivation for new successes. And you need to be able to thank yourself for this, and also be grateful to the person who provoked this feeling.
- Look for motivation in envy. Having seen other people's successes and felt envy, it is worth thinking about what you can do right now and in the near future to get the same.
- Take action. Every time you feel discomfort due to feelings of envy, this should be a reason to take active action to achieve your desired goal.
They try to take credit for your success.
There are some people who will appreciate your progress, but at the same time they will try to take credit for your success. They will portray as if they played an important role in your success and achievements.
They will tell you things like:
"I told you this is the right way."
“I always knew you would do this.”
“I remember the time you came to me for advice.”
Although such statements can also be made by sincerely caring people who really believe in you and care about you, those who are truly your well-wishers. So don't confuse this with them. You will intuitively know who is sincere and who is not.
What is envy?
Envy is a feeling of annoyance, bitterness or irritation that arises at the sight of someone else's success or the presence of certain benefits in another person.
It's not surprising that people often want to get something they see from others. But envy is understood not as a desire to receive some good, but as dissatisfaction with the fact that this good went to another person.
From a psychological point of view, envy is a complex set of emotions and experiences experienced due to the presence of certain material or intangible values in another person. In psychology, this feeling is considered undesirable, since it contributes to the development of anxiety and generally has a destructive effect on the personality and psyche.
They may ask you awkward, probing questions.
There is a difference between asking about a person's achievements and scrutinizing them. Both have very different shades.
At first, you may think that the person is really curious about your experience. But as the conversation progresses, your excitement about talking about yourself turns into an uncomfortable interaction that may leave you feeling a little unreasonable or even doubting yourself due to their inquisitive questions.
The whole point of asking such intense and awkward questions is to shake the other person's confidence. Envious people cannot tolerate confident people.
“Envy is the bile of the soul.”
— John Dryden
Consequences
It is useful for everyone to know what pathological envy leads to in order to realize all the harm that it has on literally all areas of life.
Effect on physical health:
- The pressure constantly rises - hypertension develops;
- hyperhidrosis;
- tachycardia, arrhythmia, cardiovascular diseases;
- dyspnea;
- problems in the nervous system;
- muscle tension is formed;
- the functioning of the digestive tract is disrupted, which can lead to the development of gastritis and the formation of ulcers;
- pathologically low pain threshold (due precisely to the fact that the same part of the brain is responsible for envy and pain).
One of the Japanese neuroscientists suggested that pathologically envious people are more likely than others to become cancer patients. Statistics confirm this, but more scientific research is needed.
Mental health consequences:
- insomnia;
- neurotic disorders;
- obsessive thoughts;
- suicidal tendencies;
- various personality and behavior disorders;
- deep depression;
- neuroses, psychopathy;
- destruction of the system of moral values and personal attitudes.
In addition to all this, it is worth considering the destruction of interpersonal relationships. An envious person has no real friends, because at a certain moment, when they achieve something more, they become the object of his uncontrollable bile and anger. Over time, such people lose the ability to be happy for others and distance themselves from others. Social maladaptation, isolation, autism - these are the consequences of this all-destroying feeling.
They try to compete with you and do everything you do.
Some people don't show obvious expressions of envy when you meet them in person. But behind the scenes they are monitoring your progress and trying to compete with you.
You may see them doing similar things soon after you do it.
Envious people will buy similar material items a few days after you post them on social media.
They will take the same courses and programs as you to succeed in their profession.
They may even follow the same career path as you and take the same initiative as you.
Teenage envy
Teenage envy can be directed at a variety of attributes: talent, physical strength, height, hair color, physique, possession of gadgets. Adults should be understanding of teenage envy, which worsens during this period. You should not immediately respond to all the teenager’s requests and satisfy his desires, thereby pleasing him. The mistake parents make is that they immediately acquire the desired thing, brushing aside the problem, and the next time the situation repeats itself and the envious feeling takes root, turning into a habit.
None of us are born envious; this feeling develops throughout life. When adults give an example of a more successful peer, they thereby cultivate their own embittered envious person, rather than create healthy competition. Under no circumstances should you resort to such comparisons. In each such case, the child will develop an envious feeling, which will turn into irritation. The teenager will experience his own inferiority, and will also put on himself the hated label of a loser. The child’s world will begin to be perceived in a distorted reality, and comparison with other teenagers will become dominant.
How to overcome envy? The task of parents is to help the teenager assert himself, as well as determine his personal life position. Explain to your child that an envious feeling primarily causes harm through its experiences. These experiences affect not only the teenager’s psyche, but also their physical condition. An envious feeling must be treated as a personal enemy and not given the opportunity to defeat oneself.
Knowing the reasons and reasons that provoke an envious feeling, and this is someone else's wealth, the beauty of another person, good health, prosperity, talent, intelligence, you can prepare yourself to meet this. It is necessary for yourself to identify personal achievements and talents, and in no case compare yourself with others. Man is imperfect, so smart people strive to be content with what they have and what they themselves can achieve, but we will always be less envious. If all these simple truths are conveyed to the child at an early age, the teenager will grow up happy and free. Therefore, it is important to help children decide in time by making the right choice. Parents must prove this by personal example and under no circumstances enviously discuss the success of relatives and neighbors in front of them.
How does envy affect a person? An envious feeling acts as a means of manipulation and poses a danger to the weak in spirit. Such individuals will do anything to achieve what they want. Envy is similar to anger, but anger, once activated, spills out, and an envious feeling lurks and destroys a person from the inside. An envious feeling, condemned by society, should also be condemned by the person himself. This is the only way to free yourself from it. A teenager must independently learn to recognize the envious feeling that he tries to win over to his side, thereby destroying relationships with friends, making him joyless and gloomy.
A widespread theory is that it notes the emergence of envy in a person in the process of social life. This theory is of the opinion that envious feelings are a consequence of improper upbringing of a child, which arises when compared with other children.
Downplay your successes and achievements
Downplaying is the cheapest and most obvious trick that an envious person can perform.
As soon as you tell them something good about yourself, or even if someone mentions something good about you, they will immediately make a sly expression and say something negative.
To downplay your success and good qualities, they may point out some shortcomings and weaknesses, or they may simply compare you to someone who is doing much better than you.
They usually dismiss the other person's success by calling it:
“Luck” “Temporary success” “Too young to know about real success” “Too young to know what life is”
Types of envy
People have long distinguished types of envy as white and black.
Psychologists call them “benevolent” and “evil”. Despite the fact that in both cases a person wants to possess what the other has, this manifests itself in different ways and has different consequences.
White envy
The question of what white envy is can be answered with the following phrase: “I want to have what this person has.” Thus, the envious person does not wish harm to another with good intentions; he does not set himself up against him.
Thoughts about some good he lacks can in this case become an incentive to achieve success and acquire the right thing.
Black envy
Unlike white envy, black envy is much destructive. She not only strives to have the desired advantage, but wants a successful person to lose his achievements and fall to the bottom.
She gloats at his failures, cries at his successes. Without noticing it, the envious person destroys his personality with this passion. He becomes dependent on her and can no longer simply live and enjoy every day.
Envious people will try to demotivate you
When you share your future plans, intentions and the initiative you want to take, envious people usually try to demotivate you by showing you the negative side of things. They will tell you:
“This is not for everyone” “I had the opportunity too, but I decided not to do it” “You don’t have enough knowledge or skills to succeed at this” “You will need a lot of resources to get started” “Are you sure this is a good idea ? “Why don’t you do this instead?
What kind of envy is there?
Every phenomenon in life has two sides in relation to human perception. On the one hand, envy is bad, since this feeling, which has completely taken over the consciousness, has the power to upset a person’s nervous system. Being envious, he may lose peace of mind, neither eat nor sleep. Overt or hidden hostility arises between people. This kind of envy is called black envy. Another type of this phenomenon is referred to as white envy. It encourages a person to take active action. The individual seeks to eliminate the cause of envy by making personal efforts to achieve the desired result.
White envy
It is also called constructive. Such a feeling of envy elevates the object of envy to the rank of an example for admiration and imitation. It becomes a source of motivation for creative activity. In this case, the psychological attitudes of consciousness change to the exact opposite. They motivate to achieve or surpass the object of imitation. Such feelings do not hurt or hurt your own pride. Sympathy may appear.
Black envy
The negative nature of this feeling is formed by an incorrect perception of the surrounding reality. The envy of people in this case is a response of the psyche to an imaginary threat to the security of the personality of the one who envies. This becomes the cause of negative emotions and gives rise to the desire to eliminate the danger by causing damage to the carrier of the threat. However, in most cases it does not come to action. A black feeling gradually corrodes the nervous tissue of consciousness, leading the individual to mental disorders. Favorable conditions for the development of black envy can be:
- injured vanity;
- false understanding of justice;
- depression;
- constant touchiness;
- low self-esteem.
They will try to lead you astray
The worst and most serious case of envy is when the jealous person tries his best to make the other person go astray. They will go the extra mile and put in a lot of effort to bring someone down.
It is sociopathic behavior that poses a potential threat to one's progress, success and happiness.
In such cases, it is extremely important to stay away from jealous people and involve someone in this scenario who can sincerely help you against the false plans of the jealous person.
- 10 signs that you are under the influence of a manipulator
The Negative Impact of Envy
Above, when we figured out what envy is and what it can be, we decided that white envy can be considered a completely positive feeling that can motivate a person to achieve success as quickly as possible. But the tendency to black envy usually greatly worsens the quality of life of the envious person himself. This is most pronounced in three aspects:
- Depression. Being a strong negative experience, envy provokes the production of cortisol, which gradually worsens mood and well-being, driving a person into a state of depression. In addition, envy is always associated with a painful experience of one’s own failures.
- Lack of respect. An envious person makes a bad impression on others and rarely enjoys their respect.
- Low self-esteem. Envying others, a person concentrates on their successes and the lack of them in himself. Gradually he comes to the conclusion that he is a failure.
