Is one or both of these familiar to you? What triggers the feeling? How do you know when you're envious? Jealous? Is it your thoughts? Or is it in your body? And are you sure you know the difference when they arise in you?

At whom is your envy or jealousy directed? Those you care about? Colleagues? Strangers? Do you feel other emotions simultaneously? Fear? Anger? Insecurity? Desire? Sadness? Regret? At whom, or what, are these emotions directed? Are you angry at your partner? At someone they have a relationship with? At yourself?

How do you relate to your envy and jealousy? Do you judge it? Think it healthy? Unhealthy? Do you pursue it, creating opportunities to feel it? Do you avoid it? Organize your experience to make it less likely? What are the benefits of your strategy? The costs?

When your envy or jealousy subsides, what causes it to do so? Seeing the object of your envy suffer loss? Getting what it is you envy? Time? Distance? Perspective? Does your jealousy disappear when the circumstance giving rise to it disappears? When you end your relationship to the person inspiring it? Or does it simply require time, distance, perspective?

What are your earlier experiences of envy and jealousy? From your recent past? Your distant past? Your childhood? Finally: is envy inevitable? Is jealousy? Are they part of life? Signs of weakness? To be avoided?

Josh Wolf-Powers is a psychoanalyst in Union Square, New York. If something here resonated, get in touch.

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