Episode 234 -- August 18, 2022

We're no strangers to feeling things we don't want to feel. Many of us used to numb our feelings with our substance of choice. We would isolate ourselves just so we didn't have to experience feelings like disappointment or guilt or shame. Now that we're in recovery we get to feel all our feelings—the good ones as well as the ones that are less welcome and seem harder to handle.

In her book The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward, Tracey Cleantis uses down-to-earth humor and wisdom to help readers face and accept difficult feelings that come with change and loss. Cleantis provides a roadmap for letting go of a dream that isn't working and teaches us how to set realistic goals for finding a new way forward.

This excerpt discusses the effects of envy, guilt, and shame, what the author describes as the "Trio of unwelcome feelings." Cleantis uses her own story to demonstrate how these uncomfortable emotions can rule our lives if we let them. Her experience, and the insights she offers, can help us realize that we are not bad people for having these feelings. We can work through even the most negative feelings and move forward in our recovery.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

The Unwelcomed Three: Envy, Guilt, Shame
As much as we don't like sadness, anger, and fear, I am about to introduce you to the most despised and unwelcome feelings that come when you are grieving the loss of a dream. I like to think of them as the triumvirate of terror. They are the triple threat of toxicity that we often face when we are grieving the loss of our dream: envy, guilt, and shame. These are emotions that make us feel like crap and ones that we really aren't comfortable sharing with others. We would prefer to share our bank balances, talk about our sex life, and tell people how much we weigh before we talk about our envy, guilt, and shame. These three make us feel like we are, as George Thorogood sings, "Bad to the bone." Yet they are a normal part of the grief we feel when we are letting go of a dream and having to function in a world where other people may have exactly the thing that we want. No, you might not want to tell your mother that every time you see your sister gloating over what you have most wanted that you want to kick her in the shins. But these are totally normal feelings, and looking at the reality of what others have (and not idealizing it) will help you move through your envy, guilt, and shame.

Let's meet envy first. Envy is green-eyed and green-faced. She shows up when we are around someone who has what we dreamed of. We might even feel some anger or outrage and sadness when we see that they have it. This is an emotion that we are super-duper not okay with. And if it wasn't bad enough to have envy, it often brings up other unwelcomed emotions: guilt and shame. Guilt arrives on the scene because we feel wrong for feeling envy. Guilt is an icky-sticky feeling that, once in place, can be hard to shake off. Guilt tells us we have done something that we shouldn't have, that it is wrong to feel envy, anger, rage, and outrage and have less-than-lovely thoughts about others who have what we most wanted. Enter shame, stage right. According to author and researcher Brené Brown, shame "is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging." When we feel shame, we want to hide and withdraw. Guilt is the feeling that comes from believing that we did something bad. Shame is the feeling that tells us we are bad.

The Inside Story
The Inside Story this time is mine. I really and truly wanted to interview someone to talk to you in gritty and grimy detail about the shame, guilt, and envy that came up when dealing with the loss of a dream. I searched and scoured and put the word out on Facebook and LinkedIn, and I emailed everyone I know and emailed them again and sometimes three times, asking, "Would you help me normalize these feelings by sharing your story?" There weren't many takers. People wrote me back and said things like, "I would prefer to tell you my weight, my Social Security number, and how many people I have slept with." People were particularly not keen on talking about envy. A rector of an Episcopalian church wrote me a note and told me, "Sure, I know people who are dealing with envy in regards to a loss. Individuals come to mind who have had issues along these lines, but it would be kind of weird for me to point that out to them: 'Hey, you're the envious type.' 'Hey, remember that time you got screwed over and lost out?'"

The few people willing to talk about their envy—and the shame and guilt that went hand in hand with it—told me anecdotes about how hard it was to see others who had what they wanted most.

At the end of the day, the only person willing to talk at length about envy was... me.

I am mildly terrified to admit my envy and may be sitting under a table as I write this, because I am pretty sure by the end of it you are going to think I am a bad person for what I felt (see how easily the shame kicks in?), but here goes: In the early stages of my grief, when I would manage to pull myself together and get up and get dressed and go to the market or out to brunch, I would inevitably see pregnant women and newborn babies. They are, you may have noticed, a natural part of the world. But to me, they were a personal affront. Every time I saw one, I would get slammed by an envy attack: Why not me and why them? I had other meaner and uglier thoughts about why God, or whoever it was who was handing out baby dust or fertility juice, would choose that person, who was obviously not as good a parent as I would have been. Seeing a pregnant woman having a bag of Skittles and a Diet Coke as her lunch would throw me into a tizzy tirade in which I would have an internal tantrum that involved lots of four-letter words. Then I would think, Ooh, it's really not okay to think that about that stranger that way (guilt). Next I would have a wave of You are not okay for having this feeling. You are bad-bad-bad. You, Tracey, are a bad person. Oh and speaking of you as bad, clearly there is something wrong with you for not getting what you wanted most (shame).

There were times when I would isolate just so I didn't have to experience this trio of unwelcome feelings. However, in time, I learned to expect the three to come with me. I knew they would likely show up, and for me they showed up much more with strangers than with friends. With friends, I could eventually be genuinely happy for them, and I had some friends who helped me make space for my feelings of envy when I did feel it. Once, when having lunch at a fancy-pants Georgetown eatery, the maître d' put my two friends and me next to a gaggle of new mothers and their beautiful babies dressed in Janie and Jack, an expensive, classic style of clothes for children. I took one look at the table and was hit hard by an envy attack. My friend's mother took one look at the table filled with the mommies-who-lunch set, turned to the maître d', and said, "Can we have a table far away from these little shits?" I, for the first time ever, was able to laugh out loud at my envy.

My friend's mother, of course, didn't really think the babies were little shits, but she understood why I couldn't be near them, for now. And us being able to laugh at it helped me immeasurably. I was no longer alone in my envy, and so my guilt and shame melted away. Brené Brown says that empathy is the antidote to shame. It "cannot survive being spoken and being met with empathy." As soon as I was able to call babies a name, to make my envy okay and even laughable and have it witnessed with empathy by my friend's mother, it made me feel like my envy was understandable and not something that threw me into guilt and shame and isolation.

About the Author:
Tracey Cleantis is a marriage and family therapist with a private practice in Valencia and Pasadena, California. She holds a master's degree in counseling psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and has studied at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles.

© 2015 by Tracey Cleantis
All rights reserved