Hi, and welcome to S.U.P., which stands for Seek Understanding and Peace. My name is Cadeegirl5, and I am happy you are here with me on this Day –Today!
Why seek Peace? We seek Peace because Peace gives us contentment. Peace helps us to enjoy the right now; Peace allows us to focus better – gives us patience – and helps improve all areas of our lives.
Therefore
I created the A.B.C.s of S.U.P. (Seek Understanding and Peace) because sometimes, we don’t even realize that our minds, body, and spirits are searching and seeking to lead us to Peace. I will take a guess and say that 99.9% of you are busy, and some of you are working inside or outside the home.
Probably both -Between taking care of your family, however, that looks, you may be a caregiver in your home, have small children and teenagers, and take them to and from rehearsals.
Unfortunately,
Some choose things that will give them temporary Peace but, in the end, reap devastating results like drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and unhealthy relationships.
As promised, here we go! This week we are on the letter.
E- Envy/Envious
I never paid attention to the different meanings of envy and jealousy. In some places, jealousy and envy are defined the same; in others, they are different.
Envy, the verb, is defined as a desire to have a quality, possess, or desirable attribute belonging to someone else jealousy is defined as resentment against a rival or person enjoying success or perceiving a threat to a relationship.
I read somewhere that envy is the little cousin to jealousy.
Envy is a resentment longing aroused by someone else’s possessions or qualities.
For example, Envy says I wish I had what they have. Or, in my case, I wish I had what they had on
Personal Story
I grew up thinking I needed to be a specific size to look and feel confident. I have always been envious of people who exhibited such confidence, no matter their size.
They could be a size 0 to 24; their hair, skin, nails, clothes, and everything in between look put together and in place. I remember saying to myself when I was in my early 20s. When I reach 60, I will not care what size I am – I will be free, feel good about my body, and look good in whatever I wear.
As I approached my 50s, I realized that I had not changed my thinking much, and 60 would come and go without me doing anything to change my thoughts.
I do not know why I felt 60 was the magic age to accept myself -ness. Because it will not happen magically – even though I wished it would.
It Follows That
Sixty will come and go, and I will be in that vicious circle of self-loathing. And I would still not be comfortable with and in my body. What a wasted life that would be, I thought. I needed to start doing something about how I am feeling inward about myself right now.
Therefore, I first had to remember how God saw me.
in 1 Samuel 16:7, the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
Well, there you go.
I was going about this all wrong looking at the outside of people and myself and never really considering the inward man, the part God cares about and deals with, and where God weighs our motives.
I needed to readjust my thinking, but it was hard when all I saw first was the outside of the person, and also, people usually judged on appearance.
Another scripture in Luke 12:7 reads. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. God, our Father, considers us precious enough to know and care about every cell, hair strand, and eyelash. How awesome is that?
But that is a story for another time.
I shared that portion with you to note that I was envious of others and the process I went through to get over it.
While appreciating and admiring others, these thoughts never entered my mind.
- they think they are better than me,
- I do not like them.
- I deserve what she has, not her.
- and I could kill for that.
Instead, I wondered how they got all that confidence and swag, which means the bold self-assurance of style. – I thought I needed to get some of that.
I started talking and engaging some of these women as I got older.
I remember one time I passed this older gentleman. He had to have been 70-80; he had cologne that smelled so good. And turning to look at him I noticed that this older gentleman had some swag.
I realized this confidence and swag come in all colors, genders, sizes, and ages. I liked that – that meant that there was hope for me.
At times I see someone in the store, waiting in line, or just out and about; if there were something I liked about them or what they had on, I would compliment them.
What Started to Happen
When I started engaging people, I realized first, and foremost people were friendly and did not mind talk.
This helped me to be friendly to others outside my circle and realize many times that we all share many commonalities.
Afterward, I started slowly gaining confidence in how I looked in the mirror; I started learning my body type and quickly realized that because I saw something that looked good on someone else did not always mean it would look good on me. I needed to start appreciating how I looked and embracing it.
Of course,
that is just one example of how I handle envy. I stopped looking at others and started appreciating my uniqueness. Amen!
Next
I want to share some signs someone is envious of you.
6 Signs That Someone Is Envious Of You (upvee. co)
On the other side, I know when someone is envious of me. And as I am writing this, I believe there are levels to being envious. Envious is defined as
covetousness (a desire to possess something that belongs to someone else.)
That does not mean you are not insincere in the compliment. You like what they have or do, but you do not want to see harm come to them.
Now jealousy is a different story – Jealousy may try and take, steal, or sometimes even kill. Have you heard this scripture and phrase before?
100 Jealousy Quotes When Bitterness and Envy Strike – Parade: Entertainment, Recipes, Health, Life, Holidays
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” — 1 Corinthians 13:4
“Jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own.” — Amanda Metcalf
This Next article I liked.
6 Signs That Someone Is Envious of You (upvee.co)
I did not necessarily agree with all of it – but my not agreeing with it did not mean it was not true for others. So, I decided to share.
The first one is …
- They are insincere – meaning false or harrowing compliments.
It’s not only about not telling you they envy you; it’s about everything else. They might compliment you and tell you how much they admire you, but you can feel they are insincere.
My 2 cents
-Yes, some people do give off-handed compliments. These should be easy to ignore whether you know them or not. I would not take it personally; they may have something they are dealing with or some insecurities. I would pray for them and move on.
2. They get angry when you succeed. – there is hostility in the insincere compliment
You probably want to share something important with those around you whenever you achieve something significant. But an envious person will never be happy for you. Moreover, they may even try to downplay your success or somehow make it about themselves.
My 2 cents–
This is true –if a person is not doing good or does not feel good about themselves at the moment, then they don’t want you to do better than them – because that will make them feel worse about themselves. These types of people I would be careful about sharing positive information with. I would not want them raining on my parade – making me feel bad for my accomplishment.
To enjoy your success, surround yourself with people who sincerely have your back and want you to succeed. You deserve it.
Back handed compliments.
For Example, hey, guess what? I got employee of the month! An employee walks up to you and says Congratulations. How did you get that – I should have gotten employee of the month! I’m the one that’s been working hard.
OR,
You lose a lot of weight and are looking and feeling your best. Someone you know walks up to you and says you look nice now; maybe you will be able to get a man.
3. They are highly competitive
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition, but these people seem to be obsessed with it. They don’t care about anything else except proving their superiority.
My 2 Cents –
you are in a game with a highly competitive person – they do not make it enjoyable for all involved. If you are on the losing team as a highly competitive person, expect temper tantrums, accusations, maybe even cheating, and just all-around poor sportsmanship.
For Example, you look lovely in that outfit – too bad it would look better on me, or the color doesn’t suit you. You get the picture.
http://5 Types of Envy: Can You Identify Them?
There are five types of enviers; I will share three of them here.
Levelers
This article deals with workplace competition. This is where you get a promotion, bonus, or recognition for hard work, and a coworker or coworkers become envious of your achievements. Levelers are defined as dangerous in the workplace and will try and bring you down to their level. Through lying, smear campaign, passive-aggressive, or sabotaging your work.
Entitled Lazers
These envious people are lazy; they do the bare minimum and still feel entitled to the same benefits as someone who works hard.
My Two Cents: If they put that same energy into doing the work, they would be much happier with themselves. However, the article does say that there are insecurities with this type of Entitled Lazers that they- do not – believe they can do the work, so they hide behind others.
Insecure Bosses –
As the title suggests, this type of person is in position and is insecure. Fearful that everyone is out to get their position. And they will find excuses to fire you if they feel threatened by you and your success in that company. Also, as the name suggests, they are the boss, and even though what you bring to the table is suitable for the company, it does not matter; they will make up a flimsy excuse to see you gone.
My Two Cents: when I first saw this title, I thought it was about an insecure boss, a bad all-around boss who did not prepare his employees for success, who was not a team player, and who saw themselves above – better than or outside of his employees. I had one of those; let’s call him “Carl.” He was everything I tried not to do or be when I became a boss. Sometimes you can learn what not to do from people.
Parasitic Envy –
this one is dangerous because they can pretend to like you or be your friend when all along, they want what you have. Be careful with these types because they will try and gain your trust then take away or steal what you have. They are very manipulative.
The 10 types of envy (and how to identify them) – medical – 2023 (warbletoncouncil.org)
How To Protect Yourself
What to do to protect yourself
First ask God to give you wisdom concerning the people that comes into your life and the ones that already are.
Listen to yourself – that is the Holy Spirit telling you when something is off with a person – that something is not quite right. You may need to take a closer look or just be more cautious.
Cut your losses some people are not meant to be in your life forever – some are seasonal.
You do not have to be mean or cruel but sometimes you have to let people go. I have done it think (toxic relationships)
Summing It Up,
We talked about envy and jealousy; the two words are used interchangeably in some places but have different meanings. Remember to become self-aware and realize it.
Remember envy usually deals with you and another person.
Jealousy is usually dealing with relationship issues such as adultery, fornication, and the like.
There are some things you can do to minimize or deal with it.
Next week we will discuss a word that begins with the letter F that can help us on our journey to Peace.
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Thank you for being here with me on this Day – Today. See you next time!
GRACE AND PEACE
Cadeegirl
Speak Your Peace –