Alexandra NielDivorce Recovery Coach, ANiel International, LLC. · I help women who held it all together through divorce finally build a life that’s actually theirs | Thrive After Divorce

Envy Is a Clue | Reclaiming Desire and Permission to Want More

2 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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1:27

In this personal self‑help monologue, the speaker reflects on how feelings of jealousy or envy signal desires that we have not granted ourselves permission to pursue. She shares concrete examples—such as wanting to wear brighter, more feminine clothing, aspiring to a nicer lifestyle, and yearning for emotional peace and healing—that she previously dismissed as unattainable. By questioning the internal rules that forbid these wishes, she argues that envy is a useful clue pointing toward what we truly want. The speaker encourages listeners to consciously grant themselves permission to experience these desires, thereby transforming jealousy into empowerment and opening the path to greater self‑acceptance and inner peace.

Chapters

And I want to say one of the things I learned that I'm going to share, a very hard-earned lesson with you, is when I'm jealous of other people, it's something I haven't given myself permission to have. That's good. It happened a lot. Like, I have people who dressed more like I do now. You know the kind of colors I wear. I wear light colors. I don't wear dark colors most of the time. Very rarely. I love pinks. I love saturated light colors, if you know what that means. I love pretty things. I love being pretty. And none of that was stuff I gave myself. I thought, I can't do that. And like, then I got to a point where I was like, why can't I dress like that? I mean, there's— says who? What? What? Why? Why is that a thing? And like other things, like if somebody has a really nice lifestyle, you can have that. You're not giving yourself permission to have these things. And it's a nice— if you are a really good person, you're jealous of other people and you don't want to do that. It also— it's not just things, it's emotions, it's giving yourself a freedom with people, it's how other people have coped and healed. And looking at someone like, oh, I could never be that at peace— stop it. Yes, you can.