I will be taking a slightly different viewpoint on the topic of envy, which is to say, a taoistic one.

Taped to my fridge is a chart of yin and yang characteristics. It lists their various balances and imbalances and is a diagnostic tool for understanding how to restore one’s energy and ability to take right action in life. Yin and yang are two pieces of a whole. Together yin and yang are twirling and whirling, making up what we know as the manifest world. And without each other they either stagnate or express themselves into extinction. 

Yang is outward-moving and needs to be contained, cooled, and sunk. Yin is inward-moving and needs to be expressed, heated, and raised. Yang in balance, or true yang, includes some of the following characteristics: generosity, expression, creativity, playfulness, completion, and joy. Yin in balance, or true yin, includes: solitude, groundedness, connectedness, emotional well-being, deep feeling, integrity, and accountability. 

(Note: “Masculine” and “feminine,” are social constructs and have nothing to do with yin and yang so I won’t be talking further about them here.)

Yin and yang can be out of balance by stagnation, excess, falseness, and deficiency. For this post, I’m going to talk about stagnation. Some of the characteristics of yin stagnation are anxiety, nervousness, and lack of identity. Some of the characteristics of yang stagnation are resentment and envy. 

So if envy indicates yang stagnation, I feel like the next logical question is, might remedying the sour feeling of it be as simple as un-stagnating our yang? 

The chart on my fridge came from a 5-year animist shamanic program I’m in called The Cycle of Transformation. The third year of The Cycle focuses on one’s relationship to power, how one might better wield it, and breaking down the false constructs of that power put upon us by the Brokenhearted Culture we were all brought up in. 

My teacher was explaining something in one of the year 3 retreats (it was a couple years ago so I can’t remember exactly what the topic was) and said that sometimes using our power in our life is simply moving the energy around so that it’s no longer stagnant. It doesn’t have to be a grandiose movement of our souls’ purpose out into the world for all to see and adore, but could start as a small thing, like (finally) taking those boxes to the Goodwill. 

“Just move the energy and see what happens,” my teacher said. We simply pick our best-guess expression – some good-enough action – and test out what happens in regards to our feelings of envy or resentment. Do they still exist as intensely as they did before we took action? 

And I would say that when we’re in particularly difficult life spots, those inviting us into the depths of our humanity, that action can look small. The action I can do on a hard day might only be writing out the 10 positive things that happened that day before bed, for surely even on the hardest day there were at least 10 good things that happened. I’ve found that these small actions matter in the way that brushing our teeth matters. That they can go largely unnoticed but that over time they are the steady base of being a human making actions out in the world. 

Envy is a cairn signaling a need for attention and awareness brought to some part of our true-self needing to come forth and be expressed. Remember, we are unique. Nothing our particular specialty cocktail of gorgeous and sweet, salty and sultry, has ever existed before, nor shall it exist again once we’re gone. This is a deep truth, one worth considering as we get ready for the day, and hopefully one that we can use to inspire us out of yang stagnation.

Photo by Dimmis Vart on Unsplash

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