Envy...

Hi everyone

This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, or should I say worrying about! I thought I'd express it here and see if others could relate.

I have always been a doer, and from when I was young I would find new interests and passions, and get really in to them, normally wanting to somehow create something similar, be it music, video, comedy, etc. This led me in to all kinds of different things, and helped me developed various talents, but also never really settle on one thing.

Unfortunately anxiety played such a big part of the last 14 years of my life, that it became increasingly hard to fulfil my aspirations, and as I got into my 30's, I felt a distinct feeling of time slipping away, growing up, having missed the boat, and feeling that it was too late and I was too messed up to achieve much at all. Yet I continued trying in small ways to write songs, and hone some talents. I felt I lost the ability to just enjoy the exploration and the process though, and I was always trying to make a finished product and to have it liked by others.

Then a year and a half ago I meet TMS! My throat begins hurting so much I cant talk or sing, and it felt as if almost every avenue of expression and possible vocation closed down. I could not see how I could live any sort of life, let alone reach the lofty heights of my possibly illusory dreams.

I said to myself this is just my body telling me I need to look after myself and re-align. I found some solace in that, and sort of said to myself I'd just give it some time and wait and see. In this time I have found it very hard to progress with anything, I didnt pick up my guitar for nearly a year. I used to run groups on public speaking ironically, and thats not been possible. Its been a huge blow to my confidence.

Recently something not entirely new, but definitely more intense than ever has showed up....envy, or jealousy even.
It comes in the form of obsessing over other peoples lives, mainly succesful people. It had happened before my pain problem that I would obsess over a celebrity who seemed to be living the life I desired, but never like this. At times recently it has been hard to enjoy anything that I also have a passion for, such as music or film. I find myself obsessing over the people in it, their lives and how different they are to me. I watch interviews, and read articles about them, and normally do some google search to see if they have suffered at all from depression or anxiety in some ridiculous hope to burst this bubble I have created. It is an obsession, because I find myself spending far too much time doing it when I know its making me feel worse, yet my mind cant let it go. Its almost an addiction of sorts. I also find myself way too involved in stories of success gone wrong, suicide or depression, anything to force myself to see its not all roses, to bring it out of fantasy in to reality.

Of course I know it really comes down to my insecurities, not feeling good enough, being a perfectionist, wanting to portray some image of myself to world. It's a big problem for young people now, the need to be famous and succesful...but I am a bit older and felt I had accepted myself much more until this all came up. I also don't use social media at all, so Im not exposed to all that thank god! Maybe I was only able to accept everything when I was still active in all my pursuits, and progressing myself, getting the ego strokes that I needed from doing things.

I dont want to be famous, but I have always had some feeling of wanting to do something great, to make my masterpiece, to express something in the world that I need to, to help people in a big way. Yet I feel its probably a leaky bucket, and no matter how much you fill it up it empties and you need more. That is the impression I get from even the most succesful people. You can read endless stories of how people have achieved everything and are miserable.

Its odd that I know this on an intellectual level, I know its an illusion, yet I feel completely sucked in regardless. I have meditated for years, done a huge amount of work on myself, had a lot of therapy, lived in a mindful community, and still I feel I am struggling with stuff that a lot of people I know who have never done any work on themselves just seem to get instinctively. Just acceptance of the life you have. Of course many dont and it drives them to very dark places.

Just to be who you are, to not compare yourself, not to think someone in a succesful band is happier than someone who cleans toilets. Yet thats where I think the problem is for me, its not about happiness. Its about an ego trip...its almost as if someone offered me either huge success,recognition and admiration, the 'perfect' life, or to live in a hut in solitude but be completely content and happy....that I would struggle with which to choose. So maybe it is to do with my intention....what is my priority in life, to fulfil my ego's desires or to be happy with what is.

Can anyone else relate to any of this, I feel I've gone a little mad at points with these obsessions and envy, and its taken me by surprise, but seems to be a direct result of being 'disabled' by my pain condition....for now. I am wondering if this is maybe something common to those of us who have had certain abilities or 'freedoms' taken away from us by chronic pain.

I would love to hear other peoples thoughts, Thanks for listening to mine

 

Before my husband fell ill, we moved in those heady successful circles. He's a singer and musician, and has achieved great acclaim and success. I was always ambivalent about it: I loved his talent, the genuine appreciation of it in others and the immense joy it brought to so many lives but I cared less for the users and for the inevitable insincerity and scrutiny such a public life brings. You see, I came to witness many, many people traverse the same path around us. They wanted to be near us for what they could get, for what advantages it would bring them. While there are often such opportunistic types around in all lives, it takes an ugly spin when any level of fame enters the equation. We've endured countless people's obsessions with him and have done our best to treat these folk with kindness yet sadly sometimes it has escalated into legal action. Fascination becomes obsession becomes harassment becomes criminal.

As tragic as the last decade has been I am grateful to be out of that world. Out of its pretence and glamour. Away from the narcissism and emotional vampires. Away from the Ego and the envy and the jealousy. But most of all I thank every God in the book for being away from the resentment.

Because when you strip it all back, you are dealing with people who resent you. They resent talent (and the years of devotion and commitment it took to nurture it), they resent any and every accomplishment you earn (they think it luck), they resent your relationships (the contacts), they resent the lifestyle they think you have, but mostly they flat out resent you for being the fantasy you they have created.

Those worlds are a palace for the persona.

There is nothing to envy but a lot to resent if you buy into it.

In an attempt to counterbalance I spent many years heavily invested in spiritual groups. I was greatly saddened to realise that the same but different ego-games predominated here too only the superficiality engaged with spiritual beliefs, some guru/book/ideology as the frontman, the seekers/the groupies...you get the drift. Same ego-wanking, different world. Same resentment too, only hidden behind a big smile. (Pema Chodron said of such communities, "the bigger the smile, the greater the anger".)

Cue TMS.
Cue a decade of demolishing all that bullshit.
Goodbye Persona, Hello Shadow.
Cue a lot, a lot of integration.
Cue me today. Not good, not perfect but grounded and more authentic than ever before.

The disillusionment was awful. It was heart-breaking. It was necessary and vital. I was naive, open and sincere but I was vulnerable to people who would manipulate that. I thought I was a deep, spiritual person immune to the vulgarities and falseness I saw around me. I thought I knew my shadow because I embraced my decadent and hedonistic streak. I thought this was just the way the world was.

I was wrong.
I knew nothing.
I certainly didn't know myself.
I've passed through long periods of feeling very cynical and jaded, and profoundly sad that the more beautiful world I passionately believed in didn't exist (for me at that time).

I've passed through the labyrinth of resentment. Ironically you see that such a lot in the caring world. I've come to recognise when compliments and compassion are masking a deep resentment (scratch the surface and you'll find seething rage, this is very manifest now in the world).

I recognised much of myself in your post. All I can say is that I realise now how and why I had TMS. I wish my partner hadn't fallen ill and I wish we hadn't lost everything to get to where we are now but I wouldn't trade back for the world. I'm glad to have closed the door on that part of my life but I am also very glad that I had chance to live such an insanely bohemian existance.

The most beautiful thing about TMS is the integration, the resolution of inner conflicts and the self and relationships that form in it's wake. It is worth the ride.

 

Thankyou plum, always good to hear your replies. I also read your story just now, and I'm sorry to hear how difficult it's been. It sounds like you and your husband are finding your way as best you can, and its amazing you say you wouldn't trade it all.

That must be quite a blow for a professional and successful musician to get diagnosed with such a thing. Is he able to play at all, or did he give it all up completely? My knowledge of Parkinson's isn't too great.

I don't have personal experience with that world but I believe everything you say, and it's common to hear those stories. I think the fact that for most of us it remains in the realm of fantasy it can also remain so alluring. But then even for people whoever are successful in that way, they probably fantasise about other realms of success. I guess it's that feeling when you arrive and you think 'is this it?'.

But maybe once you've lived it you can more easily let it go as you have had the experience, and seen through it.

It's interesting for me to be feeling all this with such intensity since TMS, and surely relates to a feeling of being unable to even head towards what I want.

But maybe it is a blessing in disguise as you say, that it's forcing me to deal with these feelings, the inadequacy, the fear and jealousy, all of it. Rather than spending a lifetime chasing something, possible achieving it and realising it wasn't what I was searching for.

I am always torn between committing much more to a simple life, to meditation practise and to finding internal happiness and then going for more materialistic pursuits. Of course one has the more romantic appeal!

I have seen first hand what you describe in spiritual communities and groups, the ego, the fakeness, the presciousness. It's really gets to me and I feel more allergic to it than ever before! The new age airy fairy stuff is not for me, yet unfortunately much of the stuff I need and enjoy is intertwined with all that stuff.

Atleast with musicians and movie stars you expect ego and ridiculous characters, and it's possibly not so hidden. When there's a lot of ego trips in spiritual communities it's under the pretended of purity, which is all the more infuriating!

Thanks again for your input, still interested to hear more from People

 

Hi robot,

I think its interesting to think about what you consider to 'sucessfull'
Is this when everybody knows you ? Is this when you made a lot of money ?etc etc can you come up with something what 's most imporantant to you ?
Could it be that you aim so high that deep down you know it will never happen so you will not have to really live that way ?
Could it be you are afraid that your life will not have meaning if you 'did not do something big'?
when i comes to art etc i think creativity is about expressing yourself not to only want fame
So question is what do you envy ???

 

He still plays and sings but no longer gigs. It's quite probable that his artistry has saved his bacon in terms of maintaining a high level of functioning. People are generally very surprised at how well he is and some are open enough to learn how we have achieved this.

This nugget of information may interest you. It has long been observed that people with neurological (and psychiatric) problems are often able to sing and dance when they cannot walk or talk. It's because the walking and talking is left brain and the singing and dancing is right brain. The creative side of us has these amazingly healing dimensions.

Sometimes I really think the heart of questions such as yours (and mine) is What is Enough?

Do you really have to save the world? Help so many people? Craft the anthemic song? Devise the riff that will inspire a generation of musicians?

Or is it enough to be that wonderful, gentle soul who can sing a handful of classics that reaches a small group of kindred spirits in a way that makes you all feel like family?

Is it enough to wake up next to someone who is as imperfect, flawed and ageing as you, and think this crazy bastard is my soul mate?

Is it enough to hear those Siren calls and no longer need to stuff your ears or be tied to the mast because the dream suffices?

There's nothing wrong with fantasy. There's nothing wrong with possessing a wild imagination. In truth you need a twist of those to fuel your ambitions. It's only when they become all that matters that you have a problem.

I suggest you treat this part of yourself lightly and with affection. It clearly has some message for you and only you can discover and decipher it. Meantime enjoy your music. It is such a gift in and of itself and it does endure.

I have to say I really admire posts like yours. It takes a lot of courage to lay our shadow selves bare like this but I really believe this is where redemption lies. I believe the thing we all chase and seek is nothing more than feeling at home in our own skin, feeling ok with who we are. Validation from others is a port in a storm. It's nice but meaningless if we don't love ourselves.

 

I like your post very much. It takes great courage to look at ourselves honestly, and it is the road to recovery from TMS.

I think that the envy you describe is very common and to some degree represents the human condition, though it is present in different degrees in people. I think it stems from not being able to love ourselves unconditionally. This is very difficult for someone to do who never received that unconditional love from someone during childhood. But we are all perfect and deserving of love for being our unique, flawed, imperfect selves. Something it took me a long time to learn, but that I am absolutely certain of at this stage of my life, is that giving and receiving are the same thing. Love others unconditionally and that love will come back to you--maybe not from the same person, but it will come back to you, and that is how you heal. That is how you learn you are worthy of unconditional love--by giving it freely.

Another thing I would ask you to consider is your statement that you are envious because you have TMS. I have come to see this the opposite way--I have TMS, in part, because I am envious of others, which is because I don't love myself unconditionally. It is related to our perfectionistic personality trait. Only when we are perfect (talented, beautiful, funny, etc.) will we be loved. And since I don't believe I'm perfect, I'm unlovable.

Thank you for raising this topic. I'm sure it strikes a chord with many TMSers.

 

Karina, yes I think you are probably right on many accounts. Maybe that's what I was getting at, that my idea of success is quite distorted, in the sense that it's not about some altruistic and humble desire, it's about an ego trip. Yet if you consider what we all grow up being fed by the world we live in, maybe it's not distorted, it's actually exactly what we are taught to believe. The strange thing is I thought I was fairly immune to all that celebrity bullshit, and I pretty much hate everything that's very popular, and not because it's popular, because it's awful. I think Oscar Wilde said 'everything popular is wrong!'. Of course this excludes The Beatles!

I think after you've put a certain amount of time into something in the hope of some sort of career, for me that's been nearly 20 years with music, that it's hard just to say 'Im happy just to play for myself'. Yet chasing that dream has led me to breakdowns and realisations that the life of a touring musician is not right for someone with my sensitivity. And of course now it's impossible for the time being as I can't sing because of pain.

Plum and Ellen you both make a lot of interesting points that I relate to a lot. In your words I see things I aspire to: to play for the love of it, to think of success differently, to accept and enjoy the moment. And you also speak of the thing that stops me doing these things...a lack of self love and acceptance, the insecurity and jealousy and all the other insidious feelings that thwart my happiness.

In many ways I've been working with all those things for years, in therapy, with Buddhism, mediation etc. But I think somehow if I'm really honest I've been doing it so when I am calm enough and strong enough I can go out and achieve all those egotistical fantasies. So by its very nature it will never work, and maybe that's part of why it feels like going round in circles!

And yes ellen maybe envy has played a big part in TMS, it's all tied into trying to be perfect.

Like everyone else I just want to be loved to feel safe, to feel at ease in myself, yet like many others I look for it in all the wrong places, because it's easier in the short term to take the path of least resistance. In many ways it can feel like an addiction the kind of thinking and mental loops I've described.

Woah it's a big subject, lots to mull over for me. It's very interesting to hear all your input, thankyou

 

Great post/discussion. You are really onto something here and I think a lot of people can relate, including myself at a certain level. Food for thought here...

 

Hi robot,

I can understand that you do not want to sing 'just for you'
Don't see that as ego ; you have a passion and a talent for music : So you want to use it and try to make a living with it.
My journey is the opposit : Was always passionate about design , but never dared to do this as a full time thing : Always on the side next to a different (steady ') job.
Then pain came and messed that up
Now trying to follow the road i always wanted but holded back. And i know all about feeling 'its been too late' but maybe doing what you love is the succes. And doing what you love can have different forms than being a star etc. People who have written the best songs can go out shopping and but never have fans chaasing them, cause no one knows! They know !
A little ego in art etc is maybe not that bad
Meaning : Maybe think about different ways to be active in music.
Like this topic!

 

Thanks for the input

Yes I agree with everything that's been said. Personally I would hate to be famous, but would like to be recognised for the talents I've spent a lot of my life on, which in many small ways I get.

I cant remember who said 'most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us'

But that sums up the feeling for me. Somehow fear and now pain which may well just be an expression of fear has stopped me expressing myself. I had panic attacks doing presentations at college and didn't speak in front of any group for 12 years! I've been making huge progress in the last few years with coaching, toastmasters, public speaking groups, etc. Chipping away slowly at the fear. So it was heartbreaking that as I was making such progress after being paralysed for so long this pain thing comes out of nowhere and stops me in my tracks.

I really agree with you that it's all in the way we look at it, the way we feel about it. Its about perspective and gratitude. Then there is trying to balance the ego with our natural dreams and aspirations.

I realise as I read your post that I came across as wanting lots of success and fame. I think on reflection it's much more about just being able to express myself without or despite being scared.

We live in a world that encourages and almost forces us to sell ourselves, to be confident and find what our dream life is etc. It's setting many of us up for a hard fall which in many ways is what this time has been for me. Life gets in the way!, anxiety, depression, loss, pain, death. I guess what hurts me is that I always wanted to sing my songs, and was crippled by fear, then as I began to deal with the fear, pain came along! Which could make a lot of sense TMS wise!

Envy and jealousy can be so bitter and I don't want to be that way. I was reading a Buddhist book recently and he said you cannot experience envy and joy at the same time. And he is completely right judging by my last weeks!

Thanks everyone for listening to me, and for all your input....it's an interesting discussion

 

*you posted while I was replying but I'll post anyway. Just ignore any redundant comments*

I agree with @karinabrown, you should give that passion life. It's not egoic because you need a robust and healthy ego to even get on stage. I think the difference hinges more on artistry vs. celebrity. You are clearly an artist and the sensitivity and vulnerabilities you express beautifully expose the complexities of these worlds. The fact that this desire obsesses you suggests that maybe you should give it life. Us tms'ers know all too well how unexpressed yearnings breed like rabbits in the mind! The covetousness you feel may be nothing more than a suppressed urge running rampant. Perhaps all the mindfulness has contributed to the intensity. Maybe you need to Let Your Self Out.

I know a lot of people who played it safe and kept their passion on the sidelines. I'm aware how that tortures them so I was very happy for a drummer I know who is in his mid 40's who was asked to dep for a local rock group whose drummer left suddenly. They like him so much he's become the new drummer and he's able to wrap gigging around a demanding career and family. His age gives him the advantage of being grounded and he takes the experience in his stride.

You mention investing almost twenty years in music and realisations about touring impacting your sensitivity but those may be imagined fears. A completely different neuro-circuitry is engaged when we do what we love and many of the World's greatest artists were/are introverts with immense vulnerabilities. Have you thought about creating audios and/or filming yourself just as you are and maybe using SoundCloud or YouTube as a platform for expressing yourself? I think these can be safe avenues for gentle souls who want to maintain an intimacy with an audience but without overwhelming exposure. (Privacy settings as opposed to public).

One thing is for sure, you've got a ton of support here. Again, thanks for starting this discussion. I have a feeling that a lot of tms'ers are artists who hold themselves back. We all benefit from heartfelt discussions like this.

 

Hi Plum

Thanks and yes I really agree with what you are saying, and I do feel these deep urges to get my music out, but have felt unable for so long due to nervous breakdowns, panic attacks etc. I genuinely feel at that time t woudl have been impossible, or it would have ended very badly like it does for many 'tortured' artists.

Now it is really about pain. I am unable to sing, in fact I am re learning how to breathe, talk and sing! Life long habits to break there! Of course I will still have all kinds fo self doubt and fear even if I had no pain, but its no debilitating the way it was, so it would be more of a challenge than an impossibility.

I have actually just finished an album which I started 3 years ago, slaved away doing it pretty much all myself... then the pain came and I stopped altogether. I only just managed to finish mixing it recently, and nobody apart from a few friends have heard it. I plan to send it to some labels who might release it even if I dont have a band or perform right now. The songs feel very old to me now, some of them 7 years old, so Im not that enthusiastic about it! But if any of you fancy a listen, the private link is below, this was just for labels to listen, so don't go torrenting it, ha

https://soundcloud.com/acomplicatedman/sets/a-complicated-man-a-complicated-man-2017-private/s-YsdkG (A Complicated Man - A Complicated Man [2017] (PRIVATE))

 

Bless you.

I'm at a hospital appointment with himself at the moment so I shall listen later but thank you so much for sharing the link. The title in itself says so much. Seven years is a whole life chapter so I appreciate how you may feel distanced from those songs. I have great faith in your recovery and in the new songs you'll craft.

 

Thanks plum I appreciate your words and I hope you're right

The music I linked to is much more rocking than anything I'd do now! If you just want to listen to a few songs, try :

I see clouds in my window
The day you were born
Complicated man

 

You have a beautiful voice and a lovely mellow vibe to your music. You say it's more rocking than the music you'd create now and dreaming into that possibility, I really hope and pray that you do write and record more.

I very much like the complexity and delicate nature of your music, and how it is underscored by a warmth and something like reminiscence. Listening to you evoked lovely feelings such as being with friends around a campfire and yet there's some sadness, the way you may feel lonely in a crowd. A jostling of intimacy and solitude, and the soft ache for resolution.

It's so hard to describe the ways music touches us but you do have that magic. I wish I knew the key to unlocking your TMS. All I can say as the long time partner of a singer who lost his voice and found it again is to hold your faith.

My TMS also coincided with us moving in fulltime together. He needed me to care for him. I/we went from living apart and enjoying immense freedom balanced by enriching together time to the whole 24/7 thing leveraged by his crushing diagnosis. To call it brutal is an understatement. Honestly I've struggled such a lot with it. I'm an introvert who needs lashings of solitude and he's an extrovert who (used to) relish company. We've both found it challenging and claustrophobic at times. Creativity needs breathing space and nothing chokes it quite like domesticity.

I'm rambling but I think I'm circling something around self-expression. My problem is in my mouth/jaw and I reckon it was partly caused through supressing a lot of emotion that once had free reign. There are other things in the mix but they are way too personal to talk about (and even there, the denial of expression), and so we go around and around in our circles of TMS madness

I'm around 80% better now and am gaining ground. I've made peace with my past and am happy and content in the quiet and simple life we have created. I always wanted to live like a hermit and now I do pretty much. I feel like I've been pulled underground, deep into my shadow and am now coming back to the surface. I've never felt so sure of who I am.

I don't know if any of this helps. Sometimes we need to unthread our knotty bits and this forum can be brilliant for that.

Be of good cheer sweet musical soul.
You have a fan and a friend here

 

Hi robit,

No i did not get the idea that you just want fame abd sucess. I think tms ' strikes' us on bodyparts that somehow matter the most.
Maybe now this gets you to be extra focussed on the music part.
The why and how to go on with it.
I had the same problem with designing and other stuff that basictly made me ; me
So it strikes at the core. I was wondering too how to be succesfull with it etc : Lost for a long time the ability to do anything with it. The sadness that came from that was so big that i realized that i had to design because its part of my identity. How when where came back later. I think you can get back there. Things that make you happy are key. Music is happy to you i dare to guess. So hang on to it

 

Thanks Karina, I relate alot to your story, and I'm only just now slowly finding my way back to the thing I live, and as you say just doing what I can... playing a bit and not singing.

Plum, yes your words do help, and it's good to hear from people who have been through so much themselves, although of course I don't wish any more pain on any of you!

Thanks for you review too, it's very nice to hear, even if I don't relate that much to his album. I have about 20 works in progress which would be much less hectic, more spacious and clean. That's more the sort of music I listen to mostly. I think inside my head and heart I feel at the peak of my songwriting ability, so the frustration comes from it all staying stuck inside, and of course knowing it's a long way back when you start using something you haven't used for a long time...voice, legs, anything!

But you are all very encouraging, and your stories mean a lot to me. So thankyou for it all. I can feel that envy is a big part of this whole thing, much bigger than I had first imagined

 

I finally got some time to listen to this. What Plum said, of course You have a lovely talent and the music made me smile. There was a tone and style that invoked some pleasant memory-feelings. Thank you for that!

... with Love and Gratitude ^_^

 

Thanks lily

 

I liked your song very much. Thank you for sharing.