Why can’t life be different?

It is 2025, and we are a culture that is in everyone else’s business practically. Social media empires have taken over our daily lives; exposing us to the details of everyone’s  lives or supposed romanticized lives. Often this leaves us feeling envious, discontent, jealous, and unhappy. Anxiety comes and we start wondering why we do not have something, or certain experiences, or desired capabilities.  People might even be too afraid to admit they have envy or an easier word, discontent and dissatisfaction with their own life. 

Envy is a powerful emotional state that represents a discontent in ones life. It can creep up in any of our lives. Envy is not something to become super worried over. Please do not worry or think negatively if you experience envy or discontent, instead learn to be curious and find out what it is under the hood of this emotion. That is what therapy is about looking under the hood of issues and emotions to get to the root issues. 

A) What is under the hood of envy 

• Low self esteem

Low self esteem is very common. It is everywhere. Most people have various levels of it.  When we have any kind of low self esteem there is going to bean increase in unwanted emotions like resentment, anxiety, anger, worry, fear, disgust, horror. These can bother even the strongest person. 

Thought example: “Why can’t I be better at this…?” 

• Not being enough or having enough

An enormous amount of people suffer this long internal battle of being enough or having enough. It can lead to all sorts of mental frustrations and habits that leave someone in shame, fear, hiding, and their true self. This core belief is known as “not enough” and many who feel the burn of it repeat in their mind

Thought example: “Why did I get the short end of the stick in life?”

• Loss and grief

It is very difficult to process any loss or grief with how busy and perfect we have to be in this society. Therapy is a great place to feel safe to process the loss of a job, or ideal health, or opportunity, or friend as well as grieving the loss of family. Many are even afraid to grieve and so grief becomes prolonged and chronic.  

Thought example: “Why do others move on in life and I don’t?”

• Disappointment

With comparison that is so ramped up in society a lot of people do not get the promotion at work, get the nerve to ask their dream girl/guy out, do not have the body they want, to not have the career they want, did not get the education they wanted. Disappointment is a normal part of life that some people struggle to overcome and adapt and accept. This can lead to envy and discontent in life. It can also show up in not getting proper diagnosed for ADHD/Autism, or not getting access to healthcare the way a person feels they deserve, or not getting the right access to providers. Disappointment is everywhere and if not checked and not balanced can lead to envy when others seem to have reached the desired mile stones in life. 

Thought example: “Why do others have it easier?”

• Avoidance of uncomfortable feelings 

Well emotions are kind of sticky and icky sometimes. A lot of people dont want to feel. They dont’ want to take the time to or process. They are afraid of opening up emotions will lead to a pandoras box experience. So they avoid, which can create frustration and discontent with where one is at in life. When looking at social media those feelings can become heightened and remembered leading to feeling very discontent and unhappy. 

Thought example: “Why are other people so much happier?” 

B) Becoming Content: How to learn to be content in all things. 

• Learning the Art of gratitude.
• We see it in movies. We can easily google it. Just look up the science and learn about it. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/giving-thanks-can-make-you-happier\Gratitude is a must like hygiene, sleeping and eating is. If it is hard to access thoughts of gratitude or even feel the warmth and power of gratitude can do, therapy can help. Just like any habit gratitude takes time to develop and as therapist, we can help our clients form small goals that make this transitions to practising gratitude easy. 
• Focus on the positives. 
• Though this might look like gratitude this is actually really difficult to achieve and very different than gratitude. This is a habit that can be built and produces results. But when we are faced with fear, trauma, worry, disappointment, regret, remorse, or major mental health, focusing on the positive sounds stupid and a waste of time. Therapy can help make small adjustments to real results from learning the art of focusing on the small positive things that happen every day. It is not an alien language and can be learned and adapted to. It is necessary to focus on the positive because if we only see negative results it can get very despairing and feelings of being stuck.  
• Take time to relax 
• Our problems are there. We know them. We don’t have to be thinking about them all the time. Relaxing in any safe and healthy capacity breaks up the monotony of discontent. It build happy memories. It reframe the narrative. 
• The Art of Reframing. 
• Therapist are notorious for teaching and demonstrating reframing. Those skills are for learning in therapy. How to find ways to rethink them so they don’t’ make things so discontent. There are lots of self help books out there that also can provide insight to reframes. Sometimes in life we discover the art of reframing. This is what CBT is famous for. But having the right reframe that makes sense and is applicable takes wisdom and trained experiences. Not all reframes are plausible and applicable.