I'll Admit I'm Jealous, but Is It Actually "Healthy Envy"?

Jealousy, as Madonna would understand it, is an ominous cloud of mean green energy. In the early 2000s, the pop icon released a series of pre-teen books called "The English Roses" which featured a character called "The Big Green Monster," and, as you can probably guess, the "monster" was the embodiment of jealousy that would get between the friendships of the Roses. It would appear frequently throughout the books as a lesson to be learned: don't mess with the Big Green Monster.

I took away two things from the Roses' friendships: even Madonna (or her ghostwriter) gets jealous, and jealousy is bad, period. You've likely heard a parent assure you, "Oh, she's just jealous" when you've worried about feeling unliked in a friend group. It's not the most groundbreaking conclusion: to be jealous was a cloud of green that hung over you, a verb that would follow you to become a label ("she's a jealous person"), and the worst thing someone could be. But why?

It's easy to say there's no room for jealousy in a relationship. That sentiment is co-signed by the wise Oprah Winfrey herself. In a recent interview with Melinda Gates and Gayle King on friendship, Oprah explains how she's kept her thriving relationship with King: "The reason why our friendship has worked is because Gayle is happier for me than I am for myself." On the other side of the coin, she adds, "You can't really be friends with anyone that has a hint of jealousy about anything that you're doing." (Oprah: 1, the Big Green Monster: 0.) Therapists, however, would say otherwise.

For starters, jealousy is more nuanced than you think. "Jealousy is kind of an umbrella emotion, rather than just being one specific thing. So it can cover a wide range of specific emotions or needs" says psychologist Kayla Knopp, PhD.

Kayla Knopp, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and the co-founder of the clinical practice Enamory.

Michelle Webber, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and life coach.

Feeling envious of someone (like seeing your friend in a healthy relationship and wanting the same) can inspire us to make positive changes, like being selective when choosing a partner. It can also drive us to look inward to find unmet needs that trigger jealousy. "It can be useful if we really think about what the jealousy is telling us, and how that might indicate something important that we need to do about a situation in our lives," Dr. Knopp says.

It's hard to unpack and feel an emotion maturely when you don't understand it, and I don't think we get jealousy right. No one wants to be jealous, but we are! I'm just as jealous as the next person of other people's jobs, closets, friend groups, lifestyles — the list could go on. Tack on TikTok and Instagram, where we're viewing the constant glamorous lifestyles of strangers, and there's suddenly a big giant jealous elephant in the room.

Yes, jealousy can become toxic in friendships, but more often than not, Dr. Knopp adds, the real feeling at play may be resentment. For example, resenting a friend doing better than you can lead to feelings of vindictiveness. But that's different than acknowledging that they have something you don't. "So sometimes, you might even feel like your friend is undermining you, or is not able to be supportive of you. If that's the case, that does not have the makings of a healthy friendship," she says, adding, "But it is pretty normal to feel jealous in some way or another of your friends or other important people in your lives."

So there's envy, resentment, and vindictiveness under the umbrella of jealousy. Dr. Knopp describes envy as meaning, "I want something that somebody else has," which is the jealousy I'd say resonates most in friendships or parasocial internet relationships. In that way, I'm envious of my friends who I aspire to be more like, the ones who can brush off hard situations, or have the easiest time juggling their work-life balance. Like Gayle and Oprah, I'm happier that my friends are thriving — of course, I want to be like that, too.

Life coach Michelle Webber, LCSW, says "she hopes" there's a level of "healthy envy" in platonic friendships. "That's so often spoken about when somebody succeeds who's close to you. Are you happy for them, or do you envy it in an unhealthy way?" she says. And what happens if it is the latter? Dr. Knopp says "What matters is what we do with that information. It's not about whether or not you are jealous, it's about how you're jealous and what you do with that feeling."

How jealousy shifts from envy to resentment, according to Dr. Knopp, comes down to a "scarcity mindset." If you've heard a tech bro say that phrase and have cringed behind the computer, you're not alone. In the context of unpacking jealousy, however, it sounds like the root of the Big Green Resentment Monster. "This is especially something that women have to contend with, because culturally, women often grow up with a sort of implicit message that there is only room for a certain amount of women to be successful," Dr. Knopp says. "We are in competition with other women, to get the best partners, jobs, to be the prettiest in the room."

Dr. Knopp adds a powerful affirmation: "We can all be successful. We can all get what we need out of life. We are not in competition with one another." She adds, "So if you sense resentment creeping in, you can ask yourself if you might be telling yourself something like, 'If they have it, then I can't.' Try to challenge that belief."

It's hard to unlearn an understanding of the world like this one. Ann Friedman wrote about "Shine Theory" as a device for befriending women we're envious of for The Cut in 2013. Friedman writes, "That feeling of resentment rather than joy at the personal and professional achievements of another woman is something most of us can relate to. The economy sucks, and awesome jobs are in short supply. In many industries, women are still perceived to be token hires — which means that other women can feel like our chief competition."

Friedman adds, "When we meet other women who seem happier, more successful, and more confident than we are, it's all too easy to hate them for it. It means there's less for us."

There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution to conquering jealousy, and sharing with your friends that you're feeling jealous of them could go sour fast. "I think it can be a little risky if you know both people involved aren't pretty good at communicating vulnerably about feelings" Dr. Knopp says.

"Here's my solution," Friedman writes in The Cut. "When you meet a woman who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful, and professionally accomplished, befriend her. Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn't make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better." Friedman uses Destiny's Child as an example, ending her article by stating, "If Kelly Rowland can come around to the idea that she shines more (not less) because of her proximity to Beyoncé, there's hope for the rest of us."

Healthy envy and the Shine Theory at work in our friendships break the patriarchal ideal that we're all in competition. Through communication, vulnerability, and reframing our understanding of jealousy as an umbrella emotion, we can hopefully work towards taking better care of our friendships and relationships.

Kaitlin Clapinski is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer who covers celebrity style, current trends, beauty, and culture. In addition to PS, you can find her work in Byrdie, Fashionista, Marie Claire, and Editorialist, among others.