What Are The Negative Effects Of Envy In Your Life?

“Soundness of heart is the life of the flesh: but envy is the rottenness of the bones.” – Proverbs 14:30 (DRA)

Have you ever felt some kind of envy in your heart? Whether we admit it or not, we have all felt some form of envy at one time or the other. Some of us may have fallen into its trap while some of us may have learned its disastrous effects and have successfully overcome it over time.

What is envy? It is that feeling of resentment in our hearts over some good that our neighbor has that we do not. Somehow, it is that exaggerated feeling of unfairness. It is thinking that some people have what should not be theirs, something that should have been ours instead.

When it gets worse, that resentment can be turned towards God thinking that He favors some people and loves them more than He loves us. “Why are these people blessed?” we ask ourselves. And then we think that God doesn’t care for us as much as He cares for them.

Here are just some of the negative effects of worry:

1. It affects your health

Envy contributes to our stress and anxiety. When we are constantly thinking about the good fortune of others, we may become obsessed about our own status in life and therefore lose our peace of mind.

As a result, we may get sleepless nights worrying about our financial condition or any other factor that makes us envious of other people.

Every time we see the success of other people, we feel angry inside. And this anger may elevate our blood pressure or contribute to our stress.

This negative thought can also show itself in some form of physical ailment later on.

2. It can destroy your relationships

If we cannot let go of our envy, it can be the number one cause of the destruction of our relationships. How can we love our neighbor well if we harbor resentment towards them?

It can manifest through our words and actions. We’d be angry more often and not think about what the other person is going through.

In the worst scenarios, we can even try to sabotage their success so we can make progress with our ambitions.

3. It can ruin your relationship with God

Envy can make us feel bitter towards God. Instead of being grateful for His blessings, it can make us feel that He isn’t providing for our needs.

Because of this, we may pray less and less until we forget to come to Him at all.

Instead of asking Him for help in areas where we may need His providence and guidance, we stay away from Him and think that He only listens to other people.

We are then left on our own. We form this image of God in our heads that He is angry towards us when we are the ones who feel angry towards Him.

4. It can affect your self-esteem

It is said that a low self-esteem is often one of the main causes of envy. If we feel insecure about ourselves, we are more vulnerable to envy.

But this is also a vicious cycle. This is because if we don’t learn to break out from envy, we’ll continue to focus on other people’s success, talents and gifts. By doing that, we forget to cultivate what we have.

As we spend more time feeling bad about how successful other people are, we spend less time on planning for our future. We fail to strategize for our own success. We also fail to cultivate our many God-given gifts and talents.

All of these things eventually lower our self-esteem.

Overcoming Envy

It isn’t easy to overcome envy especially when we have allowed it to poison our hearts for a long time. But the first step is often the most important one. Admitting that we are envious and deciding to let go of our envy can tremendously set us free from its disastrous trap.

Let us think of the negative consequences of envy in our lives. It is a useless emotion that serves us no good purpose. Let us instead offer all our needs, insecurities and wounds to God who alone can provide for us and help us cultivate the many blessings in our lives.