Deadly Sins - envy and people-pleasing

I was talking to my mother recently about one of my (many) faults. Envy. I explained to her that I generally feel happy about my little ‘lot’ in life – my apartment, my job, my pay, my life – until I look around me. Then I see friends / people who – earn more, have better places, cushier jobs, partners with whom they share expenses, mortgages and their lives – and I feel discontented. “It’s not fair,” I think. “Poor me,” I think.

I forget about those millions who are homeless and living in poverty or violence. It is all about me and I feel envy. I feel injustice and I feel (and act) like a ‘victim’.

I hate these feelings of envy and injustice and talk about myself as being self-absorbed. Self-obsessed.

But, when I do psychological tests, or other personality quizzes the results rarely indicate this. In fact it is the opposite: I am ‘socially intelligent’, knowing how to act with people in different situations; I feel a sense of responsibility to others and care about their feelings and welfare… blah, blah blah.

This is kinda true. I know that. In some ways this is a good thing. I am overly cautious about others’ feelings, in group situations I ensure that everyone gets a say, I encourage the quieter members. But I am also overly sensitive to others’ pain and hurt. I feel the need to make things better. I explain away others’ insensitivity; I intervene to soften someone’s tone without trying to offend either party. It can be hard work. I continually monitor peoples’ reactions as I speak to them - which means I give them what they want to hear.

Essentially, I am a people-pleaser and it can be exhausting. It can also mean that ‘I’ am lost along the way. What I really want to say and who I really am is cast aside as I become who others need me to be. And what I am realizing more and more is that, I can only see myself through the eyes of others.

For a long time I have known that I worry too much about what others think of me. How I am perceived. I can only see myself reflected in the eyes of others. When asked why I want to lose weight, my responses are about how others perceive me: so men will find me more attractive; so people won’t judge me in a certain way…. My reasons are never about me.

Here at the fat camp, these issues are becoming more evident. I struggled through my first two weeks here (http://rockafellaskank.blogspot.com/2009/05/fat-camp-one-week-down.html) and was horrified, not at how unfit I was, but that I was more unfit than others. I hated that I lagged behind. I hated that any athleticism I once had, was gone, leaving me wallowing in others’ perception that I never had any.

Partway through the second fortnight, my attitude is different. The fitter bunch has gone; the newcomers are less fit. Less athletic. I am no longer the least fit. In fact, I have to be positive, strong and encouraging for their benefit. I can’t whinge and complain as I know they are doing it harder than I am. Once again I am able to be strong and supportive.

Those that were here during my first week keep commenting on the change in me. I have tried to explain, but am not sure I have succeeded. They do know about this weakness though. They keep picking me up on anything I say that is about how I am perceived. Here at the camp we are told that we need to focus on ourselves. Here it is supposed to be ‘all about me’. Not the ‘me’ that others want or need us to be, but the ‘me’ that remains when everything else is gone.

For me, I am not yet sure I know who that is. But my search will continue and I hope to find her.