I came across a message on instagram that I strongly disagree with,
“There is no competition among wild women.
They are too damn wild to be caught in a tiny space of envy.
Instead, they dance together
and allow good to flow abundantly to them.”
I’ve never exactly been the ‘light and love’ teacher, but this approach can seriously send me into a blind rage
I call it backdoor shaming and it’s wellness clickbait that I cannot stand
At first glance it seems like an inspiring + empowering message, but if you sit with it a for a moment it actually contradicts itself by dehumanizing the very thing it claims to exalt – and in the process makes a lot of people, who are sincerely working to better love themselves, feel like shit
And I will never be down with a strategy that does that, no matter how dressed up in healing + positivity it claims to be
If wildness means being fully connected to all the parts of ourself without shame, then that would include envy, which is a normal animal emotion. How it moves us to act is another thing. But suppressing natural feelings does not seem akin to wildness to me. Embracing them and using them wisely, however, does
Envy is not beneath any of us and it doesn’t make us any less wild, or authentic, or spiritual to feel it. In fact just the opposite
From another light, envy can encourage us to see what our needs are and where they aren’t getting met. And that is a great gift. There is no shame whatsoever in feeling envious, it’s how we interact with that emotion that dictates whether it hurts or helps
We may not have the capacity to hold certain emotions, and use strategies to avoid them, thereby getting cut off from the intelligence of that feeling and a part of ourselves in the process
Luckily, our nervous system is flexible and strategies can be altered. With enough time and support, we can meet and feel just about anything
And that is true wildness