Jealous of Pretty Women? Stem the Tide of Envy

There can be a snide competition between women, where we allow other women to be beautiful .... to a point. Other women can be pretty, as long as they're not too pretty. A woman can be beautiful, but if she's also smart, organized, and a great mom? Forget it. We gossip about her and secretly love seeing her slip up. We alternate between wanting to be her and, well, hating her. I remember a friend from college, a heartbreakingly beautiful girl who incited much envy from other girls. Her crime? She made the most of her beauty, wearing make-up, dressing well, and styling her hair. When girls gossiped about her, they would whisper, "But she wears a lot of make-up," as if that could explain away her beauty.

This competitive drive, this need to label - am I beautiful? am I pretty? how pretty? where do I fall in the beauty spectrum? - keeps us from honoring our unique beauty. It squelches our individuality. Instead of enjoying our beauty, and trying to be our best selves, we act like junior high girls who all have to dress alike, talk alike, and look alike.

If we believe that we are in a giant, cosmic beauty pageant with other women, that other women's beauty somehow diminishes our own, or if we are addicted to being the prettiest woman in the room, we will never feel good enough. Instead of befriending other women, or celebrating their gifts, we will see them as the enemy, and do everything we can to knock them down. Instead of befriending ourselves, and our own bodies, we will see them as the enemy, and do everything we can to knock them down.

I think of how I've spent much of my life trying to be someone other than me. Or, a better, improved version of me. Celebrate my gifts? My unique beauty, body, personality? No. When I was a teenager, with a boy's body, I wanted breasts and hips and thighs like my friends. When I was a curvy new mother - with breasts and hips and thighs - I wanted to be like that young teenager. When I moved to Montana, I tried to show that, yes, I'm a part of the club: I like the outdoors and camping and clogs. I dutifully traded my skirts and make-up for jeans and a parka.

The truth is I don't like camping. I'd much rather wear a skirt and heels than jeans and clogs any day. I am emotional and tenderhearted and sensitive. This is me. This is who I am. All of my efforts to be more like everybody else only left me unhappy and lost. The truth is that I don't fit in ... when I'm trying to be someone other than myself.

I read this statement in Eat, Pray, Love last night: "God dwells within you, as you." I don't have to change and be more like someone else to be okay. I am perfect ... just as I am. I am beautiful .... just as I am. Inauthentic living - trying to be someone I'm not; trying to look like someone I'm not - and beauty are contradictory forces. I can't be beautiful if I'm ashamed of who I am and what I like. I can't be beautiful if I'm scrambling my energies trying to be more like my friends, my peers, or a model on a magazine. The most beautiful woman that I can be is ... me.

As I free myself to be authentically, proudly me, I free other women. As I let my beauty shine, I open up a space for other women to shine. Sometimes, this means giving women permission to be drop dead beautiful - prettier than me - and to love them for it.

Jealousy is just a mind game, the last remnant of a scarcity mentality, where we think of beauty as a limited commodity. The way out of this envious thinking is expansion: How can we both have what we want?

Last week, I met a friend for tea. This is a woman with impeccable style, who, as long as I've known her, has always looked like she stepped out of a magazine, even in her jeans and driving loafers. It would be easy to envy her fantastic wardrobe, her great style, her physical beauty. For years, I was envious - because she dressed like I wanted to dress ... if I had the courage. Today, I admire her. I admire her courage to wear a skirt and knee high boots in the middle of a Montana winter - her authenticity - because it reminds me how much I love putting on a skirt and heels, and gives me the nudge forward to do so.

As my story illustrates, jealous feelings arise when we're being inauthentic - silencing our style or our beauty, or, on a greater level, the very things that bring us happiness - and we see another woman who is expressing her style and beauty. We see her confidence in being true to herself and want the same for ourselves. That woman pricks us, hooks us with envy, and brings that uncomfortable contrast to the surface.

Instead of using these feelings as cause to hate a pretty woman, use that discomfort to unleash your true self. Use your envy like a pitchfork, to dig underneath the low self esteem or lack of confidence - whatever keeps you from being authentic - and find that juicy, creative, beautiful manna that resides inside, just waiting to burst forth. Jealousy is only a signpost, to guide you to a place where you feel lacking. Think about how you can fill that lack by being authentic to who you are, to your body, to your beauty, and then sharing that munificence with the world.

When we're jealous of other women, when we're competing with other women, we crumble the foundations of our very support. Women need each other. I'm reminded of this everyday, when a girlfriend or my mom or my aunt comes to my rescue again, and again, and again. While I adore my husband, and am bolstered by his support, it's different. It is the women in my life who validate my journey and mirror my story and birth my femininity.

And, likewise, I validate and support and uphold the women in my life, I increase the courage and strength of women everywhere, every time I let a beautiful woman be beautiful, a strong woman be strong, a pretty woman be pretty; every time I let me be, me.

Other articles you may like:

Let yourself be beautiful.

Why beauty matters.

Jealousy and relationships: How do you feel secure with your man?

Karly Randolph Pitman is the founder of firstourselves.com, helping women care for their physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Learn how to love your body, care for yourself without sugar or food, and stop being a mommy martyr. You can sign up for Karly's free monthly newsletters, join her kick-sugar teleclass, or meet her in a weekend workshop. Join her in Dallas on May 2nd to reconnect with your deepest self.