When Your Light Triggers Someone Else’s Shadow -Envy
Shadow Series 1.3
In the first two Musings, we’ve been exploring Robert Bly’s idea of the shadow. We started with the long bag, the parts of ourselves we gradually put away during the first twenty years of life because they didn’t seem acceptable, welcome or safe. Our anger might go in there. Our ambition, sexuality, creativity, neediness, independence or assertiveness might go in too. Then we looked at projection, and how the qualities we have disowned in ourselves can sometimes become the very things we notice, judge or admire in other people. So today I want to take the next step. What happens when we begin to take things out of our own bag? What happens when we become more confident, more creative, more ambitious, more sexually alive, more assertive or simply more ourselves, and somebody else doesn’t like it?
What is an envy attack?
Most of us know what envy feels like. We might look at someone else’s life and think, I wish I had that. Perhaps we envy their relationship, their confidence, their success, their creativity or their freedom. That’s a very human experience, and there’s nothing particularly sinister about recognising that another person has something we would like. An envy attack is different. This is when someone’s envy gets projected outwards and you suddenly find yourself on the receiving end of criticism, mockery, hostility, undermining or shaming that seems completely disproportionate to what you have actually done.
Bly gives us a fascinating way of understanding why this might happen. Remember the long bag? We spend roughly the first twenty years of our lives putting things into it. Perhaps we put our anger in because we were told to be nice. Perhaps our ambition went in because we were taught not to think we were special. Perhaps our creativity went in because being sensible was valued more highly. Perhaps our sexuality, independence, assertiveness or desire to take up space went in there too. Then, at some point in adulthood, we may begin to take some of these things back. We might start saying no. We might ask for what we want. We might leave a relationship that no longer works. We might start a business, write a book, become successful, stop apologising for our opinions or simply become more comfortable in our own skin. And here’s the interesting bit: our freedom can become a mirror for somebody else’s restriction.
Someone may look at you living in a way they secretly wish they could live, and instead of thinking, That’s interesting. What does that tell me about my own life?, they unconsciously experience you as the problem. Your confidence can remind someone of their own inhibited confidence. Your creativity can remind them of the creative life they never pursued. Your willingness to take a risk can remind them of all the risks they didn’t take. Your ability to say no can expose how difficult they find setting boundaries themselves. They may not consciously know any of this. That’s the nature of the shadow. What is unconscious can be experienced as though it belongs entirely to someone else.
The teaspoon and the tablespoon
Bly has a wonderfully memorable way of describing the extraordinary disproportion that can sometimes exist between the amount of envy someone feels and the size of the attack they make. In one of his poems he writes, “One teaspoon of envy was enough for me / To attack Robert Lowell with a tablespoon.” I love this image because it captures something we sometimes experience but struggle to understand. A teaspoon is a small amount; a tablespoon is much more. The idea is that a relatively small stirring of envy inside someone can produce a surprisingly large reaction when it gets projected outwards.
Imagine someone sees you doing something they secretly wish they could do. Perhaps you’ve taken a risk they didn’t take, you’re receiving recognition they would like, you’ve become more confident, or you’re simply looking comfortable and happy in your own life. That’s the teaspoon. But instead of recognising that feeling and wondering, What is this bringing up in me?, they unconsciously put the feeling outside themselves. Suddenly you receive the tablespoon: the sarcastic comment, the unnecessary criticism, the mocking, the dismissive remark, the unsolicited advice or the subtle shaming. You announce a success and someone immediately explains why it isn’t particularly impressive. You become more confident and someone calls you arrogant. You follow your creativity and someone dismisses it as self-indulgent. You make a change in your life and someone feels compelled to tell you exactly why you are wrong.
The important thing is that the size of the reaction can sometimes be a clue. It doesn’t prove that someone is envious. We need to be careful about that. Sometimes criticism is justified. Sometimes we genuinely have behaved badly and another person is telling us something we need to hear. But when the reaction feels strangely excessive, personal or hostile, it can be worth asking ourselves, Why is there a tablespoon here when all I can see is a teaspoon? What is happening may have much more to do with what has been stirred up inside the other person than with what you have actually done.
How does receiving an envy attack feel?
This is where I think it becomes particularly useful to pay attention to our own internal response. You may notice a horrible, slimy feeling in your stomach. You suddenly feel drained. You start questioning yourself: Have I done something wrong? Have I been too much? Have I been showing off? Should I have kept quiet? You may feel a strange pressure to make yourself smaller simply to restore harmony.
And then something else can happen. You start explaining. You explain why you did it, what you meant, your intentions and why you deserve it. Before you know it, you’re defending your entire character rather than discussing the original issue. You may have started with, “I’ve bought a new car,” and somehow you end up defending whether you are a humble, decent and considerate human being. That’s a useful moment to stop and notice what has happened. You have been pulled away from the actual conversation and into defending your right to be who you are.
There are two very understandable ways we can respond. We can fight back: How dare you speak to me like that? We can become angry, contemptuous and determined to expose the other person. Or we can go the other way. We shrink, apologise and minimise. Oh, it’s really nothing. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. You’re right, perhaps I have been a bit… Neither response is particularly helpful. One hands our power to the attack by becoming embroiled in it; the other hands our power over by making ourselves smaller.
So what do we do?
This is where I think Bly’s two-part response is particularly powerful. Outwardly, we become the Warrior. The Warrior doesn’t attack. The Warrior protects. The mature Warrior knows where the boundary is and doesn’t feel compelled to explain it endlessly. You might say, “I hear your perspective, but I stand firmly behind my choices,” or, “We see this very differently, and I’m drawing a line under this conversation,” or simply, “I’m not prepared to discuss this any further.” Notice how short these responses are. There is no essay, no justification and no attempt to persuade the other person that you are right. You are simply marking the edge of your territory. And sometimes the most powerful Warrior response is silence. You don’t have to respond to everything. You don’t have to correct every misunderstanding. You don’t have to defend your right to be successful, happy, creative or confident.
But what about our own feelings towards the person who has attacked us? This is where the second part of Bly’s thinking comes in. He loved Sufi poetry, and there is a very different quality to the inward response. Inwardly, we become the Sufi. Once we have protected ourselves outwardly, we don’t want to carry their bitterness inside ourselves. Because it is very easy to become envious of the envious person. We start thinking, Who do they think they are? They’re pathetic. They’re jealous. Look at their miserable life. And now their shadow has got inside us. So instead, we can recognise that someone who genuinely cannot tolerate another person’s light may be suffering themselves. Privately, inside ourselves, we can offer a blessing: May you find your own creative spark. May you heal whatever is causing this bitterness. May you be free. Importantly, we don’t say this to them. That would be patronising and probably rather irritating. The blessing isn’t for them to hear. It is for us. It allows us to protect ourselves without becoming hardened by the experience.
Don’t put your light back in the bag
And perhaps there is one final thought that I really love about all of this. We can sometimes imagine that if we shine brightly, someone else must become smaller, as though there is only so much light to go around. But perhaps that isn’t how it works. Marianne Williamson writes about our light having the capacity to give other people permission to shine too, and I think that is a beautiful counterpoint to the envy attack. Your confidence doesn’t have to threaten mine. Your creativity doesn’t take anything away from my creativity. Your success doesn’t diminish my possibility of success. Your freedom doesn’t make me less free.
In fact, when we have the courage to take the things out of our own long bag and allow ourselves to shine, we may sometimes make it safer for other people to do the same. Perhaps that is one of the real antidotes to envy: not making ourselves smaller and not dimming our light, but taking responsibility for our own light while leaving enough space for somebody else to discover theirs.
So if you find yourself on the receiving end of an envy attack, remember that you don’t have to put your light back in the bag. You can listen without absorbing. You can set a boundary without attacking. You can have compassion without rescuing. You can refuse to carry what doesn’t belong to you. And then you can keep taking things out of your own bag: your creativity, your confidence, your ambition, your joy, your voice, your light. Because your light does not take light away from anybody else. And perhaps, sometimes, your willingness to let your light shine will also be an invitation for someone else to find theirs.
Juliet Grayson
September 2026
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