What Anxiety and Envy Taught Me

Art teaches us about ourselves.

When Inside Out 2 came out this summer, I learned a lot through colorful Emotions. As Riley (the main character) faces intimidating life changes, a frazzled orange Anxiety appears and kicks out all the primary emotions. She takes over Riley’s brain!

But Anxiety wasn’t the only dictator…she was always accompanied by Envy. Envy was an aquamarine girl with a head too big for her body and eyes too big for her face. At every turn, she would point out the cool hair Riley didn’t have or they exclusive invite Riley couldn’t refuse. 

She was constantly looking outward and fueling Anxiety, so that Anxiety would keep spiraling and predicting worst case scenarios.

It was something I knew well. A picture of myself: the more I envy, the more anxious I feel.

The Envy/Anxiety dynamic is something I feel in many areas of my life, but it’s especially painful when it comes to my career. And I’ve found that it seems to be painful for all my artistic friends. There’s a special kind of trap that exists for non-traditional workers–when there’s no raises, no promotions, no performance reviews from our boss to tell us how we’ve improved…

But we still want to feel like we’re on the right track. We want to feel like we’re making progress. So we look to our left…

And there we find friends booking films we didn’t book, or friends wooing theater companies that won’t even look our way. 

They have things we don’t have. They have things we want. 

So we start to spiral: What am I doing wrong? What should I be doing? Who will want me? Am I even good enough? 

The temperature rises, and before you know it, every other emotion has been banished and you listen to Envy/Anxiety’s frantic commands. You run off to achieve the next work-like thing you can find.

But what happened to passion-driven projects? What happened to work-life balance? Even your moral compass can become quick to compromise; like Riley in the movie, it’s easy to justify out-of-character actions in pursuit of a goal. 

We sacrifice everything to chase a feeling of “enough.” 

There’s a reason that Envy is illustrated with massive eyes: she just wants to look at everyone and everything. But what if we turned away from others, and looked inwards instead?

In other words, we can cure our Envy/Anxiety spiral through individuation and joy.

Individuation is the idea that we’re separate from others. So someone else’s career is just like…not about you! 

They are separate from you: they have a different body, different personality, and different mental/physical/emotional capacities. They rely on different support systems. They probably have different passions and values, and they probably care about different projects. All this means that they have a different story they are meant to fulfill.

This reminds me of the hilarious verses of John 21:21-22. Jesus gives Peter insight into his future: one day, Peter will be martyred. But then Peter notices John and says “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

He’s not really saying that John will be immortal, but even if John was going to be immortal…it’s none of Peter’s business!

Jesus calls us to individual destinies. What we’ve done and where we’re going is only between us and God. 

So why look to others? Follow God as he has called you…and look at your own story with Joy. 

At the climax of Inside Out 2, Riley is driven to a panic attack. The Emotions, including Anxiety, realize that they can’t define who Riley is. When Riley reconciles her complex self and calms down from the panic attack, the other emotions step aside and tell Joy: “Riley wants you.” And Joy takes over.

To some degree, we have control over our emotions. Like Riley, we can call out to Joy and refocus: on the sun on our face, on the breath in our lungs, and on the faces of people who love us. 

I just finished working on two shows, and when it ended, I was struck with a new round of Envy/Anxiety reminding me of all the career benchmarks I hadn’t achieved yet. 

But when I took a moment to slow down and call out for Joy, I refocused: I loved the casts and directors. I loved the fascinating characters I got to play. We had laughing audiences and we got a good review. 

Envy and Anxiety stilled, and I remembered: God has a calling specifically for me. 

How can you turn from looking outward to individuation? How can you invite Joy instead of Anxiety?