132: When desire meets the story that you're not enough
Why some longings show up as envy and stay there
There are no wrong emotions.
But there are emotions we’ve quietly put on a “not allowed” list.
And the moment we decide an emotion shouldn’t be felt, we don’t eliminate it… what we do instead is, we reorganize our lives around avoiding it.
The brain doesn’t store events, it stores emotion predictions. And because its job is to keep us safe and help us survive, the feelings that were registered as unsafe begin to shape what we allow ourselves to do, say, want, and pursue.
Without realizing it, our lives become organized around avoiding certain internal experiences.
And when we live this way, our choices are no longer oriented toward expansion, but toward protection.
This is why we hesitate in moments that matter — not because we don’t know what to do, but because we are unwilling to feel what might come with doing it.
Like pretty much everything in life, emotions are not black and white. Within one emotion there is a whole spectrum of experiences one can have.
Envy is born in the same place desire is born. Before it becomes a thought, it’s a pull, a movement toward something. It’s a physical recognition — something in me responds to that. I see it in the outer world and it calls my attention.
Grounded desire is the cue for expansion.
When desire is born and it meets our stories of not enough, not feeling capable, the idea that we are separated from the whole — it becomes that unhealthy feeling of: why do they have that and I don’t? I shouldn’t want that for myself.
They were able to get that because… but this is not for me. As the energy of desire tries to rise in your body, it hits your relationship with yourself, and the story that what I really want is unavailable for me, or I am not capable of creating this…
Envy, if explored in a healthy way, is not about the situation or the thing or the other people at all… it’s not even telling you what you lack. It’s revealing what you are in relationship with, but not yet in expression of.
What you have been calling envy — maybe trying to avoid feeling it altogether — is just your desire meeting the version of you who doesn’t fully believe you can have it. Or that you are not capable of it. Or even the version of you that doesn’t believe you deserve it.
Envy, in its potential, is revealing where you reject your own expansion.
Next time you feel that, instead of projecting it outward and making it wrong — open yourself to receive its message. It has a gift for you. But the one who will open the gift is not the same one who avoided it for so long.
The version of you that doesn’t feel enough, not capable, not deserving — that one won’t build the sacred business you keep looking at and quietly wishing was yours. But the one who explores not-enoughness, who sits with incapacity and dances when facing the belief they don’t deserve it — that one will.
With love,
Carolina
Who We are Celebrating This Week:
Michele Gill with The Joy Club
Are you looking for a great Substack to follow? I am Celebrating Michele and her joyful Substack publication.
Michele Gill is a psychologist, educator, and the creator of The Joy Club Way — a space she built to help women live more fully alive through play, connection, and self-discovery.
Her main question is so necessary: Why do we need a “Joy Club” anyway?
This is my answer to that: I believe we lost touch with the essence of what we came here for.
In the chasing of money, meaning, and getting it right, we forgot the why. We need a Joy Club to remind ourselves that being is enough, that following your joy is the path.
We did not come here to survive or struggle — we came to have fun, serve, and love. And for me, The Joy Club is a beautiful reminder of exactly that.
Thanks Michele for bringing this work into the world!
Things I’d Like to Share
Sacred Business Stories with Brian Clark
We had such a rich conversation this past week. Brian brought us back to some marketing fundamentals that honestly never get old. Some of the principles that built businesses in the early days of the internet are still the ones that work today.
Sometimes the most powerful move is returning to the basics. I think you'll love this one
Consciously by Patricia W.
Another great essay:
The foundation of my work is helping people come back to the body, that’s also my own journey (that never ends btw…) the very vehicle that gives us the chance to experience the gift of being alive, and the one so many of us have forgotten.
When we disconnect from our emotions, we don’t become stronger or more stable. We become empty. We start believing that feeling deeply is wrong, that being moved by life means something is broken in us. A regulated nervous system isn’t a system that feels nothing — it’s a system where the emotional cycle can complete itself. Patricia wrote something this week that speaks directly to this, and I couldn’t agree more.
Thank you, Patricia, for another beautiful essay.
Memorable Quote
This is so sharp Carolina, thanks for sharing. 🩷🦩