Learning to Be a Girls’ Girl

I want to be a girls’ girl.

I want to celebrate other women’s happiness, success, beauty, and good fortune without feeling threatened by them. I want to be genuinely happy for people who get the things I’ve always wanted for myself.

But if I’m being honest, I’m not always that girl.

I’ve noticed that I rarely envy celebrities or billionaires I’ve never met. My envy tends to surface around women whose lives feel close enough to mine to invite comparison. Women around my age, with similar backgrounds, who seem to have figured out the very things I still struggle with.

And when they share their good news, I don’t always respond as warmly as I’d like to.

Sometimes, I express a little doubt or make a comment that sounds less supportive than it should. Nothing deliberately cruel, but enough to make someone feel less celebrated than they deserve to be.

I usually realize it almost immediately. I backtrack, clarify what I meant, and try to reassure them that I really do wish them well.

But afterward, I still feel ashamed.

Because they haven’t done anything wrong. They’ve simply achieved something I wish I could achieve, too.

When Someone Else’s Happiness Hurts

I think a lot of my envy comes from insecurity rather than dislike.

Growing up, I often compared myself to other girls. I thought they were prettier, smarter, more talented, or simply luckier than I was. I wondered why everyone else seemed to have something special while I struggled to find anything special about myself.

Somewhere along the way, I learned to see other women as competition.

Competition for attention, recognition, romantic love, and the approval of a society that often measures women’s worth by their appearance and achievements.

Even when nobody is competing with me, I sometimes behave as though I’m in a race I never agreed to enter.

When another woman gets something I’ve wanted, her happiness can remind me of everything I haven’t had.

I don’t necessarily resent her. I’m grieving something in myself.

But that doesn’t make every reaction fair or kind.

Someone else’s happiness is not responsible for my disappointment. And they shouldn’t have to make themselves smaller so I can feel better about myself.

The Kind of Girl I Want to Be

It’s easy to support someone when their struggles are greater than mine. It’s easy to encourage someone when I don’t feel threatened by what they have.

The real test comes when another woman has something I desperately want.

Can I celebrate her without comparing our lives? Can I acknowledge her success without searching for a reason to diminish it?

I want to be able to say, I’m happy for you, and mean it.

Not because I’m more successful, more secure, or somehow above envy, but because another person’s good fortune doesn’t have to come at my expense.

Her beauty doesn’t erase mine. Her success doesn’t diminish my worth. Her happiness doesn’t take anything away from me.

There is room for other women to thrive without making my own life a competition.

Practicing Genuine Joy

I don’t expect myself to stop feeling insecure overnight. Some disappointments are deeply rooted, and I can’t simply reason my way out of every painful comparison.

But I can become more aware of what happens when envy arises.

I can notice the urge to make a dismissive comment without acting on it. I can let myself feel disappointed about my own life without projecting that disappointment onto someone else’s happiness.

I want to become someone who celebrates other women not only when their lives are harder than mine, but also when they have things I wish I had.

Someone who can admire another woman’s beauty, celebrate her achievements, and listen to her good news without turning it into a comparison.

I want to learn mudita, the Buddhist practice of sympathetic joy: finding genuine happiness in the happiness of others.

Not as a performance of being a good person, but as a way of freeing myself from the exhausting habit of measuring my life against everyone else’s.

I’m still learning. I will probably feel envy again, and I may still catch myself reacting in ways I’m not proud of.

But I want to keep working on it.

Because I don’t want another woman’s happiness to be something I have to overcome.

I want it to be something I can celebrate.

Perhaps becoming a girls’ girl isn’t about never feeling jealous. Perhaps it’s about choosing not to let jealousy decide how I treat another woman.

I can wish for more in my own life without wishing for less in hers.