Have you ever felt envious of someone else’s success? In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with Dear Sugar herself, Cheryl Strayed, and get practical, heart-opening, career-inspiring advice about how to meet this very natural and difficult feeling. We speak of abundance mentality, leaning in to our own heart’s desires, and the “all boats rise” when one of us succeeds philosophy. Strayed talks about times when she has envied and what it taught her, and she also speaks of being envied herself and how she handles others’ projection.
Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Wild, the New York Times bestsellers Tiny Beautiful Things and Brave Enough, and the novel Torch. Wild was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as her first selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0 and adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Reese Witherspoon. Tiny Beautiful Things was adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos in a play directed by Thomas Kail that has been produced in theaters around the world. Strayed's essays have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, and elsewhere. She publishes the popular Dear Sugar column as a monthly newsletter and has hosted two hit podcasts for the New York Times—Sugar Calling and Dear Sugars, which she co-hosted with Steve Almond. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #69: We Are All Savages Inside (Cheryl’s advice to an envious creative person)
Christie’s Oprah Magazine story about envy.
Our previous episode about how envy brought Christie and Rosemerry together.
DEAR SUGAR, The Rumpus Advice Column #48: Write Like a Motherfucker
To listen to our bonus episode with Cheryl next week, become a paid subscriber to Emerging Form at emergingform.substack.com.
Episode 40: Envy, with Cheryl Strayed