JEALOUSY: AN EMOTION THAT HARMS YOURSELF

Jealousy is a complex emotion that encompasses many different kinds of feelings that range from fear of abandonment to rage to humiliation.  There is a common thinking that jealousy is a necessary emotion because it motivates you and preserves social bonds. Healthy competitive mindset that enables entrepreneurship is mistaken by these people as jealousy.  Jealousy usually does more harm than good to relationships, and can create relationship conflict and violence.  It is a mental cancer that bites off all happiness from our lives.  According to Fulton J. Sheen it is “the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”  “Never hate jealous people.  They are jealous because they think you are better than them.” writes Paulo Coelho.

Jealousy is a sign of insecurity, depression, abuse, cheating, hate, weakness and low self esteem.  Many a times we mistake it as a sign of devotion, obsession an love towards someone.  It happens when a person feels that a relationship that is of importance to him/her is threatened by someone else outside of the relationship - be it romantic, friendship, parent-child, sibling etc.  It can also happen in the context of competitive situations, such as the workplace or education.  It may start with short time envy but it takes you to the realm of long lasting jealousy which destroys yourself and the other you are envious about.  Rather than letting jealousy infect your relationship with others, use its appearance as a reason to work on yourself and to understand the fears that drive it.

Ways of tackling the emotion of jealousy:

Understand the emotion of jealousy. A combination of fear and anger, jealousy is fed by the fear of losing someone (or a cherished situation/state of affairs) and anger that someone else is "moving in" on the person or situation that is of value to you personally. It is a destructive and ignoble emotion and nothing good can come of it, so recognition of its occurrence is your number one self-defense.

Deconstruct Why you feel jealous in the first place. From a place of self-compassion, try to figure out why you are feeling jealous.  Often it is about reliving an experience of failure from the past.  It lingers to inform your level of trust toward people in the present, even though current conditions may be vastly different.  Other motivators for jealousy include a high level of insecurity, anger toward yourself and fear of abandonment or vulnerability which lead inferiority complex.

Be Honest to yourself. If you are honest to yourself, you shall be least bothered about others’ achievements.  You shall be able to radiate this honesty onto others. You are created with a special purpose and you only can make it. When you are distracted by others’ achievements, you cannot be faithful to your purpose of life. As someone has said, your enemy is not others but you yourself. Your attitude decides your altitude.  Blame game does not help.  Find out ways to increase your self-esteem thereby removing the complexes that develop into jealousy.

Also bear in mind, jealousy will not give you confidence in yourself and make you an achiever, but shall take away the energy you need to be an achiever.  You Be Your Master.