Jealousy & Suffering

By Leo Babauta Most of us deal with jealousy in some form, and when it comes up, it’s never pretty. It might be jealousy when your girlfriend seems interested in someone else, or when one of your best friends becomes close with someone else, or when your parents give a lot of attention to your sibling, or when other people are having more fun than you. Why do we get jealous? What harm does it do us? How do we overcome it? I’ll admit that I get jealous, and the me that gets jealous is not my favorite self. I don’t like myself when I get jealous. So what do I do? I watch myself. I see it happening. I acknowledge it. And then I give myself a hug. Let’s look at little deeper at jealousy first, and then go over what we can do about it. What is Jealousy? Jealousy is simply an emotional reaction to a past wound. It gets triggered when something in the present reminds us of what hurt us before. We fear abandonment. Our parents get divorced (mine did), our spouse cheats on us, our best friend leaves us. And so, because this hurt us so much, we remember it in our hearts, and it becomes incredibly difficult to forget it. It becomes a part of us, this wound, this fear. It surfaces at times when it’s not helpful. It starts to control us. And so this wound becomes a controlling factor in our lives, and we become the worst selves that we can be. We don’t want that. Let’s learn to be our better selves. How to Heal the Wounds and Overcom...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Happiness Source Type: blogs