“Dear Holiday, how can social media be a positive thing in my life? Right now it’s making me cry because I can’t stop noticing how happy my exes seem to be, and yes I’ve been creeping on the pages of their current girlfriends to see what’s happening there too. Sometimes I think I run on nothing but coffee and jealousy. Help! I’m a Capricorn.”
Ambitious Capricorn knows that you don’t get anywhere in life by being unaware of what other people are doing. But being too aware comes with its own set of problems, especially if you’re taking other people’s business personally, and in fact doing a line-by-line, them-to-you comparison on matters. Regardless, I think there’s an opportunity here for you here.
I used to regard jealousy as “the green-eyed monster” that is its common description, but I’ve come to develop a different relationship with this powerful emotion – one that allows for acceptance and even the welcoming of jealous feelings that get integrated into my self-awareness. Jealousy is no longer a monster to be blamed, rather jealousy is a friendly radiologist.
Jealousy is a well-trained professional who surveys the landscape, records its features and zooms in on the points of interest. Jealousy is the expert who can point right to the spot and say, “here’s your problem” or “here’s what’s amazing, right here.”
To blame the radiologist for the issues going on in the body would be absurd, though messengers get blamed all the time and jealousy lives with that unfair rap too, all because people don’t know what to do with this very specific information that jealousy is just passing on. They don’t understand how to use the valuable gift that jealousy brings to make themselves healthier and happier. Truly, what’s inside jealousy’s message can be turned into a blueprint for a more fulfilling life. We must, however, learn the language of jealousy, as it speaks in its own tongue.
Usually jealousy starts with an attraction. In passing, we get a glimpse of something that catches our eye like a shiny object, or rattles us with an attention-getting resonance. We tune in. The more we pay attention, the stronger it hooks us. The thoughts that run through our heads next are our interpretations of this attraction. We may think, “No fair!” “Why her?” “How did they dare?” or something like this. That’s not what jealousy told us, it’s just how we’re translating it.
What jealousy really told us is, “Look here. Does this remind you of something? This is in you or you wouldn’t have noticed it to begin with. This is possible. There’s something here for you. There’s something you can do that you didn’t know you could.” Try to think of jealousy’s message as more of an invitation to an appetite than a condemnation of what’s being observed.
If you are experiencing jealousy, congratulations. It means you're alive, you want, you hunger, and there is life out there for you to bite into and figure out.
To get the most out of the emotion, you'll probably have to turn the heat down on it. Get distance from the thing making you jealous. Step back, calm down, detach. Stop judging yourself for being jealous. All it means is that you're alive and so is your appetite for life. From a gentle state of mind, ask yourself questions along the lines of, "What appetite is this feeling pointing to? What need do I have that's not being met in my current life? What skill might I be able to pick up if I worked at it? What state of being am I craving that is so well represented in this situation?"
Journaling on these questions or working them out in conversation with a trusted person will begin to open the way for jealousy's findings to guide you toward making a remarkable difference in your life and well-being.
If this is a hot topic for you, please comment or reach out to me on Instagram or via email? I will write more indepth on it in the future, as I have plenty of experience with jealous LOL!
Love and Stars!
Holiday
PS. I'm also touching on jealousy and more states of heart in the LOVE ZINE I'm writing now. Stay tuned!