Sometimes jealousy shows up, and it visited me this week, when that happens I remind myself, that if I am focused on another’s success I am not focused on my own. Jealousy is not a good companion. It steals your future and misrepresents the present.
When I am feeling jealous of another, I know I am in comparison. The universe made us all different, it doesn’t compare, we do. And unfortunately, we often compare to what looks like someone’s image, not what their reality truly is, because we never know that.
Jealousy steals your future and makes your life feel miserable and acting from the emotion often causes later regret. Whenever we try to drive our car in another’s lane, we often create an emotional wreck. So, stay in your own lane, if you don’t have one, build one. If you see inequity, and it bothers you, then focus your energy and power on the potential solutions.
Keep in mind, if you focus on something there is a level of focus where you may become it. Think about the effort to learn a new skill, at some point you become the skill, you and the skill integrate. Focus it a tool, and like all tools it can be used to improve your life or darken it.
When you find yourself in a jealousy loop of anger and competition, disconnect. Pause, go for a walk, work on hobby, go in nature, shift your gaze, do art, and come back to yourself. Do something action oriented to shift your body into a new paradigm.
Later once you are back into yourself and have calmed that is the time to notice, the what, the why, the when, and the where. For questions beginning with what, where, why, when are most likely to help you unravel the feeling and notice whether the jealousy is related to fear, insecurity or feeling not enough. Jealousy is a complex emotion, it is correlated with fear, fear of loss, fear of abandonment. It also can reflect your insecurity or anger. Jealousy is not a single isolated emotion. It is a complex combination of several emotions that normally occur in a response to a perceived threat to a valued relationship or a sense of self-worth.
What a combination. Do you see the complexity and the potential to unravel it. It helps me to pause, and feel, what I am feeling? And then later when I am braver or feeling more secure, more myself so to speak, then I explore. I start self-analyzing the where, the what, the why. These answers provide my growth and the tools to be more aligned with the person I want to be.
What am I afraid of, what do I feel I have lost or may lose? Why do I feel this, does this relate to a past event or is it a current trigger. What triggered my jealousy. Is it fleeting or is it hanging around? Is this related to an old wound? Am I ready to feel differently. Am I ready to let jealousy inform me of my distance from my wholeness, where do I need to heal?
Am I focused on someone’s image, am I comparing myself to a mirage. Image and mirage are closely linked in meaning both imply something not real. So, why compare yourself. Looking from the outside in is always a distorted view. Given image and mirage imply something not really there, why not focus on your authentic self, for once found, it never goes away.
If you want a life with less jealousy than stay in your own authentic lane, and trust that the right people, at the right time will join you there.
Continue to do your personal work trusting that as you focus on your life as you live it, you will develop wholeness. Focus your gaze not on the other, rather on yourself, and develop the authenticity that makes you truly happy and alive. Someone else’s projection of happiness or image will never ever fill your soul. The reason I focus on authenticity is that images lie, an authenticity doesn’t.
So, stay connected to you, when jealousy shows up, change the subject, take yourself out, and when ready ask yourself what you have come to teach me. What can I learn from you today? How do I shift you into joy and authenticity? Where are you showing me my incongruentcy?
The key to authenticity and congruence lies in your ability to develop truthfulness and honesty with yourself. You want to be happy, be honest with yourself. You want to have more love in your life, develop more self-love and forgiveness, and less perfection and judgement. Jealousy is another form of self-judgment. Judge less, and be more of yourself each day.
Develop the qualities of self-love, forgiveness, courage, and honesty. Qualities that will sustain your life so much more beautifully than jealousy and criticism.
I remember years ago and exercise where I was asked to write down a list of people I admired. Then look at the list and ask what qualities I admired about them. Once done the facilitator let us know these qualities most likely where part of our own character structure. Often what we recognize in others’ lives within us, perhaps we are not living it, and we simply need to place our own focus on developing it more, acknowledging it more and living it.
You can change the exercise to who am I jealous of and then start writing down what they have that you want, then to ask why you want it, what does it bring you, what do you feel you are lacking, which helps you discover what you think you are missing in your own world. You have to dig a little deep, it isn’t surface material here, it is the thing that is triggering your emotions. Sometimes excavation is quick and sometimes it takes a while, be with it and the jewel of self-discovery will rise. See if you can’t begin developing an authentic way of being in your own lane from the carnage of jealousy.
Authenticity is the key; you can be an image, or you can be real. Anything less than real, leaves you wanting something that is not yours, instead of looking at the outward appearance of others, shift you focus to your own lane, that is where your magic lies. See the parts of yourself you are not loving, and bring those in the fold, and start accepting and acknowledging all of your faces, and then decide which ones you want to develop to represent the authenticity of you. See if you can’t begin developing an authentic way of being.
Authenticity is not just how you look, how you dress, what you do, it is also how you treat yourself and others. If you want authenticity perhaps jealousy can show you where you are not living it, edging you closer to your personal wholeness and truth, finding your way home to yourself. Much success in this journey.
Here are a few affirmations to help along the way.
I am living my best life by being the most authentic person I know.
Authenticity flows from me and through me; I sparkle as truth.
I excavate the truth of my essence with grace, goodwill and ease. The Universe supports my good.
I am deeply loved and cherished as my own unique self by the maker of all things. I am so blessed to be me.
Copyright L. Kay Smith (c) 2025
Used by Permission- New Moon Sisters Inc.
