November 11th, 2014
The truth, wisdom and lessons of your jealousy.
One of the most uncomfortable emotions has got to be jealousy. Any time I feel it, I react like I’ve touched a hot stove, and suddenly all I can hear is, “Oh great, here we go!” and “AREN’T YOU BEYOND THIS? COME ON!”
In the online world, jealousy is always around the corner. There’s always someone who owns things that we can’t afford, someone getting a book deal, or someone who’s a little further in their career or skills than we are. If your emotional immune system isn’t at the top of its game, you can start out on Pinterest and end up with a witches brew of self loathing in less than an hour.
Several months ago there was an episode of the Design*Sponge podcast that talked about using jealousy as a positive tool to motivate you to action, instead of treating it like a nuclear weapon, and it sparked some great insights for me. In case you haven’t listened, you can read more about it and listen to Grace Bonney’s explanation here.
When jealousy is sparked in us, we make the feeling about who or what triggered it. Jealousy becomes about people who can afford a trip we can’t take or who go to the conference we can’t attend.
What if instead of letting your jealousy curdle, you let it lead you to what you deeply crave?
Instead of letting its heat turn you to ashes, what if you let your jealousy burn a path to the parts of your life that have been neglected so you can make your own life better?
I’m working on looking for that spark of jealousy now, so I can make friends with what it means for me through journaling, slowing down and creating time to think about what I need and want to create in the world.
Jealousy doesn’t have to be a rollercoaster or an enemy if you make it a call to action.
So consider….
Who is living your ideal life?
Who is taking the risks you wish you could?
Who is writing your dream blog?
Who is wrestling with the problems you can’t wait to solve?
And then ask yourself the much more important question…
What are you going to do about it?
I love that quote. It is such a great reminder that jealousy is really about an inward journey and it gives us the time to ask ourselves “What does my body/mind really want/need?”. It’s funny the way in which jealousy can manifest itself. Currently dealing with that indirectly. We have friends who are identical twins (one happens to be my husband’s exgirlfriend of 7 years… 5 years ago) and the ex lives in another state now and we of course remain friends with her sister and their old friends together and she is really regressing in maturity on how to deal with everything and really lashing out and it’s hard to see how much it is really about her own unhappiness and insecurities. Unfortunately it’s not something anyone can say to her, she has to hopefully figure it out herself. I wish I was in a place to do something though!
It has reminded me to be mindful of what she might be going through and let the steam blow off and also to take a look at what I can do to help myself.
Using jealousy as a positive motivation has probably been one of the most significant things that has transformed my life in the past 6 months from playing small to *starting to* play bigger. I still have issues with it and need reminders like this often, but I’m also really proud of how far I’ve come in recent months with taking ACTION on those things I see that I want in my own life. Before, that envy and comparison was so paralyzing that I just let myself be content living my life at 70%. Thanks Kyla!
This is so interesting! I was watching a talk the other day by Moshe Feldenkrais and he was talking about inferiority complexes and we discussed it after.
I came to similar conclusions – I feel inferior, when I see somebody else doing something I want to do, having something I want to have, and particularly, when I’m NOT currently doing anything to work towards bringing myself closer to those things. When I’m working toward what I want, jealousy and inferiority feelings subside.
They definitely are a sort of compass, we should be aware of that!
Great post!
Thanks Ffion, that’s an interesting way to look at the idea of an inferiority complex! I’ve started to realize that whenever I have a strong emotional reaction to something that it’s a little internal road flare going up and take a look at what’s really going on. And it only took nearly 30 years to figure out what my emotions mean! ;)
This is perfect timing for me–it’s tied into a blog post I’ve been planning to write. I used to be very jealous of people who traveled. I saw traveling as something “other” people got to do, even though I desperately wanted to join them.
Now I see that it’s all about choices. Some people want big fancy houses, the latest in decor, nice cars, new shoes…and some of us want to explore the world. Very rare is the person who can have it all.
The majority of my fun money is now spent on travel. I work for myself as a freelance journalist, so I’m definitely not bringing in the big bucks, but I managed to book and pay for trips to Bali, China, Vancouver and Hawaii this year without going into debt. It is possible. Now when people hear I’m going on another trip and say, “I hate you,” I know exactly what they’re thinking. I used to feel that way too, but it’s all about priorities.
Great post!
Thanks for commenting, Holli! That’s exactly right, the live we live is about our priorities. And jealousy can be a very unpleasant notice that how we’re living is out of alignment with what we want. I think it’s important to remember that it can be incredibly tough to get all the pieces of our life to fit together, and when they do it never stays that way for long. We’re always trying to keep frogs in a basket, and so are the people we look up to. But even with that being the case, we can all put little pieces of what we want in our lives in place now. And if you keep doing that, they can add up fast. And on that note – you’ll have to say hello to the beach for me when you get to Hawaii :)
While also remembering that things are never quite what they appear. The person who seems like they have it all is dealing with her own demons.
Thanks for weighing in, Laurie. That’s absolutely right, perspective is everything. Anything we see of other people – even people we know well – is a series of dots that we’ve connected on our own based on a tiny slice who they are and what they do. I think it’s so worth the effort to try and keep ourselves from using that as a weapon against us.
I have been working really, really hard lately at turning those spikes of jealousy around by reminding myself to be happy for the other person and that their success doesn’t take away from my own. It’s really tough sometimes! Framing things this way does make me feel a lot more positive overall though, so I think it’s well worth the effort.
That’s a great reminder, Vanessa. There isn’t a limited amount of happiness and opportunity in the world that we’re all arm wrestling over! It’s so easy to slip into a competitive mindset, but it can make you miserable. Glad I’m not the only one working on this!
That is interesting – I have never really thought about jealousy as being something that could motivate a person to make a change but I can see how that is totally the case. I think right now I am jealous of people who have their professional lives figured out (although I will say that the list of people who fall under that classification is very short). So that is something I am trying to figure out as I am feeling pretty unfulfilled by my work lately.
I’m sorry to hear that, Lisa. I think it’s interesting what we can’t help but let our attention wander to when we’re not thinking about it. I’ve been having that feeling about people who create great blogs and amazing online content – and I have to remind myself that they don’t have one on one client work that they spend 75% of their time on like I do, and that it’s all a choice. I hope you find something that’s more engaging soon, anyone would be lucky to have you!