If he has the misfortune not to answer your text message within 5 minutes, your brain is racing! You start imagining the worst scenarios… Stop! Focus on what's really going on, not on what might happen if ever... "Jealousy!" It is the green-eyed monster that produces the food it feeds on,” said William Shakespeare. We look for clues to feed this often insane fear of losing the "object" of our affection. We poison our lives with outlandish assumptions. In the end, it is our imagination that dictates our conduct. The risk is to gradually lose contact with reality and become paranoid... The solution? Rely only on facts, not on assumptions.
OK, jealousy is a universal emotion, but should we let it lead us by the nose? You can't help but feel it, but you can always learn to channel it. By putting a name to a toxic emotion, you are already halfway there (or almost). Jealousy is certainly a bad fault, but it also helps us to learn and evolve. Are you jealous of your best friend because she got the job she dreamed of? Rather than wallow in this overwhelming feeling, do something more each day to achieve it. In small doses, this urge can even be beneficial.
By feeling jealousy, we are doing our self-criticism somewhere. We torment ourselves with negative thoughts, and are often too harsh on ourselves. Envy is a feeling close to jealousy, which we also have a hard time admitting. The success of others puts a strong emphasis on our own failures.
Jealousy therefore hides a great lack of self-confidence. We project our flaws, our insecurity and our fear of abandonment onto the other. Jealousy translates the fear of not being up to it. We think that it is impossible for us to be happy without this man, as if our whole life depended on it. Learning to flourish without the other, by undertaking things for oneself, is therefore also an avenue to explore.
Jealousy pollutes our lives. It confronts us with our own fears and weaknesses. When it becomes impossible to manage, when it causes great suffering, one must seek the help of a therapist. We may not be able to cure jealousy, but we can learn to control the moments of weakness. Psychotherapy, by helping us to know more about ourselves, gives us tools to better manage this emotion.
