Everyone feels jealous at times in their life. We have to, it is an innately human feeling and it usually attacks us when we are feeling down about ourselves. If you feel jealous and talk about it you keep this feeling in perspective and it doesn’t threaten you or your relationship. There are people who feel ashamed when they feel jealous. They judge themselves as being bad or childish and because of their judging they have to deny they feel jealous. This is where jealousy can get dangerous. If you don’t admit to feeling jealousy it will not go away and usually it will appear in your actions. Fights have been started and people have been killed due to the jealousy that was denied and acted upon.

Jealousy is caused by insecurity within one’s self. We compare ourselves to someone else and we make a judgment that the other person is better. This judgment can be assessing the persons, weight, hair color, clothes, car, etc. It can be personalized as far as the other person’s personality or it can be materialized as far as what they own. If you are a confident person you can admit to feeling a bit jealous and you will be comforted by the person you confide in. If you are not confident you may appear angry or mad when this individual of your jealousy is around. Because you cannot talk about it, the person you are with feels uncomfortable and they cannot console you nor do they want to. This should be a warning sign to you that you need to deal with your reasons for feeling jealous and get support so you can deal with them.

Many people have a lot of difficulty with this emotion. I have a few suggestions if you are one of those people. Hopefully the next time you are feeling jealous you can go through these suggestions and find one or two that work for you.

1. Whenever you feel jealous admit to the feeling and then make a list of your positive traits. Remember confident people usually do not feel jealous very often. What are the things you are doing great? This is a great time to write these down.

2. If you want to control a person, that is a sign of jealousy. You have already compared yourself to someone else and you are feeling like you lost. By controlling your partner or a friend you believe you can prevent them from seeing this other “much better” person. This is ridiculous. You cannot possibly control who your friend or partner finds enjoyable to be around 24/7. Get a grip and work on trusting.

3. Sometimes jealousy is your “inner voice” telling you the person you love or your best friend is not loyal. This is a good time to write down why you think the person you are with is honest. It is also an excellent time to talk about how you are feeling and tell that person you need their support.

4. Ask yourself the most difficult and yet necessary question, “am I over reacting and why”. This question can help you come to possible old hurts that have never been healed as well as issues of abandonment, isolation and possible abuse in the past.

Jealousy, like most emotions, are felt most strongly when we are down, scared, or worried about losing someone special in our life. No matter who you are with, if you can tell them “I feel jealous because you are so special and I am feeling like I may lose you” the jealous feelings will most likely dissipate.

MJo