The Gifts of Jealousy
Growing up in my household was anything but a dull experience. I’ve come full circle to learn to appreciate my childhood. My parents functioned on a high level of jealousy.. A jealousy that was suffocating at times and extremely dysfunctional. Yet a jealousy that has been deeply rewarding in my life. Intrigued? Let me explain…
My mother, rest in peace, was particularly uncontrollable with her jealous endeavors. It would be easy to go into story after story of examples, but what I really want to tell you is that it provided the perfect environment to foster my own jealousy especially in relation to men.
I started around 15 or 16 so called ‘dating’ which really equated to a few weeks or a few months in love with a young man. By the time I was 18 I was romantically invested in my first long term relationship that lasted on and off for 5 years. In hind sight, I now can say emphatically this whirlwind of breakups, back togethers, and ‘I can’t live without yous’ was completely based on jealousy.
Several years later and into my marriage with my ex-husband (a different man) I went completely around the jealous bin. After much reflection, and I am being kind, I became unable to function. Like many many women, my first response was to blame it all on my ex. I was consumed by jealous induced rage, and could see nothing but everything that I thought he did wrong. I firmly believed that if he was a different person my jealous monster would disappear into the darkness never ever to plague me again.
Of course he didn’t change (I didn’t either at the time) and we split a couple years later.
Fast forward to 2008… I am with Will (current beau) and 7 months pregnant with my daughter. I finally have more than a vague concept of the beauty of being a woman. (per studies of the Womanly Arts) I have done a brilliant job up to this point in our relationship managing my jealousy. (In fact on a whole at this point my TN hottie believes that jealous really isn’t part of my vocabulary) If I pretend long enough that I am not jealous… it will go away.
Um. Well. Not so much…
On a Friday I meet my mother in a nearby city for some slot gaming at the casino. Sitting 2 machines away from my mother, a very pretty cocktail waitress approached us to take our drink orders. The first thought in my mind appeared as
‘That bitch’
Then the next hot cocktail waitress strolled by and the second thought started to leave my lips of
‘Yeah I bet Will would do her’
and I caught myself. Whew, Thank Goodness that didn’t come out my lips, but What the Hell? Since when did I sign up again for this crap?
It didn’t stop there, lady after lady tortured me with her presence. Could I feel any worse?
Yes, yes I could.
Let’s top this off with my man being in the middle of the Gulf working, working incredibly hard, with not a woman in sight and just miles and miles of water surrounding him. Yet I was totally tripping over women he couldn’t even SEE!
In many ways I was devastated. Here, I had spent all this time convincing myself and Will that I was not a jealous woman. I had rejoiced in compliments of how sexy I was because I wasn’t insecure like many. Yet now, I felt like a complete and total fraud.
During a conversation with a very wise woman, it was then reiterated to me that jealousy is about personal insecurity. (I knew this but, in the midst of hormones and stuff had forgotten) Will wasn’t due home for a few weeks, which gave me plenty of time of self reflection on my self induced jealous crap.
Then it hit me… jealousy is a HUGE GIFT… yes, all that insecurity masquerading as anger and bitterness is an unbelievably eye opening self revelation tool. Stay with me on this one.
In many instances the person or situation that you are jealous of is amplifying an area of yourself that you would like to improve upon. So it’s not necessarily the person himself or the object they have that make you jealous, but more about what that represents to you.
For example, an ex of mine cheated on me with a woman significantly younger than me, significantly more sexually open than me, and a lot thinner than me. How did the resulting jealousy gift me?
Well I realized that pretending to be prudish and act responsible all the time was not very fun for me anymore (and frankly boring me to death). It gave me to ability to open up to the idea that as a woman at any age, I get to live the way I want to. This gave me the opportunity to mentally open up to more excitement and adventure. My favorite gift was the universe saying it’s okay to feel young and sexy no matter who you are!
Now my jealousy about Will (which was even more blatantly obvious because he wasn’t engaging in any triggers that could set someone off) was a sign that I should focus more on my sensual self during my pregnancy. I interpreted this as a message that even though I was becoming a mother, it was of paramount importance to honor myself as a sensuous woman. (This ended up being one of my favorite gifts because I immediately treated myself to sensual goodies, such as pampering and lots of sensual dancing when Will came home) Bonus gift.. our intimate connection increased!
But what about more material things? .. for instance say if you are jealous about the new vehicle your friend just got.. Then maybe you would really like to get some financial clarity, make space for abundance, or possibly you would like to feel more appreciative towards the things that are already in your life.
Maybe you’re jealous of your best friend’s new boyfriend. This one could have several great interpretations.
- You would like to increase your ability for passion with someone you care about.
- You would like to feel more visible.
- Perhaps this is your time to exponentially love yourself more.
It all comes to interpretation. You can look at jealousy as a sucker punching, soul devouring, kick you in the teeth pain; or you can call ‘UNCLE’ now and save yourself some metaphoric bruising. Examine your jealousy and what its presence is alluding to. Then treat yourself to some pampering for being a woman willing to embrace and acknowledge the gifts of her jealousy;)
Mmm… a massage for honoring my jealous thoughts.
Let me know what gifts you are getting from your jealousy by commenting below.
P.P.S.
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