What we feel emotionally, is felt in the body first as a bodily or physical sensation. -Dr Joan Rosenburg
Jealousy is a evil emotion. We are all prone to it. It is an emotion that is in our nature. It can cause internal and external harm depending on how a person regulated the emotion. Just as Dr Rosenburg suggests, powerful emotions are felt in the body first before they are realized by the brain. Such as sadness, we can feel this in our tear ducts or bridge of the nose before we identify it.
The difficulty with jealousy is that it is a product of other emotions. Hurt, low-self esteem, anger. What this means is that when we feel a combination of these emotions, it morphs into jealousy. In order to prevent jealousy, we need to understand why were feeling hurt or self-conscious or angry. When your body has a chemical reaction to strong emotions, the wave last 60-90 seconds. It is within those 60-90 seconds that you need to identify the feeling(s), figure out why you are feeling that way and decide what you are going to do next to dissipate those feelings.
This is how I have learned to deal with jealousy.
When I feel jealous, the reason is because I am in awe of someone else. They have something that I wish I had. For example, I was in an interview once with 5 other women and one women started speaking a bit of Tagalog. I remember feeling it in my ears first and my eyes focusing on her. I was jealous that she could speak better Tagalog than me and she wasn’t even Filipina. In those small seconds, I had a bodily reaction and flash of jealousy because I had felt insecure and angry at myself for not being better. As soon as the interview was over, every time I thought about it, the waves would hit again.
I hated the feeling. It made me feel angry. It made me feel pathetic. It made me feel sick. I then decided that I needed to get rid of it. So I walked up to the woman and I complimented her. I told her how impressed I was with her public speaking and her use of Tagalog. Just like that, the emotion was gone.
Instead of externally harming another person or holding the negative emotions internally, I was able to show another person a moment of vulnerability.
If you are jealous of someone, tell them and compliment them on what your jealous of. This system has worked wonders for me. Most people will be reading this and thing “hell no, I am not going to compliment them” but it is not healthy to hold that emotion inside. The longer you hold it inside, it punishes you and increases the risk that you might take an external action against this person such as gossip.
Next time you feel jealous, try it. You will feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
