The Power of Jealousy
We're all a little green and that's human. Yellow Brick Road.
Happy Leo Season!
This glorious month has never failed to make me sun-kissed, flirty, and ready to post way more saucy/fit pics than usual, and I love her for it. One of my favorite lessons to come from Leo season is learning how to safely exist in pride. When I say safely, I mean teetering the line between embodying your glory and feeling the need to prove it. Between authenticity and superiority. Pride catches a bad rap - mostly because it makes people jealous - but I think both pride and jealousy are valuable lessons in being a human with a fierce sense of identity.
Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it. - William Shenstone
No More Jealousy Slander
Everybody and their mama gets jealous. You, me, everybody. Moving on.
We have to stop condemning jealousy. Jealousy itself is not a problem; it’s a part of being human. The problem is the way we might choose to react to jealousy. The problem is that we deny jealousy exists rather than naming it and responding in power and maturity. The problem is that we feed into a culture of clicks, likes, and comparison designed to create jealousy, and then feign infallibility to its poison. Jealousy is a byproduct of scarcity, and when observed in grace, can reveal what we want most and why we don’t feel deserving of it.
Even the kindest and most “actualized” among us experience jealousy because, well, we’re capable of feeling desire (how stunning?) and we’re living under power structures which perpetuate emotional, financial, and spiritual warfare. To add to the fuckery, we spend much of our lives looking at phone screens where little people project half-truths and highlight reels leaving us wondering why our own behind-the-scenes realities don’t measure up. So there are many logical reasons why we experience jealousy, and casting that experience away as something only the “bad guys” do dehumanizes all of us.
Jealousy is built from a belief that superiority exists, and fear that we’ll be crushed beneath it. It hinges on our insecurity to grasp the things we love most and the twisted fantasy that it’s actually possible someone can take them away from us. It’s easier to create an illusion of this kind with people you don’t know intimately, but jealousy is not limited to people who we’ve only seen through filters and curation. I think we’re most jealous of people who we’ve witnessed navigate darkness and come through the other side. We’re jealous of people who we’ve seen completely undressed and revealed. We’re most jealous of the brave. Brave enough to ask for what they want and need. Brave enough to be themselves. Brave enough to be enough.
The truth is, we’re just as capable and amazing and talented as the people we’re most jealous of; we just don’t believe it. It’s a lot easier to project our insecurities onto someone else than pop the lid open on our own bullshit, which is why folks stay at the surface and settle into jealousy more than they might want to. I wonder if jealousy operates as a coping mechanism to protect us from the hurt of how much we deny ourselves our greatest desires. Because if you interrogated why you’re jealous of that bag, you’d realize you just want security and the kind of access a bag might represent. If you interrogated why you’re jealous of that relationship, you’d realize you wish you felt safe enough to be vulnerable with somebody. It’s never about the bag, it’s never about the looks, it’s never about the thing. Jealousy is always about what the object of your envy represents - access, safety, love - and that is worthy of our attention even if it makes us uncomfortable.
Why not you?
Jealousy, at its core, is a lack of grace. Grace for others to exist beyond our projections. Grace for ourselves to be enough beyond perfection. Jealousy is not a chronic case of hateration if you don’t allow it to run your life. Of course, some people will weaponize jealousy and make others feel wrong for existing beyond the limitations they see for themselves. We have a choice to hold ourselves accountable for doing our work and not making our jealousy someone else’s problem. We also have to find grace for the fact that jealousy is natural and can be a tool to transform beyond not-enoughness.
Jealousy is most valuable when we can interrogate it without becoming it. In the words of Margaret Atwood, “you can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.” So, maybe jealousy can becoming a gentle nudge toward self rather than a raging war against someone else. Hint: only one option is the winning team. Maybe when we realize we can have those things too, it can become less about our coworker, our friend’s success, our perfect sister, and more about how to get ourselves to place of contentment and gratitude.
When I was in my early 20’s, I would often say that I didn’t experience jealousy. I conflated jealousy with an inability to be happy for people and a level of insecurity I didn’t think I’d ever experienced before. It’s giving delusion miss girl, but in retrospect, I actually don’t believe I experienced jealousy as frequently or intensely as I might now. In all honesty, I didn’t experience the burning belly of wanting and yearning the way I do now either. I didn’t want anything anyone else in my life had and I made sure of it.
Walking in a path that was a sure bet on some version of “success,” hanging out with people who never challenged or inspired me, dating people who I knew at some level of my consciousness would never be part of my personal growth; I wasn’t brave. I designed my life so there were no honest mirrors, and I wouldn’t experience the feelings that come with looking in the eyes of a bitch who makes you want to step your cookies up. Now, I’m surrounded by equals, greats, and people who I feel honored to witness and love in this lifetime. I’m in my truth more than ever, and I transmute jealousy into pure admiration and respect for the fact that my community is but a reflection of my own magic. When you’re brave and dare to dream and grow something that is so of us, there’s so much to lose and a lot of fear comes with that experience. Bravery is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it, and much of the fear that precludes actualizing a dream is Trojan-horsed in the form of jealousy.
Like most murky emotions, we con ourselves into believing we can become so successful and important and focused that we’ll never “need” to experience jealousy and I don’t agree with that. It doesn’t matter how confident, accomplished, or happy you are, you will still experience acute jealousy as long as you’re evolving and as long as you’re hungry. At some point, you stop claiming jealousy is about anyone but you. You stop letting it consume you and cloud your vision of people who are actually great examples and guides for your own path. You stop reacting to your feelings of inadequacy, and start responding to the hope of becoming someone you admire.
Jealousy is just shadow work, folks. Instead of shaming and blaming, let’s allow it to spark deeper interest in who we’re trying to become next. How fun is that?
Journal Prompts
How often do you experience jealous? Where do you feel it in your body and how does it feel?
What characteristics, traits, or relationships do you find yourself most jealous of?
What is insecurity is jealousy challenging you to confront?
What strength or desire is jealousy challenging you to confront?
Beautiful post! I especially loved the recognition that feelings of jealousy is shadow work and needs to dived into in order to heal.
Really loved reading this. You are such a talented writer 😭 Thank you for this!