jealousy

Hey friend - hope you’re doing well!

I’ve been feeling LOTS of feelings recently, as a 20-something often does, and wanted to reflect on one emotion that's been lurking around in my mind for quite a while. Jealousy.

I did a quick Google search of the definition of jealousy and was surprised by the complexity of the emotion. From what I found, jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety. Jealousy can consist of one or more emotions such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness, or disgust.

I think jealousy is one of the most genuine emotions we can experience. It’s easy for us to throw around that we’re “so jealous” of our friend who just went on vacation or a stranger’s successes that we see through glamorous photos and eloquently written captions. Jealousy has always been around, but the severity of the jealousy disease has certainly increased with the rise of social media.

Jealousy creeps in often in my life because of social media. I was talking to my therapist about this in regard to some of the relationships in my life. When I see pictures on Instagram or Snapchat stories of people going on fun trips with their partners or some of my close friends hanging out with other people, I catch myself getting jealous. It’s not that I don’t have a great relationship with my boyfriend or those friends; I 100% do!! But for some reason, my natural instinct is to immediately spiral toward jealousy and all of the feelings that make up that potion.

It’s especially difficult to manage jealousy when the traits, experiences, relationships, or opportunities that you’re longing for seem obtainable. Whether you share similarities with someone, but they have a certain trait that you’re wishing for, or losing a promotion to a coworker you’re closely aligned to, this feeling of longing can be taxing, and may strike a nerve. It feels like running toward a treat that’s dangling in front of your face; like losing the last puzzle piece and watching someone else finish their own; or wishing for a dream to come true and then watching as it’s been granted to another. The end goal or desire seems possible, but for whatever reason, it isn’t a part of your story. To me, seeing something I want being so close, but just out of reach, makes my feelings of jealousy even stronger. These moments are the most challenging for me to pull myself out of.

When we let jealousy consume our thoughts, we lose sight of the traits, opportunities, and experiences that we do have. Every day, our friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, friends of friends, and strangers post life updates on their social media for us to consume. When we see the highlight reel of their life, it’s natural to look at the pieces they have that you don’t. I’ve been trying to remember that they could be thinking the exact same thing about me, and my life.

Being jealous is a side effect of comparison. When we are comparing ourselves to others, and allowing jealousy to sneak in, it’s hard to realize that what we DO have in our lives is just as great as other people’s experiences. Because everyone is different, no two lives can be the same, therefore we cannot have identical experiences. When I catch myself getting stuck in the mud in jealousy after comparing myself to someone, I think about the things that I do have. Recognizing the little things in my life that I love, like the way my mom says my name when she sees me after a long time apart, and the little text conversations about book plots and characters with my best friend. These small things remind me that although someone else may have something that I want, the things I do have are beautiful and make my life special.

As someone with anxiety and depression, I’ve gotten the advice to practice gratitude often. It’s in every article about dealing with anxiety, creating good habits, and even in those (overpriced) journals that give you daily prompts for morning and night. It took me a while to be able to connect to what that really meant. When I tried practicing gratitude before, I would write 3 things that I was grateful for that day. All of the entries always sounded something like this.

1. My mom, dad, sister, boyfriend, dogs, family, friends, etc.

2. Food, shelter, clean water, my bed, etc.

3. Education, my car, my health, etc.

Now, while these things are crucial to the happiness and joy in my life, they never really helped me strain through my anxious thoughts. I’ve slowly come to realize that sometimes, we have to experience negative emotions in order to really understand the positive ones.

For me, it takes getting jealous sometimes at what other people have or are doing for me to recognize the things that are uniquely mine. It takes losing a loved one to realize how important the people in your inner circle are and to share that love you have for them often. Maybe it’s a hard day of work that shows you how fortunate you are to have a job that keeps you comfortable. It’s a fight with your partner that helps you understand how lucky you are to have something worth fighting for. It’s going away to college and missing your hometown and your family for you to realize how amazing your childhood was. I’m working on taking my jealousy and transforming it into gratitude.

I’m trying to navigate my emotions and learn how to see things from a new perspective.

How has a bad experience helped you grow? You can leave a comment below or text or private message me! :)

Thank you all so much for your support.

Love, Sami