Tackling Jealousy

Jealousy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s human nature. It’s natural to feel jealous from time to time. Jealousy becomes tricky when we act out in jealousy or we wallow in it. It becomes questionable when it starts to consume you and creeps into every aspect of your life and you find yourself feeling bitter and angry most of the time.

We tend to feel jealous about others’ successes, strengths, lifestyles and relationships. I know I am very guilty of this. Social media also can trigger jealousy. This is mostly where my problem lies. It is so easy for us to see other peoples “better lives” and it makes us green with envy. Self-doubt often leads to jealousy. We feel threatened, or less than, or not good enough. We fear that someone else’s strengths mean something negative about us.

Lately I have been very jealous of another local girl who does the same thing I do. Whenever I check out her social media this rush of jealousy surges through my body and makes me feel threatened. We share similar experiences and share a similar story with the same man who abused us and took advantage of our vulnerable personalities.

She has been a “threat” to me for a while even though I have never actually met her. We used to communicate over Snapchat and Instagram a few months ago and tried to have somewhat of a friendship, but she triggered me and caused my anxiety to soar because we did have a history without me really knowing it. I’m not trying to talk shit about anyone or bring anyone down, but she is the girl my ex was seeing while we were together.

I have forgiven her for what happened because she admitted her wrong doing. That's a big step to admit any wrong doing and a lot of people can/will never admit it so I am impressed with her maturity. But just because I have forgiven her doesn’t mean I want to talk to her because she reminds me of him. She is a trigger for me in more ways than one. Her blog and podcast are very successful, and her comparison of our relationships with T just made me mad and made me feel belittled. I get jealous because I feel like she is a better content creator than I am. She makes it seem so easy when I try so hard and it infuriates me. Sometimes, I even found myself being jealous about her relationship with T because she made it sound so much better than my relationship with him.

Even though she makes me mad and makes me feel threatened, I have come to realize that we are not competitors. This isn't a competition on who has the better blog or a sadder story. Her and I are people who have been abused and we need to tell our stories without feeling threatened or feeling like we are in competition with each other. Even though she doesn’t feel the same way, she is my “sister” who needs my support just like I need hers. We need to stand up and believe in each other. We are on a journey of self love “together” and I will forever support her, even from afar.

She isn’t the only person that makes me jealous. I have been surrounding myself with really talented people for a while now. People like Darren, Amber, Tim, Louis, etc, and I have had this overcoming sense of jealousy come over my body sometimes when I am around them. They are so talented in many different ways and I love it! I just get jealous because I am not as good as them. But something that is cool about having talented friends is that they help you improve on things you might not be the strongest with (like singing or playing an instrument for example).

Being friends with Amber kind of helps me control my jealousy because she is helping me improve my singing voice and hopefully will teach me how to play the guitar. That makes me feel so less jealous because I get to improve on the skills that I was jealous of other people for. It feels good to somewhat overcome my jealousy with the help of my friends. Amber is the one who said that me and this other blogger shouldn’t be competitors, and she was right! It really changed my view on the whole situation. The good thing about having so many supportive and creative friends is that they help me whenever I need it. I have a question about YouTube, and Darren helps me with no questions asked. Same with Louis! I am so blessed.

As I said before, jealousy is a completely normal feeling so I shouldn’t feel bad when I have a spurt of jealousy. One thing I know I need to manage is controlling my jealousy and bringing it to a healthy level and not letting it completely debilitate me at times. Something that I should probably do is block the other bloggers account. Not to be petty but so I’m not tempted to look at it and become jealous of her.

There is no way for me to get rid of my jealousy and I’m okay with that. As long as I can express jealousy in a healthy way and not let it control my life then I will be just fine. Focusing on MY blog and my YouTube channel is what’s best. My creative outlet might make other people jealous and I just want to tell those people that it’s okay to feel that way! Feeling that way is normal and should encourage you to push yourself and thrive. That’s how I am using my jealousy! As a way to make myself thrive and make my blog better. So I guess I should say thank you to HER. Thank you for pushing me to be better despite my jealous feelings. Thank you for helping me thrive and be the “boss babe” I need to be.