Jealousy in a Romantic relationship...

If resentment or jealousy had a physical form, it would resemble a boomerang. Mr. Charlie Reese

Without jealousy, a person cannot be in love. Saint Augustine

Jealous people cause problems for other people, yet they are miserable within. Some Fruits of Solitude by William Penn, 1693

What is enmity? What function does it play in our life and interpersonal interactions? What makes us jealous, exactly? Is envy jealousy?

The negative internal dialogue and feelings of insecurity, worry, and anxiety about an impending loss of something that a person values, such as a connection, friendship, or love, are conveyed by the reactive state of jealousy. A variety of fear-based emotions, including resentment, wrath, abandonment, sadness, and contempt, to mention a few, are frequently combined to form jealousy. On the other side, envy is a reactive feeling of unhappiness and resentment that is driven by and connected to a desire to own the traits or things of another, much like an effort at energetic theft. According to the definition, larceny is the unlawful seizing and transportation of another person's personal property with the intention of robbing the owner of ownership. This may sound familiar to you. Ever experience this before? Who hasn't, really—on the sports team, in the family and social circles, at the high school dance, on the playground, or at your place of employment?

Because jealousy has strong evolutionary roots, it may serve as a deterrent to adultery. When an intimate connection is believed to be under jeopardy, jealousy rears its ugly green-eyed head. A rival is created when a significant other grins while conversing with someone else at a party. A supervisor or coworker of the opposing sex travels on business with a spouse. We perceive the competition for our desired person's attention as exuding a distinct aura of traits or qualities that we believe we could never have or maybe have not yet developed. Jealousy can be our intuition telling us to go within to realize something deeper about our own selves, or it can be our intuition telling us to establish a deeper level of communication with our friend, partner, spouse, or coworker. Alternatively, it can be our intuition telling us to dive deeper into our shadows.

The negative side of jealousy is that it can be so destructive or self-destructive when it leads to actions that make the person or thing we want most disappear. When we dance in the emotions of anger, resentment, or rage over a perceived real or imagined abandonment, we risk pushing the other person away unintentionally or, by accusing them of possible infidelity, giving them the idea to commit the crime for which they are already being investigated, tried, and imprisoned.

We are diverted from our own emotional suffering when we are focused with how disloyal others have been to us. The "gift" of envy is that it nearly always serves as a reminder to go within and pay attention to the still, little voice inside. We can only obtain insight into the current circumstance and the real motivations driving our response emotional state via reflection.

Do you have any jealousy? Feeling out of control in a relationship, fear of losing a friend or partner, a lack of trust, and rage at the actual or perceived attention that someone else is devoting to anything other than you are all warning signs of jealousy (humans, animals, jobs, sports or hobbies).

What causes enmity? Insecure people and/or those in insecure relationships frequently display jealousy. Jealousy frequently results from feelings of inadequacy or helplessness, apprehension about the future, or worry about being unlovable. People frequently transform their fear into anger, which they regulate by trying to control a partner, friend, coworker, or child by breaching their trust, searching through their personal belongings, phone, computer, Facebook/Twitter account, and possibly making accusations while using other techniques that unintentionally may drive them away emotionally and/or physically; this results in a self-fulfilling prophecy that mirrors their own worst fears.

All human emotions exist to support us in using the mirror of our own perceptions to discover who and where we truly are in the world that we have created. Jealousy is a means for us to divert our attention away from our own unpleasant sentiments or thoughts about our lives (fear, guilt, humiliation, rage, resentment, and feelings of abandonment). Jealousy and love don't necessarily go hand in hand. To be envious, you don't have to like the other person. Additionally, it results from egotism. In certain cases, persons who have been unfaithful themselves would suspect or accuse others of doing what they have done out of jealousy. Jealousy may be used as a tool for control over a partner, limiting their access to money, where they go, who they communicate to, and other things. In other words, when someone has poor self-esteem and feels inadequate or helpless, they might utilize envy to feel more powerful. The real bite, though, is that the more they exert control over their spouse in an attempt to calm their emotions, the more helpless they feel since they become dependent on their partner's response in order to feel good—a vicious cycle.

Pathological envy can, at its worst, result in obsessive and delusional thinking. In essence, the more you are forced to repeatedly chew on the same infinite stream of thought, the less reality testing you are able to conduct. How could this not cause serious problems in logic, assumption, and suspicion?

On the other hand, starting with our earliest peer connections, we frequently utilize envy as a test. What exactly is the cause of sibling conflict? To test the strength of our bonds, we frequently trigger it in our family or our spouse. Our amount of care in a relationship seems to be measured by our level of jealousy.

A tiny amount of testing for jealousy, for example, can be used to gauge the other person's level of interest after a few dates with a new love interest. You might accomplish this by explaining that you have a prior commitment or another date on Saturday night and so can't go out. You can interpret the other person's moderately jealous response as an indication of their concern or level of commitment. This might serve as a litmus test for whether it would be prudent and safe to devote more energy and time to this connection. Some people use the prospect of losing a love interest as a gauge for their level of desire.

How to Stop Being Jealous:

- Permit yourself to experience the underlying fear or rage that is motivating the defensive jealousy. Recognize the emotion you're experiencing. Feel it in the appropriate parts of your body. Is it in your chest, shoulders, neck, or stomach? It is time to start transforming the fear, rage, or other emotions underlying the issue after you have given a "face" to the underlying causes of your envy and realized where it impacts you physically. For changing the thoughts and feelings that keep us bound in harmful patterns like excessive jealousy, we have a number of guided and mindfulness meditations as well as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping treatments.

- Before you allow your assumptions go too far, consider talking to your spouse about your thoughts after you have identified the source of your reaction. If you decide to talk to your loved one about the matter, be sure you are speaking honestly. Set your objectives for a fruitful dialogue after entering your heart (see out our Loving Benefactor meditation at digstation.com or in our books). Responding "You did/did this or that" is playing the "blame game," so accept responsibility for your feelings by saying "I feel this way when I think this." Remind yourself that the only victim we are is ourselves; no one causes us to feel jealous; we choose to be jealous.

-What do your feelings of jealousy teach you about yourself? Consider the idea that we are mirrors reflecting the universe we make, and that when we interact with people, our own thoughts and beliefs are reflected back to us. What's going on within and why am I drawing this circumstance to me? ask yourself. What is the gift for me in this circumstance, you could also inquire? To help you connect to Universal Wisdom and get the clarity of any circumstance, we offer a beautiful guided meditation.

- Reconnect with your True Essence to rediscover your worth and discover your inner resources. From the link on our website to digstation.com, download our True Essence guided meditation. (Our books also have a "Who Am I?" meditation that you may perform with a partner.) You won't ever have a reason to feel envious of anyone again after you've seen a glimpse of your True Essence. You are extraordinarily brilliant, attractive, and competent exactly as you are. A person cannot be properly "lured away" by another person unless they genuinely want to leave in the first place.

- Make a conscious choice to nurture your relationship with yourself. The Challenge of Selfishness Any relationship may be hampered by love since you can only love another person as much as you love yourself. We cover this in depth in our books and seminars and provide simple exercises, tools, and approaches for getting over this obstacle. Consider this: If we do not respect, love, or have compassion for ourselves, why should anybody else have sympathy for us? By our own behaviors, we demonstrate that we are not deserving of respect or compassion.

Mild envy may restore our dedication to relationships to its foundation. In order to build a more healthy relationship that is less dramatic and more joyful and inner-peace-filled, intense or pathological jealousy in a relationship might be a sign that it is time to engage in some very serious reflection.

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