Jealousy has often been referred to as a monster for a reason. When it shows up it snarls and reacts in a way of survival, bearing its claws and teeth. As if it were a very basic part of our animal nature. It brings up the fight in us. We fight ourselves with the torcher of it’s silence or act it outwardly in the form of pain and manipulation resulting in fighting with others.
No one wants to admit to the feelings. It’s embarrassing and it feels childish. But it’s there. It is a survival instinct of our animal nature. It triggers our very basic fears of not enough. Fear of not having enough, being enough, not enough things, not enough love, not enough…
I have lived long enough to let go of my adolescent ways of manipulating for love. That doesn’t mean I don’t ever feel jealous. I do. I hate it. It’s painful. So painful that I refuse to feed the beast anymore. I’ve had to learn new tools. Forced if you will by the nature of jealousy itself.
First I found out what doesn’t work. To try to shut the “monster” up. I know the more I struggle with it the worse I feel. It’s like a shameful secret I don’t want to talk about. And yet, giving jealousy permission to be expressed leads to the feelings of safety I seek. I’ve learned to move through pain to love and find freedom through its expression. Yes, there’s magic in the telling, a true gift from a beautiful teacher. I’ve been shown that there is something to be gained from letting it out. And interestingly enough that something can be more love.
I think of the ways that it has come out throughout my lifetime and of the feelings it took to try to repress it. What misery and suffering accompanied it. Loss of control, fear, shame…all feelings that seem to be needed to try to shove jealous feelings down far enough so that I couldn’t feel the stabbing pain of those snarling teeth. From this place its expression did not work out well at all. In fact just the opposite. I acted out of fear and manipulated for the love that I wanted in hopes that I could control and feel safe. Which didn’t make me feel safe at all. Just more afraid. Those were the very expressions that taught me to try to keep the beast within quiet and forbid it being revealed.
Now, having moved beyond the ways of my child and practicing adult life I’ve come to offer a different expeirance. It’s about being afraid but willing, willing to share with intamicy my feelings. To be willing to speak what is true. To expose the fear for what it is, insecurities yet to be set free. Within this gesture I can move more quickly through the threat of becoming entangled in jealousy’s claws. There is a safety created in this act of intimacy that takes the threat away. To speak my vulnerability and fear of loss brings such freedom. Not granted or gifted from another but simply found within the space of my own heart.
Jealousy unexpressed becomes the lion of rage and the evil green eyed monster. Through expression some understandings can emerge. The greater the love we feel the greater the fear of loss and I’ve been told the only solution to that is to love more. Jealousy buried is fertile ground for rage to be born. In silence it becomes a killer. Expression is freedom.
The peace of my soul and the harmony of my inner world depend upon me taking the risk, loving deeper, trusting more and being free.
Charlotte
