Episode Transcript
Have you ever noticed that you get jealous of other people, even subtle types of jealousy? Maybe you're not acting it out, but internally, maybe there's still a little bit of jealousy. Today we're going to look at jealousy in a much deeper level here on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today we're going to talk about jealousy and hopefully we're going to crack the code of this issue. We've had other episodes on jealousy and. Basically, we've talked about it in terms of the experience of jealousy, maybe the emotions, maybe that the origins and how it feels inside and so forth. Today I'm going to bring it to the next level. So what does that mean? We're going to talk about responsibility, and we're gonna talk about some spiritual principles that maybe can also help us finish this phenomenon. So first of all, let's look at the facts in terms of jealousy. And jealousy could also mean it doesn't have to be like, I'm jealous of that person. It could also mean that I think I deserve the same opportunities as that person, or I think I deserve the same attention as that person. So for some reason, some other person is being focused on as representing something that I desire for myself and somehow I am disconnected from it. And I'm sure all of us have had this experience. So the first thing I said here is, let's look at the facts. The facts are that that person is experiencing their own life. So now that I'm saying this, first of all, let me say everything I'm about to say is going to make sense, but when it works is when we're able to use it at a deeper level and use it to separate myself from the situation and take my own power back. Nobody can actually take my power actually, is that I drain my own power by thinking in certain ways. By making other people the embodiment of what I think I should be. Does that make any sense? Why would I make somebody else the embodiment of what I want or who I am? See how we're kind of like there's something not clear about this. So let's look at the facts. Everyone is playing their own part. They're living their own life. So let's be very logical. That person is living their life and I'm living my life. So if someone gets a promotion and maybe I tried out for the promotion. If any of you have been watching the podcast, you know that one of the biggest disappointments was when I didn't get this job I, I put in for a long time ago and I was devastated because I really thought that I should have gotten it. And so then after that I had a really hard time dealing with myself and how I viewed the other person that got the job. So in that case, that person got the job and I didn't get the job. So the jealousy began when I started feeling bad about myself. 'cause I didn't get the job. So one thing we can notice is if something happens and I start feeling bad about myself, maybe I can immediately remember, Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. This has nothing to do with them. I am starting to feel bad about myself. Why do I feel bad about myself in this moment? Usually I think it's because that something out there is being recognized as good or desirable or something that I want, and I'm not experiencing it for myself in this moment. So it's almost like a child. The mother says, you can't have a cookie until you eat dinner. After you eat dinner, and the kid starts throwing a tantrum. I want it now. I want it now. I want it now. There's nothing wrong with the child wanting the cookie, but sometimes it's not the right time. So one thing that we can say to ourselves in those moments where maybe I feel a little bad is that, wait a minute, it doesn't mean that I shouldn't want the thing, or that maybe I don't deserve it, or something like that. Maybe it's just not the right time for me. It might be the right time for them. And in the episode of being happy for others, I talked about this like that I can be happy for others if I recognize that it's their journey and it's their fortune to have this experience now. It doesn't mean that I will never have it or that I can't have it, or something's wrong with me because I'm not having it, and certainly it, I hope it doesn't give me the right to start hating that person or talking negatively about per that person, haven't we done that? That's because we feel so bad about ourselves and we don't see a way out. So we start doing anything we can to feel better maybe making the other person wrong and so forth. None of us wanna act that way. So facing the facts. The second thing I wrote here is the courage to take responsibility. Take responsibility for what? My own feelings. It's hard. This is hard, because we've been. Training ourselves to say that something else is responsible for how I feel. Just take that one piece of information and use that this week. Am I making anybody else responsible for how I feel? We completely disempower ourselves when we do that. So the courage to take responsibility means whatever is happening. It doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter what. I'm gonna look at how I feel now and take responsibility for that. We had a situation at work, you know, or any time. Any time. Any time when somebody is responsible for something, let's say, and then they don't, they're not responsible for it and maybe they lash out. Anybody feel overwhelmed and then somebody comes and tries to talk to you and then you lash out at them. Why am I lashing out at them? I'm not really mad at them. I just feel disempowered. So the very important thing here is to try to take responsibility. The courage, I don't care what's going on. They got the job. I didn't get the job, they got the accolades. They're, they're happy and I'm not, or whatever. I'm gonna take responsible for how I feel right now. I'm not gonna make it an insult. They hurt my feelings. They disrespected me, all this stuff, because what that does is it sets up again, that thing where they're responsible for my feelings. It takes courage to disconnect from that and say, God, everything is gone, and it's me and my feelings. That's it. Next I wrote here, beyond understanding to transformation. As long as we're holding onto this idea that situations can make me feel something, or they're responsible, let's say you can, you can argue, well, Dr. Anne, I didn't feel bad until I didn't get the job, so didn't not getting the job make me feel this way. I would say no. You know why? Because if somebody else didn't get the job, they wouldn't suffer as much as I did let's say. I suffered for years over that. So what does that mean? That it's not the, not getting the job, that's the stimulus, that's the situation. But how I respond is all me, all me, can I take responsibility? So if I understand that I'm moving from understanding to transformation, taking everybody out, and I'm just looking at my feelings, I feel bad about myself. I feel sad that I didn't get the job. I feel like I really want to have a baby when everybody else is having babies and I can't, or I really feel like I want to get that promotion and I feel sad that other people are getting it and I, and I'm not getting it yet. At least be honest about how you feel without blaming or making it responsible. This is how I feel. Let it talk to you. No judgment. Once you do that, it's like 80% of the jealousy is gonna be gone. Understanding to transformation, what is the transformation? When I take the truth of it and say, okay, this is how I feel, then I can kind of nurse my own feelings. And then see what I wanna do about it. Do I still even want the job? Can I, can I do something about having a baby? Am I doing everything I can do? Do I need, I can. I can be logical. Then I think when we get into this feeling bad inside, I think we get involved in the emotion so much that we can't think properly. Did you ever have somebody when you were upset and somebody said to you something very logical? Like, let's say you broke up with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you're a teenager and you're devastated and somebody says to you, oh, don't worry, you'll get another boyfriend or you'll get another girlfriend. At that moment, the logic is not the right thing because the feelings still need to be processed. So maybe one thing I can say right now is dissolving jealousy is contingent on us processing our own feelings independent of the situation or other people. The other thing I wrote here is I am on my own journey. Can I take responsibility for that? This is hard. I mean, I'm talking about it. It seems like it's very logical, but i'm gonna say that when the emotions get kicked up, we forget this. We get upset. We start blaming, we start, resenting. We feel disconnected from others. We put on a brave face, but we're really feeling bad inside. It's because we're not processing our feelings and we're not being fully responsible for ourselves. So here I wrote, I am responsible for my own journey. What does that mean? Not only the outside circumstances that I can maybe control. Maybe I have a choice of job or a choice of this or that. Maybe I have some choices, right? But internally, I'm on my own journey as well, isn't it? Can anybody else get into my mind? Can anybody else help me with my feelings? Not really. The only thing we can do for others is listen and be kind and give the kind of merciful space that is needed to process the feelings. Some of you grew up in my generation, generation X from, you know, grew up in the seventies and eighties. The focus was so much outside in terms of being able to manage things on the outside, there was almost practically none. I'll, I wanna say none, but almost no attention paid to processing of feelings. It wasn't given any importance. And because of that, we find ourselves stuck in these situations. Jealousy, anger anxiety, depression, let's say. I mean at, you know, ongoing, chronically, we get anxiety, depression, and so forth. We end up taking medication and we end up, you know, when we need to learn how to process our own feelings and be responsible for what we feel. It's not easy because as soon as we get emotional, like I said, the other stuff comes up. So it takes a little bit of time for meditation, the intellect to get a handle on this, to figure out what it's all about. And here I put in aa, they have this slogan, live and let Live in 12 Step program, right? Live and let live. It's a very deep slogan actually. Live, meaning I'm living my own life, my own life. Everybody out there. Have you actually said, this is my life. I am living it. We're so focused on everything that's going on outside, isn't it? And reacting. Have I owned my own existence? And then let live, let everybody else own their existence. This is hard. I was talking to a student yesterday in terms of being a mom and she has adult children and she's having a hard time like detaching from the kids. She's still worried and they're all adults. What's going on there? Can I live my life? Can I maintain this kind of appropriate I don't wanna say even distance, but distinction between me and other people. No one else can have my life and I can't live anybody else's. Right? So live and let live. And then the final one is the courage to be unique. The courage to say, yes, I am the only me that ever was and ever will be. And for some of you out there, and for me, and I know a lot of us that idea is painful because the idea of being me was so not accepted or felt not accepted. There was no room for processing of feelings, being okay to express feelings or feeling okay to be myself and things like that. I didn't experience that before. It was all externally based. So when I say here free to be myself, or okay that I'm a unique person, it may feel painful even to think that because there's been so little room to experience myself in a safe way. So final idea here is that dissolving jealousy and all those feeling bad about myself. I'm gonna say the, the medicine for that is giving myself room to acknowledge, take responsibility for, and process my feelings. Once the feelings are processed, then I can bring in the logic and bring in the decision making and so forth. And isn't that gonna save us a lot of heartache? It doesn't feel good to hate other people or resent other people. Or look up to, or look down at or what all this stuff that we do that's sorrowful and hurts, we can stop it. Love your own self, your own life, your own feelings. Trust that what you feel is what you feel, and it's okay whatever it is. Give it a chance to express itself to yourself. What am I feeling right now? Forget everything else. What am I feeling right now? And let it talk and you'll discover what you're feeling, write it down, start reflecting on how you feel. And then not only will we be able to be responsible for ourselves, but also care. Somebody cares. Somebody loves me. I love me. I'm loving myself. I'm being that loving, safe, caring, listening for myself that I need, everybody needs. So let's take just a few seconds and just have a short, short meditation on this. So sitting quietly, just reflect for a moment on. The idea of taking responsibility for my own feelings and my own experience in life. Maybe next time I find myself reacting to situations or other people reacting by feeling bad about myself or feeling confused or angry or scared or overwhelmed. All of those reactions. Next time, see if I can take a moment, take responsibility how I feel, and give myself a chance to process those feelings. That I'm going to create the safe environment. That this will not only dissolve jealousy and those other reactions, but it will begin to build a foundation of a loving, caring, internal environment for me. Okay, so now gently come back to Waking Awareness and we're back. So I'll leave it there. I hope that you get something that you can use out of this exploration. It's a good idea sometimes to watch these videos more than once. Maybe take some notes, think about it and try to use these ideas in the moment in your life. I have found that by paying attention to myself, watching and also caring myself, giving myself a chance to process my own feelings has helped me so much to feel better about myself. I'm growing self-respect in a whole new way. And I don't really blame people anymore. Maybe there's still a few that I'm still kind of stuck, you know? But it's really not about them, it's about the depth of the issue for me. And I'm aware of that. So I'm not bad mouthing anybody, obviously, but if I still find that I'm reacting to somebody I know, okay. That's the thing that I still gotta work on. So we will leave it there. The slogan is Heal, empower, and Serve. And until next time. Take care.
