Jealousy

“The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.”
—William Penn

When the green-eyed monster of jealousy rears its ugly head it’s never a good thing for anyone involved, but usually the one who suffers from it is worse off in the end.

Jealousy has its source in low self-esteem because when we are sure of ourselves we don’t have fears of inadequacy and abandonment, so therefore we have more trust. When we are confident in ourselves we are not consumed by jealousy which can tear any relationship apart.

Often when a person feels jealous it’s because they fear loss and abandonment and think that their life can’t go on without a particular person. Becoming dependant on another is not in our best interest anyway, and fearing that we cannot survive without someone is a sure setup for jealousy even when there is nothing to warrant it.

Sometimes people will do things that give us reason not to trust. These things should not be ignored or shrugged off as our jealousy issues, but rather something we need to face and deal with.

In extreme cases people have issues of jealousy so severe that they don’t even want happiness for those whom they claim to love. They see it as some kind of threat when a friend or family member spends time with someone else. Again, this is an issue of low self-esteem that can only be dealt with by the person who is jealous.

Awareness is the first step to rid ourselves of the ugly jealousy traits, but it takes more than that. We must look deep inside and work hard to overcome our issues so that we don’t push everyone away who crosses our path.

When you feel jealous stop before reacting to see how it’s going to effect others.

Abandonment

“I have a great fear of abandonment. That somebody or people that I really care for will leave, so I’ve always sort of held people at a really good arms length. You embrace them, but only to a certain degree.”
—Sandra Bullock

The fear of losing love can keep us from finding it since we may put up walls and hold others at arms length. We may attempt over and over again to find that special love relationship and find that it never works. Perhaps we set failure in motion because we fear love’s loss and find fault with another whether there is reason to or not.

When we fear abandonment it makes it difficult, if not impossible to truly become close to another. We find intimacy difficult because we just assume that the other person is going to walk away so we only show them part of who we are keeping the rest hidden.

The truth of the matter is, often those we love do leave. We grow apart, one person may be untrustworthy, and people die. This is part of living life. And I mean living. Otherwise, to never open up to another, to never risk love and loss is simply existing in this world. Existing and living fully are totally opposite ways of experiencing life on earth.

We can face these fears, slowly if we need to. We don’t have to throw ourselves out there totally for every person who comes along, but we can try to trust one person at a time or more if we feel safe. It’s scary, but if we always expect the worst we will get it.

Being abandoned is never a good feeling, but it is no cause to stop living life. We will find people who love us for who we are, who are trustworthy, and who won’t leave us until it is their time to go for whatever reason that is. We cannot hold onto anyone anyway. We only have the moment.

Trust just a little more with each relationship and find that there are some worth the risk.