How to Overcome Jealousy using The Confidence Model
14 December 2006After talking briefly about winning and celebrating the victories and achievements of those around you in my previous post I started to consider how The Confidence Model could be used to overcome jealousy.
What is jealousy? Jealousy really is the fear of loss in the future. Think about the times you’re jealous, when you see another having something you want (be it a physical possession or the attention and admiration they’re receiving from everyone in the room.) Why are you jealous? Jealousy is in part because you want what someone else has, but oftentimes it’s the fear that you’re losing something in the present or in the future.
So jealousy is a perceived threat, and it’s really not the threat that you’re afraid of, but that you won’t be able to handle it. When you think you can’t handle a situation you need to work on your self assurance. Self assurance is knowing that you can create the outcome you want. Clarity is very important when it comes to self assurance. After all, if you can’t see the outcome, how can you be sure you’re going to reach it?
An important point regarding the clarity of any outcome: It’s important that you stay focused on the “what†of a situation, and not the “howâ€. How do you know you’re looking at the “whatâ€? A real simple and powerful way of doing this is to ask yourself ‘so I can do/be/feel what?’ So say you want to be with someone. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. One of my primary goals in life is to connect with people. But if you make that goal about just one person, then you’re into a how. I want to be with someone is a what. I want to be with Jane in accounts is a how. The what is the endpoint, the emotional payoff.
Remember self assurance is “I don’t know how, but I know the outcome.â€
What if you just can’t be self assured right now? Does that mean you’re doomed to jealousy forever? Well, self belief also plays a part in overcoming jealousy. With self belief, if you can’t be certain that you’ll handle it, you can trust that regardless of how things work, you’ll be okay. In fact, you can trust that regardless of the outcome, you’ll come out better off than before.
Some of my affirmations to this effect are “Every single thing enriches my life†and “My life only gets better.â€
So although you mightn’t be able to see what your life will look like after the event, you can trust and believe that it will be better than before.
A specific threat we often feel, which leads to jealousy, is that you lose the sense of validation that comes with success. If you’re jealous that someone else has all the fun and success, it can feel like you’re not worthy of the same success in life. If you were, success and fulfilment would be yours, right?
By working on your self esteem you can feel worthy. Remember that the sense of worthiness is the “whatâ€, the true payoff. The outward success is merely a means to that end. Remarkably though, developing the inner feelings of worthiness actually leads to a lot more outward victories!
As for validation, self assurance will help with that. Two simple affirmations for developing your sense of validation and worthiness are:
1. “I feel worthy.†/ “I am worthy.†/ “I am enough.â€
2. “I feel validated.†/ “I’m validated.â€
Affirmations don’t need to be overly complicated. In fact, the simpler better. These affirmations work directly on the inner emotion, and everything stems from the inside.
Self Love also helps overcome jealousy. When you feel love you also have compassion, which is accepting the other person as they are and allowing them to walk their own path. And when you’re feeling full of love, it’s pretty damn hard to feel jealous at the same time!
With jealousy and the sense of lose, you can often begin to think that it was your fault and this can lead to self loathing. Self Love directly counteracts the feelings of self loathing.
Self Respect entails having standards for yourself. Jealousy is petty, anyone who watched Friends could see the pettiness of Ross when was jealous of Mark. By having standards for yourself that involve not tolerating petty and destructive emotions you can avoid a lot of jealousy.
Of course, if you are feeling jealous about anything, you need to accept that you’re feeling jealous. See my post on acceptance for more of what I mean but essentially you can’t just deny the feelings you have. Once you acknowledge that you’re feeling jealous you can then go about changing what you’re feeling.
By deciding how you’ll respond to certain situations and taking control of the emotions you experience, you’re exercising self determinism. You are in control of your life, and that includes how you feel. Of course, someone who’s free from jealousy has a right to exercise self admiration, don’t they?
Some facets/tools of The Confidence Model will be more useful than others, depending on where you’re at when you feel jealousy or how confident you are to begin with. But by working on your confidence from the inside out you can avoid all the pitfalls jealousy brings.
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