Jealousy & Comparison Energy

THE ESSAY

The Quiet Shame of Jealousy

There was a point in my life when even the idea of quietly telling someone I was envious was inconceivable. So, the fact I’m loudly sharing my experiences of jealousy in a public blog post shows how far I’ve come on this topic.

For decades, jealousy was the emotion I wrangled with most. I experienced it frequently and yet never talked about it. In my mind, anger, sadness, fear—those were forgivable emotions. Relatable emotions. The kind that could be expressed and shared. But jealousy was humiliating. It meant you had to not only feel jealous but also admit you were ‘less than’ the person you were jealous of, which was far worse.

Consciously, I didn’t want to be jealous—the feeling was piercing and unwelcome—but I couldn’t stop myself. And because I would rarely discuss it, I had no tools to help me move past it. Perhaps that’s because, growing up, I’d never seen anyone else talking about having and moving past jealousy. Sometimes, in the far corners of my mind, I even believed that most other people weren’t jealous, or at least weren’t bothered by their jealousy, and I was the only sad sack on the planet letting it gnaw away at me. 

Of course, there are some people who don’t experience jealousy or who can process and contextualize this feeling in a healthy way. And seriously, fuck those guys. I’m jealous of them. (No, but really, good for those people. Let them be an inspiration. She says through gritted teeth.)

But the truth is, many of us are coping with this feeling, even more so with the rise of social media. And many of us are dealing with it alone (or not all) and concealing it. When that happens, those feelings tend to manifest in unhealthy ways like pettiness, backstabbing, negative self-talk, drops in self-esteem, or even the loss of enjoyment.

I wondered, how does one move past jealousy in a healthy way?

As I dove deeper into my energy and meditation practice, my awareness around this feeling grew. I knew it was holding me back, but I still felt ill-equipped to address it. But five years ago, I finally talked about jealousy in a public setting. I was taking a nine-month course with my teacher, Jody England. Jody is a brilliant healer, and I’d been following her for years. I knew this class was a rare chance to address my most significant personal challenges head-on, so when Jody held a special group session where we could volunteer to get coached in front of the class, I jumped at the chance. With my heart in my throat, I volunteered, and for the first time in my life, I spoke with complete candor about my jealousy. I was thirty-seven years old. 

Jody’s reading and healing were masterful, and between that session and the rigorous work of the course, my feelings of jealousy subsided dramatically. I didn’t appreciate how much until one day, I looked up and realized it had been five years since envy had the same bite. This isn’t to say my jealousy has dissipated entirely, but those feelings no longer dominate me or make me feel ashamed. Instead, I allow them to come and go with less attachment. I don’t feel as burdened or consumed by the complexity of this feeling; I have significantly less shame, and it rarely distracts or prevents me from moving forward. (I’m still jealous of unjealous people, though, because seriously, what a bunch of lucky assholes.)

My energetic exploration of jealousy is perhaps the area of my most significant growth. 

I’ve included the audio of that laser coaching session with Jody England above. Sharing this coaching session around this issue is yet another landmark moment for me—one I’m hardly ready for, but it’s worth the vulnerability hangover if it helps someone else move past their own feelings of jealousy. Jody’s healing demonstrates two things: how a beautifully held energy session might unfold and just one of the many ways envy might show up in the energy body. Our interior energetic state is as unique as our fingerprints, but getting a peek into my interior world might help you explore the nuances of your own.

Despite my evolution around this emotion, the sting of jealousy has returned in the past few months. I’m not sure why that's the case, but now, I have a say in how this emotion influences me. I can let it derail me like I did in the past, or I can recognize this as an opportunity to go inward and figure out what’s happening in my system. It’s unpleasant, but now I know that jealousy isn’t an indictment on my soul or character. It’s simply an uncomfortable experience that I can utilize to do some internal digging and create growth and change from there.

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Comparison Energy

At its heart, jealousy is ‘comparison energy.’ It’s the most natural thing in the world for human beings to compare themselves to peers, neighbors, friends, coworkers, siblings, cousins, and public figures. Comparison can be an attractive framework for figuring out who we are and where we want to go. However, it’s extremely limited in its application, which is problematic because it’s heavily overused as a measuring stick for our individual development and success. Comparison is a deeply engrained behavioral pattern, and it starts at an early age with the habitual emphasis on hitting milestones, making grades, and conforming to certain behaviors. Comparisons happen frequently within our families, at our schools, among our friends, during extracurricular activities, and so forth.

Let’s take, for example, developmental milestones for children. By now, there is plenty of evidence that milestones are helpful indicators of a child’s development; they do not tell the whole story of who a child is and will become. A child who talks or walks at two years old can live just as brilliant and fulfilling a life as one who talks or walks at one year. Of course, it’s good to be aware of developmental delays because they can be a sign of physical differences or neurodivergence, in which case, you can move towards early intervention. But outside of that specific application, milestones are limited. They give scant indication of a child’s short and long-term health and well-being.

Unfortunately, parents either intentionally or unintentionally use these measuring sticks to make value judgments about themselves as parents and their children. Even though I am pretty relaxed about milestones as a parent, I still have to battle anxiety around them. Even though I know better, I find myself fretting if my son, Kenny, doesn’t ‘compare’ to other kids. I also worry: am I doing something wrong as a parent? 

I know it's a dangerous trap, and yet, seven years into parenting, my knee-jerk reaction is still to compare and contrast. I must regularly fight my worst instincts to stop and allow my child to experience the breadth of his unique evolution without making pithy and irrelevant comparisons to his peers or their parents. 

Fortunately for my son, I’m much gentler on him than I am myself. Before that energy session with Jody, I spent most of my life unfavorably comparing myself to others. I have, upon occasion, compared myself to those I felt superior to, which is an unflattering exercise in and of itself—but it’s one my ego finds that much less interesting. Comparing myself to those I feel inferior is a far more gripping and visceral exercise. It has the power to seize me. And so it does.

It took me decades to break out of the rote cycle of comparison energy, and when I did, it finally dawned on me: the people I compared myself to in my teens, twenties, and thirties have gone on to live vastly different lives than my own. While my life is far from perfect, I’ve spent the better part of two decades architecting a day-to-day existence that feels meaningful to me. I’ve carefully and deliberately designed a life that will move me closer to my values, dreams, and ambitions. Nothing has come fast or easy, and I will never be finished with this pursuit, but with each small step I take, I get better at creating a full existence. Slowly, over time, I have created a life nurturing to me and those around me. 

Because of that, there is truly no one I can compare my life to in earnest. And no one can truly compare themselves to me. The experience of architecting a life filled with meaning and value is deeply specific to the individual. We all have unique advantages, deficits, experiences, and purposes. We all have different paths to walk and different gifts to share with the world—in different ways and at different times. Now you can see why comparison is an interesting exercise but extremely limited in scope.

I recognize that it can be hard, if not impossible, to achieve lasting fulfillment when your basic material needs are not being met (food, safe housing, clean water and air, healthcare, etc.) But I would be willing to bet that every person reading this has enough resources to achieve personal and spiritual fulfillment. And if that’s the case, there is nothing to envy about another person’s experience. The ability to live a meaningful life is available to everyone because true fulfillment transcends the material.  

While comparison energy can be an interesting frame of reference, more often than not, it takes us away from achieving our unique flavor of personal fulfillment. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”  That’s because trying to walk someone else’s path or emulate their success steers us from discovering our own purpose and our own definition of abundance. The only thing we should use comparison energy for is to orient ourselves to our inner truth.

If jealousy is knocking you off your path, I encourage you to use the exercises below to do just that.

THE EXERCISES

A key to engaging in energy work, or any reflective and meditative exercise, is trying to get grounded and take up as much space as you can. If you can steal fifteen minutes to do it while riding the bus or waiting for your laundry, that’s great. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to start tapping in. If you have a half hour or more to explore these questions in a quiet space, it gives you even more room to deepen and expand. But don’t let perfection or constraints deter you; whatever time and space you have to commit to this work is good and worthwhile.

Clear away as many distractions as possible—while remembering there will always be a distraction, especially when we turn inward. Sometimes, when we sit in quiet contemplation, our whole body screams to get out of there, and we’ll find any distraction available. At some point, you need to choose yourself, and you choose yourself by sitting through the good, the bad, and the ugly sensations that arise during inner exploration.

So, turn off notifications and slow your breathing while you work through these questions. You can keep a journal handy and jot down words, sentences, or sketches that move you. Or just let your mind work through the questions and freely associate around the energies of comparison and jealousy.

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1. The Secure & Insecure Energy Body 

Let’s start with a simple scan of our body to get a basic understanding of how the energy of security and insecurity generally feels. Secure energy is always embodied. In other words, if you feel secure, safe, content, energetic, and stable, most of your energy will be held in your core and rested down your root chakra. 

However, most people have issues rooting their energy down and in. We get depleted or uncentered for lots of reasons. After all, we’re busy navigating complicated emotions and energies all day. And sometimes, we become chronically uncentered or ‘insecure’ when we have experienced trauma. For some who have experienced small or large traumas, staying in the body can be scary. Traumatized bodies often learn to send their energy and themselves outside of themselves (disassociation) in order to protect themselves. 

Holding our own deeply centered and grounded energy in our body is not the focus of this lesson, so for our purposes, I will not do a complete energetic exercise around this work. If you're having trouble keeping your energy within yourself, that is a beautiful and important block to address with me or another teacher, coach, or healer.

But know that, ideally, most of your energy is held with you, in your center and root. When you have that, your energy is ‘secure.’ When we are ‘insecure,’ we are sending our energy far outside of ourselves. In the case of jealousy, we dislocate our energy and send it out into the world to check and see if someone else’s experience is better. We stretch our energy out to the person we are jealous of, assuming whatever they are feeling is more desirable, aligned, or ideal. This process is exhausting to our bodies and minds, which is one of the many reasons jealousy is so unpleasant.

If you’ve had bad experiences and tend to disassociate, you may be even more likely to send your energy outside yourself for jealousy and other reasons. But even if you are a typically secure person, when you experience the energetic feeling of jealousy, it can make you question the value of your own internal experience. Is my experience ‘good enough?’ Is someone else having a better experience than I am?

To move from insecurity to security, invite your energy to come back inside you and sit down and in. Take a few breaths. If your energy is fighting you, then you may have more work to do here, with yourself and with a healer. In fact, it may make considerable strides in eliminating feelings of jealousy just to get comfortable sitting with your own energy rested and rooted completely within you.

If you can call your energy back in and let it sit with you, try to keep it there through most of these exercises. Check in with yourself from time to time during various stages of the exercises below, and see where your energy is being held and gathered or where it’s being stretched and leaked.

2. Thank your ego.

Jealousy and comparison are the ego’s playground, but the ego gets a bad rap. At its core, it’s simply a survival mechanism, urging us toward being the best and having the best/most so we can live a long and safe life. On the surface, there’s nothing wrong with that goal. In fact, it’s healthy to want to ensure our safety and security and improve our situation. But it becomes problematic when our ego performs its other function: bludgeoning us into submission when it believes we fall short of “the best” and “the most.” (This is one of the many harmful applications of comparison.) We must be careful not to let the ego run the show, and we must be especially careful not to let it convince us to hurt ourselves or others in order to ‘get’ the best.

At the end of the day, the ego is just one piece of your energetic system, and it can be a valuable tool if you make friends with it and put it into a more helpful context. I love meeting people’s egos in energy sessions because they are often wily, clever, and funny. The ego genuinely wants to serve their master well, and they are good at it—but the ego is powerful. Too powerful—and far too convincing for most people to manage on their own. As such, the ego tends to run roughshod over us. We become easily seduced by the ego and convinced that everything it tells us is true. As a result, we ignore communications from the other parts of our being, such as our body, heart, or spirit. We come to believe that the heart can’t possibly know more than the supersmart mind and ego, which generally whisper in our ears that we need to be better, faster, more! Good energy work often “right-sizes” the ego until it becomes one small piece of our larger energetic system instead of our system’s captain and commander.

In the case of jealousy, the ego is caught in a negative cycle of comparison and, as a result, is harshly pointing out something it wants or needs. When the ego leaps into comparison, a simple tool is “thanking” it for letting you know what’s interesting or important to it. Validate your ego’s desires and feelings, and tell the ego you’ll take them into serious consideration. This exercise creates a layer of critical distance between you and your ego and invites a higher version of yourself to look at these wants, desires, and comparisons from a different perspective. 

So, take a moment to quiet down and think about something making you jealous. Once all of your emotions and thoughts get stirred up, sincerely thank your ego and conscious mind for bringing this to your attention, and ensure that you will look into this matter—along with your heart, gut, and soul. The ego and mind don’t get to make all the decisions on what you want and need. 

Now, you’re operating from a more evolved and integrated version of yourself. From that higher version of yourself, let’s start working through the other exercises…

3. Zero in on what you want, and then make it achievable.

Generally, jealousy arises when you lack (or believe you lack) something in your life and then see another person have that thing. When you’re triggered into jealousy, it’s best to extract the ‘thing’ from the other person who has it. In other words, rather than focusing on the subject of your envy, consider instead the object of your desire: What is ‘the thing’ that you are seeking? Is it a cool job? A loving partnership? An effortless sense of personal style? 

Once you’ve identified the object of your desire, ask yourself the following two questions. When asking, tap into your heart and center, and wait patiently for the answer: 

– What do I want? 

– How do I pursue it in a meaningful and authentic way?

Questions like that cut to the core of the issue. Now, it’s no longer about envy or even the other person. Nor is it about coveting something someone else has that’s totally unobtainable to you. Instead, those questions steer you towards a more profound truth: jealousy is your ego trying to point you toward a desire that might bring you meaning and fulfillment. It’s up to you to find that fulfillment in a conscious way.

Question 1: What do I want?

So then, what is it, exactly, that you’re jealous of? When engaging in this exercise, ask yourself that question and list every answer that arises. 

For example, imagine someone you know posts Instagram pictures from a recent vacation with friends. Is it the vacation you are jealous of? Or that they look youthful and vibrant in the pictures? Do you feel they have more friends than you? Or maybe you are jealous that this person is getting to spend quality time with their friends. Are you jealous of their money? Their freedom? Do you think they are more successful than you? Do you wish you got to travel more?

Sometimes, it’s all of those things, sometimes it’s just one. But generally, even if that scenario creates multiple layers of jealousy within you, a few specific triggers will stand out. Identify and deepen into the one or two most significant and impactful triggers. Be brutally honest. You’re only cheating yourself if you lie about why you feel jealous. 

Let’s say these are the two answers that come on strong for you when you ask yourself, “What am I jealous of? What do I want more of in my own life?”

– “They get to spend more quality time with their friends than I do.”

– “I wish I got to travel more.”

Once you’ve answered these questions honestly, you can consider the ‘how.’

Question 2: How do I pursue it in a meaningful and authentic way?

Setting Practical & Achievable Goals

There are several ways to answer the ‘how’ question, but let’s start with the most obvious: setting a practical and achievable goal.

If you’re jealous that this person is spending quality time with friends, then how can you make more time in your life for your interpersonal relationships? A week-long friends-cation in the Caribbean might be out of reach, but maybe a weekend road trip isn’t. You might be surprised that even small actions satisfy your desire, like calling someone you haven’t chatted with in ages. You can make dinner for a new neighbor or handwrite a long letter to an old friend. These actions can steadily move you toward the fulfillment you seek.

But what if it’s more complicated than that? Let’s say you’ve completely lost touch with old friends or never cultivated the meaningful friendships you imagined you’d have, and now you’re craving connection. What can you start doing right now that would bring more connection to your life? Can you join a club, start a hobby, or volunteer? Maybe you’ve noticed an elderly neighbor who hangs out on her porch and likes to chat with people as they pass by. Can you stop and sit with her or even bring over a cup of tea?

When we feel these pangs of desire, it's easy to convince ourselves we don’t have time or it isn’t that important. But if you’re feeling jealous, that’s a strong indication that your soul is signaling to you—very loudly, via your ego—that you have unmet needs. Your jealousy is a sign something within must be addressed. And I assure you, if you don’t address it, your body and mind will find creative ways to sabotage you until you do. 

So try setting a goal within arms reach and allow yourself to experience the positive feelings that arise when you meet these goals. (We’ll talk more about how to let positive or high-vibration feelings land and expand in the exercises below.)

Enjoy the Pursuit of Bigger Goals…

Let’s examine the second answer, “I wish I got to travel more,” from a different angle: enjoying the pursuit of a bigger goal. 

Maybe you’ve harbored a lifelong dream of going on a safari for decades, and your cousin just posted a carefree airport selfie on her way to Tanzania. You’re burning up inside because you’ve never had the time or money to make that dream come true, and it will probably be years before you can afford a similar trip. An achievable goal, like a weekend getaway, might feel good at the moment but still not fulfill your soul’s calling to get outside your comfort zone and see the far reaches of the world.

Sometimes, our soul points us towards bigger ambitions, and we must rise to the occasion to pursue them. However, the satisfaction of the final achievement will take time. One powerful way to extract yourself from the energy of jealousy is to allow yourself to experience the joy and power of the pursuit. In other words, savor and delight in pursuing the desired object as much as the object itself. 

Yes, pursuing something out of reach can be frustrating or upsetting, and those feelings are worth acknowledging or validating. But don’t minimize the positives. Every journey that moves us towards our goals, dreams, and desires is rewarding in and of itself. I would argue that our body and soul often signal us towards these ambitions, not so we achieve an outcome, but so we take the journey and stretch and grow ourselves along the way. 

So, allow yourself the simple, discrete moments of joy within a personal quest. That might include letting yourself thrill at the small steps along the way: marking a date on your calendar, setting up an interest-bearing Certificate of Deposit just for the trip, spending an hour or two each week researching the most cost-effective lodges and tour guides, and even the discipline of resisting frivolous spending so you can save up.

…But Remember to Honor the Journey as Much as (or More Than) the Outcome

Enjoying the pursuit helps you stay grounded in the present joys of the moment, which is immediately satisfying and nurturing. But I also encourage you to stay unattached to the outcome. Hopefully, you meet your goal and are successful, and the experience is everything you hoped it would be. But don’t shy away from simply honoring the value of the journey itself. 

Over a decade ago, around 2009, I remember going through a short phase where my jealousy dissipated almost entirely. In fact, it was the happiest I’ve ever been for those around me. At the time, I was in graduate school making my thesis film. Reaching that moment was the culmination of years of work, planning, and dreaming. I felt deeply aligned with my purpose, and I felt happy for everyone around me who was pursuing their dreams and ambitions, too. 

The film turned out fine, but it didn’t launch my career, and so it was followed by a painful period where I receded into my old, jealous ways. I became more brittle and unsure of myself. But I still remembered the peace and exaltation of being aligned with my purpose. So, did it matter that my goals and achievements hadn’t turned out as expected? Hadn’t the joy and growth been worthwhile in and of themselves? And even more important, raising the money and gathering the crew to make another film could take years. Did I need to do that every time I wanted to feel aligned and purposeful? 

The truth was I needed to allow myself new and different ways to find that sense of divine purpose. I also needed to find that alignment in ways that weren’t outcome-based. Still, I missed the feeling I had when I made that film, and I mourned that it would be the last time I ever did it. Life called me to focus on other things shortly after that, such as an unexpected opportunity to teach film in Qatar. However, the regret and disappointment that I didn’t achieve career success with my short film lingered for years, and I felt jealous when others succeeded where I did not. This kept me from appreciating the experiences I was having ‘in the moment’ and made me hyper-focused on an elusive future success that I believed would bring me the sense of validation, accomplishment, and fulfillment I so craved.

It took almost a decade for me to recognize that career success and professional achievement weren’t a guarantee for long-term emotional health. A significant turning point came in June of 2018 when Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain took their own lives within days of each other. At the time, I was going through an all too familiar depression spiral related to my career (or lack thereof.) Spade and Bourdain had the kind of careers people dream of, and yet, those achievements were irrelevant in the midst of what was likely a mental and spiritual health crisis. During that time, I’d been mourning that I might never make another film again. Despite doing two years of energy work (and two decades of therapy), I still didn’t have all the tools I needed to pull myself out of the egoic feedback loop that told me I was a failure. But after reflecting on the passing of these two great souls, I knew my career—and any external form of success—wouldn’t save me from the ebbs and flows of life. I had to dig deeper. 

I decided to shift my perspective. Instead of mourning the past and how things turned out, I celebrated it. I relished the fact that I had the chance to make several short films during my undergraduate and grad school years. Going to university to study something I loved was an enormous privilege. I decided that even if those were the only films I ever made, I was fortunate to have made them at all. This simple shift in my system has had a massive ripple effect. My mood improved, and I began tackling my creative projects with gusto, which opened up new and different opportunities for me.

These days, I allow myself to deepen into those past experiences without feeling like they were a failure for not turning out as I hoped or expected. Deepening into those feelings means recalling the joy, challenge, growth, and camaraderie I felt during those years and letting those sensations course through my body today. Instead of grieving what I lost or never came to fruition, I am eternally grateful for that season of my life and what it taught me.

I may have different pursuits and goals these days, such as writing and coaching, but whatever I am striving toward, I try to take more pleasure and satisfaction in the day-to-day work than the outcome. It’s still a slow process, but it concentrates my efforts on the good things happening now rather than being hyper-focused on a future I can’t control. This helps my emotional state avoid being wired towards the reward of a product, accomplishment, or achievement that may never come. 

I still haven’t directed another film, but about five years after that perspective shift, a Kuwaiti show I created and wrote appeared on Netflix, which felt pretty fantastic. But even that outcome is fleeting and uncertain—Will people like it? Will we get another season? Will I ever write another show?—so I hold it lightly. As I walk through this career path in the arts, I know nothing is guaranteed, and so I take as much satisfaction as I can in the process.

So, maybe you won’t get all the way to Africa. And maybe that’s okay. My short didn’t get me a film deal, but I got an incredible job in the Middle East through my alma mater, which laid the groundwork for my Kuwaiti TV series for Netflix. If you slowly and steadily move towards a big goal, I guarantee you will create unexpected opportunities, large and small, along the way. But even more important, you will feel better in the moment because you are an active participant in your day-to-day life, and you are making a consistent practice of leaning into high vibrational emotions.

This brings me to the next exercise…

4. Give yourself the feeling you are seeking.

The first few exercises are interesting and helpful inquiries—but ultimately, they are the starting point for a far more profound self-exploration. Once you’ve identified what you want, the real work is in asking yourself—what is the feeling you are seeking?

If you see a friend who gets to travel a lot, what is the feeling that you think they have that you wish you had? Is it the feeling of exploring? Adventure? Pushing boundaries? Is it the feeling of freedom? The sensation of connectedness? 

On the surface, it may seem like you are jealous of the superficial experience that the person is having, but at the core, you are seeking a feeling or sensation. Your jealousy is often a signal that you want to feel more of something: Achievement. Peace. Power. Joy. Stability. Security. Freedom. Fulfillment. Adventure. Love. The list goes on and on. 

One of the most powerful teachings Jody England passed down to her students is that feelings are something you can give yourself. 

In this lesson, Jody describes relentlessly pursuing financial stability through a high-powered career in insurance. Unfortunately, like most financial and outcome-driven pursuits, she had ups and downs. At the time, Jody was working with a spiritual teacher who asked her the feeling she sought from money, and Jody answered, “Peace.” The teacher told her, “Peace is a feeling you give yourself.” Of course, it was early in her spiritual journey, and Jody couldn’t believe what her teacher said was true. She said, “Well, first, I need the money, and then I’ll finally feel peace.” But even when the money came to her later, she still felt uneasy. 

Eventually, she understood her teacher's lesson: no matter how much money she acquired, peace was elusive because she couldn’t allow herself that feeling. Finally, she took a whole year to expand the feeling of peace in her body—regardless of what her bank balance or sales numbers said—and eventually, that feeling spread. Whether or not she hit a certain number became less relevant to her. Ironically, the more peaceful she became, the more the money flowed in, creating even more peace and security in her inner and outer system. The feeling begets the feeling. The experience begets the experience.

So when someone triggers your jealousy, the most important exercise is asking: 

– What do I believe that person is feeling? 

– How can I create more of that feeling for myself?

Once you’ve answered that question, the bigger challenge is, can you allow yourself to feel what that person feels in your daily life? 

Ask yourself: Am I depriving myself of that feeling for a reason? If so, why?

Let’s say when you see your friend's vacation pictures, the feeling you want is freedom. But perhaps you saw how trapped your parents were by their lives and choices, and you feel guilty for having the kind of freedom they never did. Can you allow yourself to feel any form of freedom, including the small freedoms you enjoy right now?

If not, this may be a subconscious block you need to tackle. If you have a subconscious block and can’t allow yourself to feel freedom right now, with your life as it is, there’s a good chance you can take as many vacations as you want, but you still won’t feel freedom. Allowing the feeling and sensation of freedom to come into your body, however small, should become the focus of your work rather than setting and achieving goals.

If you can allow yourself to feel freedom, can you focus on the spaces where freedom already exists in your life and let it expand? Return to your own experience and appreciate what you already have: 

– Where do I already have this feeling in my life?

– What work have I already done to generate this feeling?

Maybe you work from home, allowing you to take long mornings to yourself and start work late. Or maybe your child just left for college, and you suddenly have more personal time. Maybe you can’t travel as much as you want, but you live in a vibrant neighborhood. Or maybe you aren’t getting paid for your creative work, but you have a beautiful studio with a view of a gorgeous old tree where you have the time to paint for a few hours a week. 

Can you deepen into the satisfaction of what already exists for you? 

It’s easy and natural to get used to our circumstances. It’s so common that it has a name: hedonic adaptation. Hedonic adaptation, also known as the hedonic treadmill, is the tendency to become inured to positive or negative events in our lives. Hence, we reach stasis or a stable emotional set point that allows us to tolerate negatives, but it also diminishes positives. Looking at our life anew can take our attention off what we lack and shift it to what we have. This is why gratitude journals are effective at promoting good mental fitness. 

Recenter yourself. Imagine yourself bringing your energy and attention back into your body and soul. Energetically turn inward to your experience—and let yourself be in awe of all you have already. 

You may find you don’t even need to pursue something material to achieve that feeling; you just need to lean into the spaces where that feeling already exists. But in my experience, the more I feel into the freedom (or safety, or peace, or power, or joy) that already exists, the more that feeling manifests in my life in new, magnificent, and unexpected ways. 

The best part is that because you’ve become accustomed to seeking and receiving that feeling, you’ll be able to fully experience it when it shows up in your life.

5. Celebrate the person you feel jealous of. 

This one is fun. It’s cheap, free, easy, and only takes a minute. It will also likely surprise you. 

I found that sometimes I can best turn the emotion of envy on its head when I genuinely celebrate that person. It can be as simple as writing a warm and sincere comment on their social media post, “Have a wonderful trip. You worked so hard for this; you deserve it.” Or as involved as taking them out for drinks and hearing about their week. It depends on how close I am to the person and what’s appropriate. If I can’t physically spend time with that person, or if I don't know them that well, I engage in a quiet, distant celebration. 

It’s worth noting that a quiet celebration within myself is just as rewarding as a more involved celebration. Moreover, sometimes celebrating with that person is impossible; we may not see or speak to them regularly, or they may be a public figure we may admire from afar. Sometimes when I see something online that stirs my jealousy, I simply say, “Damn, girl. Good for you.” Even if that’s not how I actually feel, there’s an almost magical power in saying the words. Suddenly, I’m filled with warmth and ease instead of coldness and tension when thinking of that person and their success. Those simple words of cheer put me in a frame of mind to experience mutual joy instead of singular envy. It’s a rather lovely life hack: I’m getting to share a slice of their joy without even doing the work!

This exercise also helps me remember that most people want to be seen, validated, and celebrated rather than envied. I recently worked through another layer of jealousy with my current healer, Spirit Bird, who runs a fantastic spiritual business called Holton Healing Arts. I told her that sometimes I hold myself back or make myself small because I never want anyone to envy me. I know what a terrible feeling it is, so I’d never want to invoke it in others. But naturally, this subconscious block prevents me from fulfilling my highest purposes and dreams. 

When I celebrate someone I envy, it has the dual benefit of mitigating the fear that one day, I might arouse the feeling of jealousy in someone else. We allow ourselves to shine when we let others shine, and vice versa. Celebrating the victory or joy of someone I felt a small pang (or big stab) of jealousy towards is a quick and necessary reminder that successes are all ours to celebrate; they don’t just belong to the individual. Through celebrating another person, we get to share in the positive experience, which means feeling and receiving what they are feeling and receiving.

6. Recognizing when it’s not jealousy but grief.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge that jealousy is complex. Sometimes, I’m jealous of people who have lives and successes that I have no interest in directly experiencing.  

For example, my partner and I decided only to have one child, one of the most liberating and aligned choices I have ever made. I take so much joy, pride, and satisfaction in our small family. Raising one child gives me peace and satisfaction and is aligned with my goals and values. 

Though I fretted over a decision, whether or not to adopt a second child for years, and though I have siblings whom I adore, I ultimately decided that I had no desire to raise multiple children. But now and then, I get a pang of jealousy that my son won’t have siblings and that I won’t have the experience of a bigger family.

So, in this case, what is the jealousy about? In many ways, I think this emotional experience may initially read like jealousy, but beneath that feeling is grief. In my case, I’m grieving a life that I’ll never get to live. It is simply a road not taken that I will never get to experience or explore. I may consciously know I don’t want that life, I may consciously have chosen this life, but subconsciously, I know my family, and I are missing out on something that can only be achieved through that singular experience. There is no point in creating short or long-term goals to achieve that goal or feeling; it's simply not meant to be. 

We can never ‘live all the lives’ and ‘do all the things,’ so missing out (aka FOMO) and the grief that comes with it is a fundamental truth of life. But grief can be uncomfortable. As discussed in my last article, we often work so hard to avoid discomfort that we make it worse. So if what you’re feeling is the grief of a path not taken, a life not lived, then allow yourself to sit with that grief. Though the grief may be painful initially, there’s also a comfort to truly and fully validate it. Recognize the feeling, allow it—even thank it—and then let it pass. 

As Joseph Campbell says, “We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

❧

If you read this entire post, you’ve likely not only been jealous but found the experience unpleasant. I hope you learned at least a few tools to transform that feeling into something kinder, gentler, and more beneficial to yourself and those around you. Don’t be ashamed of your jealousy. Thank it for guiding you towards your inner experience, and then allow it to take you deeper. 

Jealousy is a multifaceted feeling, and you can approach it from many angles. So, if you did just one of these exercises here and there over a year, you would make great strides in decreasing your jealousy and improving your emotional health.