Jealously, a gift

I read somewhere that jealousy is only a reflection of our potential. It is our mirror. You can only envy something you already see inside yourself. Something that hasn’t quite reached its bloom. This is what infuriates us. We are so close, but we aren’t there (yet). I spent 30 something years of my life rarely feeling this emotion at all. I think for the most part, my life was always how I had dreamed, or maybe I just felt inside my full potential. Then I got divorced and felt in a million little pieces, my daughters my only tether back to form. My life was not what I wanted. I started dreaming so deep and so wide that it would be impossible to be and do all those things at one time. And so I felt envy and jealously and then I felt bad for feeling this way. 

But this is worth saying twice…jealousy is only a reflection of our potential, of who can become but just haven’t yet.

I’ve never felt jealous of a soccer player or a doctor or a woman who has climbed the corporate ladder. But my heart contracts every time I hear of a woman who publishes her first book, or a mother who isn’t too busy to cook a beautiful family meal, or speaks another language, or lives with her family abroad.

I only feel jealously towards something or someone because I see myself in them, what I REALLY want to be doing. I am jealous because it’s actually possible for me, and maybe I’m not living in a way that helps me get there or maybe I am but it just hasn’t happened yet, because everything good takes time. I’ve never been jealous of something that wasn’t actually possible or within me already. Jealously is a tool because it shows you what you really want, and who you are already in the process of becoming. Reminder to self: Don’t get bitter, get excited.

When I’m on my path, and living in a way that feels true to who I am and what i want, jealously does’t really exist, only pure gratitude and genuine excitement for the success and lives of others. I’ve learned that jealousy as an initial feeling does not have to be negative or dirty, it can simply be a gift or reminder to bring us back home.