Jealousy

Disclaimer: It's been my policy here to talk about *me*, not other people, so I'm not going to go into what's triggering this exploration today. But for any of you who interacted with me over the last half of the week -- it's probably not you. And if it is you, you're not the only one. Relax.

I have generally pursued a tit-for-tat policy when it comes to jealousy... Which meant trying to assuage my jealousy by reviewing a list of things the other person was likely to feel jealous of me for. I have lots of good things in my life. I have a few good things I would like more of in my life, but my life is pretty darn good.

But the tit-for-tat method has proven pretty inadequate when it comes to actually making the feelings of jealousy go away. Instead of releasing jealousy, it seems to add anger and haughtieness to the pile. Which does make jealousy only one of the feelings I'm living through, but all three of those are darn hard to sleep through. Plus, when I get in touch with what a great person I am in X way, I then get really bitter that there's no one in my life who also realizes I'm this wonderful. In short... It's the fast path to sleepless nights and imitating my mother's worst traits.

So, I tried something different last night. I decided to focus on sitting with the jealousy and just letting that feeling go. (Disclaimer 2: It's still not you! There were multiple events to deal with last night.) I admitted I was feeling jealous and disappointed... but got to sleep much faster with just those feelings to sort through.