It is urgent that you get rid of your jealousy. You know, it is your worst torture. It creeps into your thoughts, adds pain when you’ve actually been betrayed, or creates fear out of thin air when your insecurities are projected onto a flawless partner.
Overcoming your jealousy will not only stop you from suffering, but also stop the worst of its consequences: self-fulfilling prophecies. These are your deepest fears, such as being abandoned or cheated on, which make your jealousy weigh on your relationship until the tensions end up wearing down the relationship and provoke what you fear most: your partner, exhausted by the arguments, the suspicions, the feeling of being controlled, the lack of trust, may end up distancing himself from you, and getting closer to someone who doesn’t put pressure on him. Thus, the vicious circle feeds itself, because your own fears have given you reason. Do you want to break this vicious circle in which you feel trapped? Look at the 5 weak points of jealousy.
- A VORACIOUS EMOTION THAT FEEDS ON INFORMATION: STARVE IT!
How do most jealousy attacks start? With a new piece of information in your field of vision: you noticed that your partner has a new friend on the net, or he talked about that interesting colleague, or you saw a notification on his screen with his ex’s name… What happens next? The jealousy generated by this first piece of information keeps asking you for more and more information, in order to confirm or deny this terrible intuition. You start stalking those you suspect, even searching your boyfriend’s phone, which is rarely a good idea. The information you find will not ease your fears. On the contrary. Jealousy always tries to prove itself right, and distorts everything to do so.
The solution? If jealousy is hungry for information, it is because it gets stronger when you feed it. So you’re going to do the opposite, and starve it. Make it your challenge not to go through notifications, networks, and everything that sustains the stories you tell yourself. After a few days, the stress will subside. If there’s something you really need to know, you’ll learn it in another way, in due course, and in the meantime, you protect your inner peace and your relationship. Do you want another argument? Remember that jealousy creates evidence even when it does not exist. Imagine, for example, that your jealous partner is going through your email: you know you have nothing to be ashamed of, but wouldn’t it be possible for him to get ideas about that funny colleague you like to chat with, or about that childhood friend who compliments you when you post a photo?
- A PARADOXICALLY ADDICTIVE TORTURE: WHEN YOU REALISE THAT YOU LIKE TO HURT YOURSELF, FORCE YOURSELF TO DO GOOD!
The paradox of jealousy is that it is a self-inflicted psychological torture that is so hard to fight because it is strangely addictive. You doubt it? Remember all those moments when you replayed the memories that made you cry, when you looked again and again at the photo of a girl who made you feel worse and worse about yourself and insufficient… Indeed, we can be addicted to what hurts us, and besides, aren’t addictions always habits that destroy us?
Here again, you are going to break the vicious circle of jealousy: it has taught you to like to do yourself harm, and you are going to relearn to do yourself good. Set up rituals to allow you to do something good for yourself every time jealousy suggests torturing you. For example, every time you feel like checking out your partner’s networks, call a friend who can make you laugh at anything, and every time you feel like making a scene or asking intrusive questions, make yourself a fresh smoothie, a set of crunches or a face mask. You need to pamper yourself with every temptation you dodge to create new automatisms in your brain.
- IT IS ROOTED IN A LACK OF AWARENESS OF YOUR WORTH!
Would you be jealous if you were fully aware of your value? No, you would know that your unique qualities make you irreplaceable, and you would not be tempted to compare yourself to the hypothetical suitors of the one you love. Jealousy is rooted in your insecurities. You should therefore see it as a warning signal that you need to heal a psychological wound, just as physical pain is a signal of a problem that needs to be fixed in the body.
So the more jealousy tells you to focus on your partner and his supposed suitors, the more it is a sign that you need to focus on yourself and the care you need to take to restore your self-image.
- SHE USES YOUR IMAGINATION TO TORTURE YOU: HACK THE SYSTEM BY DIRECTING YOUR THOUGHTS!
Jealousy’s most powerful weapon is your imagination. It takes hold of it and makes you create endless sordid scenarios: you imagine that your man is not where he says he is or in the company of those he claims to be with, you assume interpretations of his smiles, of the moments when he seems lost in his thoughts, of his temporary tiredness or of his good mood of the day…
All you have to do is hack the system by taking back control of your imagination. You are the master of your thoughts, not jealousy: every time you catch yourself imagining the worst, do visualization exercises that will focus on positive emotions. Not only will you feel better, but you will also make the law of attraction work for you!
- IT USES THE VICIOUS CIRCLE OF STRESS!
Jealousy also uses the vicious circle of stress: when you are going through a stressful period, you are more likely to be jealous, because this emotion takes anxiety as a breeding ground. Once it has taken hold, it will in turn be a new source of stress, and so a mechanism is set in motion that grinds you down.
You can, however, fight jealousy with the same means that you can use to fight your anxiety: do sport, meditation, tidy up, watch a comedy series, write in your diary…