Days 124-126: Jealousy

23-25012013

I have been very jealous of my friends, family members and partners. Not in a violent, eruptive way where I'd throw tantrums and make loud demands and abuse others, but in a quiet, self-destructive manner where I mull over thoughts and guesswork in my head and never express my insecurity to others, creating and growing a black hole within me which grows in bitterness, blame and self-blame. As a child I learned through bullying and the experience of being abandoned to fear losing my friends (my social support), because apparently they could just suddenly decide to not like me anymore because I had somehow “failed” and then decide to like someone else “better”, and so when a person I had defined as “a friend” (as opposed to “foes”) appeared to show interest or fondness towards someone other than myself, I reacted with fear that the other will go away and like someone else more than me. I made myself completely dependent on those who I “got to” be in good terms with, because I believed that I had no power over creating my life and determining my social environment by choosing who to be friends / spend time with. So I would go into suspicion, doubt, sadness, helplessness and a pitch-black jealousy.

Since my childhood this jealousy pattern has existed with many different people, but mainly those who I have made into my stability points – my “special people”. Sometimes it would accumulate to such intensity that it would explode in one way or another, but mostly I would take all the damage on myself. To me jealous behavior has always seemed like something really “dumb” and I kept telling people “that's just stupid”, and so as I created a personality that rejected messed up behavior in relationships I suppressed those experiences in myself as I had an image to maintain (the independent woman persona). [Clarification: I experienced jealousy but suppressed this experience, and thus I reacted every time I saw someone else experience jealousy, and I refused to realize I am reflecting my own behavior through others by blaming and judging others for being jealous. “Remove the thorn from thy own eye.”]

So what I have missed this entire time is that I have misunderstood relationships as a child and that this jealousy pattern is based on that misunderstanding – and that, luckily, misunderstandings can be corrected. I have defined human relations to be a place where I get special validation of my value*, and that there is only a limited amount of this to go around; if someone else “gets to” be in a good relationship to someone, it means less affection for me. So I have believed that the amount of friendship/love (validation/acceptance) to go around in the world is a constant, when in fact it's a variable that depends on the overall conditions of the individuals, the culture and all of humanity.

So in this I have missed the fact that if two people interact with each other, it is just two particles of this life system connecting with each other right now, and that each particle of this reality is one and equal and in constant motion and in constant relation to all the other particles. So, in fact, I do not have relationships just with those who I have defined myself to have a relationship with - I have a relationship to all that exists.

Within this realization the concept of jealousy no longer functions. If I have an equal relationship to all that exists, and if I am just one, just me, and not merged with other people – I do not have “special” relationships, I only have current relationships, the relations that are HERE and immediate. As a being with a mind I am able to choose to move my focus away from other relations and choose new ones to work with, whatever supports and assists me at the moment. The fear of letting a relationship go (to “lose” a relationship) is to fear to stand on my own, to be only me and only one, but it is also to not realize that these relations do not disappear even though we choose to not focus on them at the moment. These relations with people, animals, institutions, concepts, activities, ourselves, everything – they're always here and they only disappear in death, and even then their effect lingers.

So, bringing this back to me: as I have watched by (or imagined) an interaction with “someone special” (stability point) and another human being and perceived there to have been fondness/interest, I have 1) interpreted the gestures and voices of others and guessed what they actually experience and then believed this guesswork, 2) separated myself from myself and others through insecurity/smallness by thinking “I am not a part of this interaction”, and 3) through helplessness and separation not realized I could become a part of this interaction (if necessary) as we are all equal particles in this system and that our movement is one and equal as we are all human beings and life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create another person into a stability point as I have seen the other to represent something I lack; and instead of reflecting it back to myself and working on myself to bring about that which I lack, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a dependency on the other and require that person around me to “balance me out” so that I wouldn't have to face myself and admit to myself that I am living as less than my true potential.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create caring relationships where kindness was exchanged (friends, family, partners) into a stability point where I get affirmation that I am accepted and loved instead of accepting myself and creating myself into that stability point as I am the only truly constant thing in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive these caring relationships to be “special” because I believed I am only able to get this care from a few people because I did not trust most people and saw this distrust to be valid and a proof that others cannot be trusted.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my “gut feeling” of distrust as proof that people were untrustworthy – not realizing that even though there's a correlation, these two things (my inner experience and the possible future actions of others) are in no way connected to each other – the other person does not create my inner experience of distrust, I do – my inner experience in no way creates the trustworthiness of another and thus proves nothing one way or the other.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my guesswork about other people based on previous experiences where I was treated a certain way and I experienced “betrayal”. *
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear and a distrust towards certain kinds of people because they resembled the characters in a survival scenario I created in my mind based on events where I was “betrayed”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I do this I already decide what my interaction with these “untrustworthy” people will be like and I limit myself accordingly, for example by not talking openly and keeping things to myself in order to protect myself – not realizing that these people may well choose to act in countless of ways and that there is no way for me to foretell their behavior as in each breath choices are made, and that I am thus limiting myself from actually seeing what's present and where the situation could be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a “special person” has interacted with another in a way I have interpreted to be fondness or interest, to react with fear that I will “lose” this person – lose my stability point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a “special person” has interacted with another in a way I have interpreted to be negative, to feel pleasure as I have perceived myself to be “winning” in comparison to the other who was “losing” the acceptance of the “special person”, being secretly very content with myself – for doing nothing at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pick up clues from the behavior of a “special person” and piece together imagined situations in my mind where fondness/interest is expressed to someone other than me, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to then react to these self-created visions in which there was nothing real as even the people I play with in my scenarios are but puppets that are just my interpretation of who the others are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with fear to a “special person” showing fondness/interest towards someone else, to follow this reaction of fear and believe the fear is valid – that I might actually lose this person - not realizing that as I do not “have” the relationship in the first place it is not mine to “lose”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in fact no relationships are lost until in death, as all barriers we create in between us are imaginary and can be solved as I (as everyone) have the possibility and capability to choose to change and do things differently in each and every moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have believed my fear to be valid, to follow my emotional reaction and in my mind create backchat, internal conversations, imagined situations and guesswork and act based on them – not stopping to question my initial reaction and the fear and the validity thereof.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the “special person” by perceiving this person to be “more than” me based on the acceptance I did not give myself but instead received from this person; and then when this “special person” has chosen to interact with someone else perceive myself to not be one and equal to the other and thus believe I cannot be a part of the interaction as it is “bigger” than me and instead choose to seclude myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel insecure when a “special person” has shown fondness/interest towards someone else as I have in that moment believed I am “losing” because the person chooses to not focus on me but to focus on someone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the lack of something (attention) at a given moment does not indicate the existence of its opposite (refusal).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be “small and insignificant” when and as I have felt insecurity in these situations, here instead of questioning my experience of insecurity believing my experience and casting self-blame by thinking I am “not worthy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to explain my experience of insecurity to myself by blaming myself as I did not know how my mind works and this was all I had learned to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as one and equal to others in these situations and thus exclude myself because I perceived myself to “not belong” within the interaction others had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the person my “special person” chose to show interest/fondness towards as an “enemy” because I believed there was a limited amount of friendship to go around and that any affection shown to others would mean less affection for me – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus not see myself as one and equal to this person as I saw this person to be “more than” me as the person “held the power” to take my “special person” (stability) away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not participate in the interaction others had in these situations and instead seclude myself, not realizing that I am limiting myself based on imagined statuses and guesswork motivated by fear and insecurity, and that none of this is actually real as it is only within my own mind, and that the only thing that's real is the actual interaction as movement and actions which I can only know of once I participate in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel helpless to direct these situation as I have seen myself to not be an equal participant in this reality and perceived myself to not have directive power.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear participating in interaction the participants of which I perceived to be “more than” me because I was afraid they would attack me for “crossing the line”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how my surroundings react to me, not realizing I am not the cause of that reaction but the trigger.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the reactions of others because I've defined myself according to them and so far the result definition has been quite the mess.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the social constructs we have agreed on and collectively create to be real in any way whatsoever, here “respecting” whatever limitations we have set for our interaction by limiting myself when the reactions of others remind me of their existence by telling me to “get back in line” or to “stick to the status quo”.

When and as I react with jealousy to other people, I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am reacting to the imagined loss of a quality in the other person which I have defined to be my stability point – something this person represents to me and I perceive myself lack. I realize this is nothing personal towards the other people as the experience of jealousy originates within me due to the points I have not yet faced. I then investigate my relationship to this other person in writing and speech to see what quality in this other person I have created a dependency towards. I realize that no relationships are ever lost until in death and that the fear of loss is thus not valid. I then forgive myself for what I have created the relationship into and consequently cleanse and unburden the relationship and re-create it into one that will be of actual support and assistance.

I commit myself to no longer act upon jealousy.

I commit myself to no longer accept myself to create stability points outside of myself and I commit myself to investigate those that already exist.

I commit myself to stop competing for attention as I now see, realize and understand that there is enough caring to go around for each and every one of us and that it is also up to me - “give as you would like to receive” - and that thus I do not have to “fight for my survival” and separate myself from others out of fear.

I commit myself to show myself I am able to change in each and every moment by challenging myself in action and movement to do things differently – to discard that which I have planned and create the movement HERE.

I commit myself to no longer blame myself for my experiences of jealousy, insecurity and smallness and instead show myself compassion, patience and kindness by forgiving myself.

I commit myself to realize we are all equal particles of this reality and all in a relation to everything there is, and that in that we are all one and equal.