Jealousy – What’s it to you?

Jealousy is a complex emotion that encompasses many different kinds of feelings ranging from fear of abandonment to rage and humiliation. Jealousy can strike both men and women when a third-party threat to a valued relationship is perceived, it can be a problem among siblings competing for parental attention, or envy after a more successful friend.

Conventional wisdom holds that jealousy is a necessary emotion because it preserves social bonds, but jealously usually does more harm than good, creating relationship conflict and strife.

Principle triggers of jealousy are beliefs that create feelings of insecurity.

Feelings of low self esteem are based in beliefs we have in a mental image of who we are. In order to eliminate the insecurity and low self esteem we don’t have to change, we just have to change our belief in the false self image.

While some people assume this may be hard, it is only challenging because most people have not learned the skills necessary to change a belief. Once you practice the skills you find that changing a belief takes very little effort. You just stop believing the story in your mind. It takes more effort to believe something than it does to not believe it.

What is the difference between Envy and Jealousy?

Ask ten different people and you might get ten different views on how the emotions of envy and jealousy are distinct.

It turns out that psychologists agree on a fairly straightforward distinction. Envy occurs when we lack a desired attribute enjoyed by another. Jealousy occurs when something we already possess (usually a special relationship) is threatened by a third person.

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