When I was growing up my mother always told me, “Do not be jealous of others. Do not wish for what others have. Do not fight to possess and control someone, because in the end you will be alone as nothing belongings to us but is merely an experience.” She was a wise Buddhist that attempted to sooth a young adolescents’ tantrums of wants that weren’t fulfilled.

It is true today, that I rarely feel jealous or envy, which I account for my upbringing and the love I was given as a child. Therefore, in the spirit of my mom I would like to pass on a footnote of knowledge hopefully, lightening up the weight of those emotions that have a hunger for our soul: jealous, anger and envy.

I have often heard in therapy and in my own life people projecting this emotion as a trigger of someone else’s behavior, “She makes me Jealous. It’s her fault she makes me this way.” Basically, when it comes to jealous we very quickly pass the buck onto our partners as the creator of this unwelcome feeling. Unfortunately, they are often not to blame as no person is able to create feelings and emotions within us. Only I have the power to create and control what is within me.

Now I know, some of you are thinking “cut the crap with this Zen shit it’s definitely not me, it really is her.” Well, sure they are cases where partners work very hard to make you jealous, but I would bet money that they are very jealous people themselves and that you are both in heated water suffering from the same illness just different symptoms. The illness is one you probably know as Low Self-Esteem and Insecurity.

When we have negative beliefs about ourselves we are off balance, and feel very much powerless to the world. We will even try regaining this power by bargaining with our partners by saying things like: “If you wouldn’t… then I wouldn’t react this way.” However this has very little success in the real world often neither you achieve your goal because this is not a balance within yourself and simply a quick exchange of false power.

So, in order to eliminate jealous we must only look within ourselves and start the change there, addressing our beliefs that create the emotions. Your relationship will change once you eliminate jealous, and even anger and envy will subside.

Here is how to begin the process:

• Build your inner power, so that you see that you have control over your emotions and don’t become a bulldozer that is reactive.
• Look at the whole picture. What are you jealous of? What is the underlying emotion. Focus: is it perhaps fear, abandonment, unworthiness that your experiencing? Delay you reaction by understanding where it is coming from?
• What are you inner core beliefs about yourself and the world? Identify you triggers? Example: I get jealous of my girlfriend, because I fear abandonment and that she may leave me for someone better.
• Just because you feel and believe something does not make it a fact. Learn to separate and question yourself.
• Be the creator of your inner world. You have the ability to create the images you project into your mind and the emotions you choose to experience.

Alex Karydi~The Lesbian Guru