Is jealousy a good thing?

I say yes, it is.

This little green eyed monster pops up in my gut more often than I’d like it to. Honestly, I bet you felt a stab of jealousy recently, and there is a 90% chance it was towards someone very close to you. I’m sorry to call you on this and I’m sorry to call myself on this too, but it’s true.

Let’s say you just became jealous of your best friend for whatever reason, like maybe because she is more successful than you. How do you turn this jealousy in a positive experience?

Follow these four simple steps.

Observe – There is a message for you here, and there is a lesson for you in this jealousy. If you are jealous because she has accomplished more in last 6 months than you have in the last 6 years and you are thinking “only if I had put in that much effort, then I would have…”, stop. Really, stop. This is not going to help you. The message in this is that you now have the opportunity to put in more effort into your work in the future.

Don’t attack – Don’t say, “Yes, she has accomplished something but she has no life. Or she’s a bitch so of course she did what she needed to do to get here.” Don’t. She has her own hard journey she has had to go through to get this result. Leave it. Don’t attack. Turn your finger towards yourself instead and see where you can improve. But, be careful not to attack yourself either.

Be patient – Jealousy is an indicator of something you have a desire for. Use this as a metal detector to see what kind of desires you have hiding beneath the surface. OK, so your jealousy is showing you that you desperately desire success. Fine. Accept it. Yes, it’s not dignifying. But it is YOU! Accept it and let it not affect you.

Try. It is possible.

Feel it in your body –Where do you feel it in your body? And what this says. For me, I felt this intense jealousy around an identical situation in my stomach area. The stomach area, and the stomach chakra specifically, is connected to personal power, being confident, responsible, and reliable. It is also connected to willpower and self-discipline and I know that I need to work more on self-discipline.

This jealousy is like a poke in an open wound and exposes a problem I have already.

I’ll repeat the steps again.

The next time you feel a big surge of jealousy come up, stop right away and follow these steps:

1. Observe the jealousy. Why is it really happening? What can I learn from it?
2. Don’t attack. Resist attacking the other person to make yourself feel better. And do not attack yourself either.
3. Acknowledge the desire. Acknowledge the desire that this has brought up to the surface from underneath.
4. Feel it in your body. Body awareness is so massively important. The part of the body you feel this in, look it up according to the chakra in that area and uncover another layer behind this jealousy.

Jealousy is just the other end of the same human quality which has to do with time. It is the exact opposite of patience. Be patient. It is only a matter of time till you have the very thing about which you are now jealous.