A different kind of jealousy

Hi everyone, it's Abeegail again. Welcome to my blog. I want to be vulnerable today and talk about something heart twisting. Well there's something that has been weighing me down and I know once in our lives we've also been there too, it's the guilt of being jealous of not even strangers, but people we love. I've often wondered if I was a bad person or friend, when I get emotions like this. And I don't know if I'm the only one who has felt like this before.

It's another ball game when you feel jealous of people whose voice you know by heart, people whose arms have held you, people whose happiness you genuinely want because we are taught that when you love someone you are to cheer them on and celebrate them but when you are left behind feeling like "this should be me too" it kind of feel like betrayal for feeling like this. Sometimes it's not about wanting what they want, it's noticing how badly you wanted it for yourself and then you start questioning your worth and your timing.

It's easier to feel jealous of close to you because jealousy is born from proximity. For people far from you, their wins don’t touch the places you’re already bruised. But when someone close to you achieves the thing you’ve been quietly hoping for, the comparison becomes unavoidable. Because the person you are jealous of is someone close to you, you don't let the feelings sit you immediately discard. You tell yourself that you are immature and ungrateful, then you wonder if you are really a good person and you feel ashamed for not being able to be the version of yourself you think love demands. What we don't realize is that love doesn't erase personal unmet desire. Wanting something good for others doesn't mean you stop wanting good for yourself.

Jealousy and envy are feeling we rarely talk about because coming clean about it can put a dent in our self image, no one wants to be seen as a bad person. I like to say that there's a difference between jealousy and envy. Jealous is like looking at another person's ice cream and wanting that same ice cream and wishing you had it however, envy is looking at someone's ice cream and wishing that that ice cream should fall because you can have it. Jealousy isn't something that we should be ashamed of because it a normal emotion just like anger, happiness and sadness, but we should be careful not to let it turn into envy and eventually hate.

The goal is not to eliminate jealousy, but it's to sit with it, and understand that I can be happy for you but still have the desire to want good for me. We should be careful and not let jealous ruin our relationship. Sit with it and try to understand why you feel the way you do.

It's still Abeegail 💗✨
Still managing my emotions.

Thank you for reading,
The images used are mine.