Let Jealousy Point You Towards Your Dreams

When you don’t know what your dream actually is, or which direction to turn to, it’s helpful to pay attention to what stirs up your jealousy.

Jealousy tells you two things (1) you want something someone else has (2) you have people/mentors in your life who model it for you. So you’re telling me that you get to have a good idea of what you want, and have a physical example of it? Holy cow. Take my money.

So whenever jealousy comes up for you, you will benefit by asking yourself in that moment, “what do I want?”

This is why I’ve seen the emotion of jealousy get a bad rep. Hashtags like “jealousy kills”, or “jealousy is ugly”, or “jealousy is a disease”, assumes that you’re an out of control clown with no ability to discern what’s right and what isn’t. And that’s just….absurd.

Most often jealousy is used in relationships – “I get jealous when my girl/boyfriend looks at another girl/boy”. Great! So you know you want a boy/girl friend who doesn’t do that. But that’s only half the truth.

See, the undertone of jealousy is fear, insecurity, anxiety even. It’s when you let these undertones take over that’s when jealousy is a problem. When you try to control someone else’s behavior to remove feelings of jealousy – you know you’re operating in the jealousy negative. When you put someone down to make them seem lesser than, so you can feel less triggered–that’s when you know you’re operating in the jealousy negative.

Do this exercise. You will need paper and something to write with.

Part 1 – Warming Up

1. List 10 people you’ve known the most in your entire life
2. Find at least 1 thing you’re jealous of for each person.
3. Find a way to compliment 3 of those people on the thing you’re jealous of

Part 2 – Taking it Further

1. List 5 celebrities you like
2. Find 1 thing you’re jealous of for each celebrity. If you can list more, even better. It doesn’t make a difference if it’s true or not. Just write it down. For example – I’m jealous of Damien Rice because he writes his own music, he writes good music, and he performs it the best too. I’m not a 100% sure about him writing all of his songs, but it’s what I like about him.

Part 3 – Dream Map

1. Categorize each thing you are jealous of into 3 categories of where jealousy arises – accomplishments, personality traits, physical characteristics. For example, if I said I’m jealous of my best friend because she’s helping people, I would categorize that as jealousy for someone’s accomplishment.
2. Now look for and write down themes. For example – I’m jealous of Damien Rice’s musical talent because I like how he’s got the skill of imagination and execution. His work is authentic and personal. He owns his work. (Theme: I want to create and execute my own work)
3. Do this exercise over and over again with the same people of with different people. Fill out your dream map as much as you can.

FROM THE EDITOR
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