The word ‘jealousy’ has been used to describe how we feel in relation to what another is doing. I am now coming to sense that the true feeling here is envy and so enviously is how I lived. Deeply and bitterly so, I was envious of what others did and had in their lives.
For example, envious of those who spent their days away from home working, that other people had better lives than I, better cars, bigger houses, more friends, even envious of how others could feel at ease whilst I felt constantly ill-at-ease. This list could go on for the whole page, but suffice it to say that I lived in a constant state of envy… it was never far from me.
Hiding very sneakily behind this envy was the true jealousy that I had not considered until recently: what I was really jealous of was the choices that others had made to support themselves in the way they wanted to, something that I was not choosing for myself.
My focus was instead on fitting into the life that I had. In living this way I then compared my life to others, – the comparison coming because I could feel deep within that there was another way to live that fully supported myself, and in so doing, actually would have supported all the others in my life.
Yet I was not choosing to follow this inner, subtle, yet very loud guidance that was being offered to me. So, I held back on accepting, embracing and integrating into my life what I felt deep within.
Over the past couple of years I have been observing any moment that I felt jealous and have then considered why it is that I was jealous of that person in that moment. I have begun to explore what choices I have felt for myself that I had not fully claimed and integrated into my life, and then began to do so.
As I integrate my true choices into my days, slowly but steadfastly I am adjusting the way I live my life. One of the most significant choices that I have made is to accept only love in my life. This is a very personal choice that I am discovering doesn’t have anything to do with another, but is ever-present in how I personally care for myself. When I made this choice I immediately felt that what needed addressing more than anything else was how I held myself, how I thought about myself and how I treated myself.
The difference in my life in the past 10 months is vast. I feel my grace daily, there is an acceptance and love of others that I had not ever before considered was even possible, let alone now to be living. I love myself deeply and this grows every single day, at an amazing pace as I see everything in my life as God gently nudging me to take the next loving step.
I am not yet fully clear of feeling jealous of another and this is something that I am acutely aware of. No longer do I berate myself when I feel it, but instead surrender to the love that I have within and understand it. These moments are now stepping stones, taking me to an ever-deepening love and understanding of myself and others.
When I now feel jealousy coming from others there is this sense of knowing why each person is living like they are. With this understanding there is a sense of grace in my body that holds us both in the love that we naturally are. The feeling of grace is full and encompassing, steady and strong, offering a space for jealousy to be let go of and our true loving light to be set free.
It offers a moment in time for us both to surrender more deeply to our own love and to let go of the falseness that jealousy offers, to instead claim our true power and strength and leave us with a knowing in our bodies of the harm that jealousy brings, as well as the feeling of space and freedom that is felt once this energy is seen for what it is.
I celebrate every day the difference in my life, and the joy I now feel in my days – none of which was possible until I made the choice to live by the very basic principle that lies at the base of that which Serge Benhayon presents, “to live the love that I am”.
Thank you Serge Benhayon for living the love that you are.
By Leigh Strack, Reception/Administration, Goonellabah Australia
Further Reading:
Jealousy
The Evil Effect of Jealousy
How a Dog Taught Me About The Poison of Jealousy
A Life of Comparison
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
“These moments are now stepping stones, taking me to an ever-deepening love and understanding of myself and others.” Understanding the cause and effect of jealousy offers a way to live with the freedom to be the love that we are.
I was talking to someone recently and they suddenly came out with the fact that they were jealous of me because I was doing something they were not and had no chance of doing in this lifetime. I asked them if it was possible that they could verbalise what they were actually feeling and they could not but I could feel they were crying which I felt was a great release for them because at least they were letting go of the tension they were feeling and had been in for sometime. I believe that when we hang on to things that upset us or we feel hurt by, it can be a precursor to illness and disease because our bodies are out of a rhythm of harmony this harmony is the same harmony we can feel when we walk in nature.
This is amazing to have such a strong love of self, ‘ I love myself deeply and this grows every single day, at an amazing pace as I see everything in my life as God gently nudging me to take the next loving step.’
I can see how jealousy is an anti-evolutionary force, something when directed at us we can reduce how much of our true selves we live, keeping us all in the cycle of mediocrity. Compromising kind of pits us against each other in a fight to the top. Because jealousy is here and the energy of comparison that feeds it is so pervasive in life, the most sensible way to approach it is exactly as you say, through loving understanding and using it to identify where our potentials are that haven’t been activated that others have begun to live for themselves.
Jealousy to me is a cancer that can if not dealt with leaves us feeling bitter and twisted towards others and ourselves. What I am starting to fully appreciate is that we are all the same we come from the same source what makes us different is the choices we have made not just in this life but the previous lives we have forgotten because we do not live in a way that we could easily access them. We are the product of our choices so if we can see/feel that others are making more informed and positive choices to reconnect back to themselves and we cannot or have not been bothered to do this then jealousy rears its ugly head. What if we were instead to get behind that person as by their reflection they are showing us and the world that there is another way to be, another way to live and that we can live this way too. Rather than bringing them down so there is no reflection for anyone and we all stay in the misery we have self made and hate at the same time.
“..to live the love that I am.” What a beautiful simple way to embrace each day.
What a beautiful choice to make, ‘One of the most significant choices that I have made is to accept only love in my life.’
“ what I was really jealous of was the choices others had made ……….. something I wasn’t choosing for myself.” It’s interesting how we feel jealousy on occasions rather than be inspired by another’s choices. Damaging to both parties. Accepting where we are at and appreciating – ourself and the other- makes a huge difference.
I have been observing how someone can be very envious of another. And it is quite toxic as everyone gets affected by it and it is not something that you can hide because it can be felt by everyone. What often occurs though is those people involved pretend nothing is occurring when actually the very air being breathed is full of toxic fumes which is absorbed by our bodies. So is it any wonder we get sick and ill when we are exposed to the poisonous fumes that we are all contributing to.
“what I was really jealous of was the choices that others had made to support themselves in the way they wanted to, something that I was not choosing for myself.” That is exactly how it is for me, the problem with jealousy is it comes in lightning fast, we clock the person and then the self fury of not making those same choices we had the same freedom to make kicks in, and we are then poisoning our own body and another’s with the jealousy that comes through. But as you say Leigh, it’s then a choice to work with it constructively by initiating more love in our life by what’s been reflected by another, or stay stagnant. I feel the fact we all have so much jealousy is because we have been living in comfort and not growing and saying yes to the love on offer, and not activating our potential.
Energetically when we understand and live with a deep-humble-appreciate-ive-ness there is no room for any jealousy.
Truly appreciating another and ourselves gives less space for jealousy.
Appreciate-ive-ness is heavenly!
And True Appreciation is a science that has divine intimacy, joy, authority, confirmation (of our divine connection) thus when the body move in a way that is true or with true movements this is part of our true expression and when we Appreciate the feeling of being a humble student of our-self the movements are cemented into our bodies.
Also Greg I feel we all have something different to bring to the world as the light catches a crystal and reflects the colours of the rainbow so to do we reflect different colours and all the different colours make up the one that we all come from. If we all come from the one source, then there is no reason to be jealous or in comparison to anyone as we are all equal in our own way. I wonder why we are not taught this from a young age as it would knock out sibling jealousy and rivalry.
Absoulutely, Mary, thank you your words, as they are also heavenly and what a blessing for what you have shared has illuminated my day!
It’s fascinating to watch jealousy within children at such very young ages, for example where a sibling will be jealous of the attention another is receiving and they are not. So where does this jealousy come from and is it possible we bring it in with us when we reincarnate from a former life?
I would love to read more about this, if anyone has explored it further. I stumbled upon Serge’s writings on jealousy by way of a comment on a Guardian article about sibling rivalry. I was instantly fascinated and the idea resonated with me, but I still wonder how it explains the very early feelings of jealousy at the arrival of a new family member.
I feel I have learnt the true meaning of Jealousy which is we are jealous of another’s true light their connection to heaven and the love that pours forth. When we see someone with heaven pouring through them in a Nano second we have compared, judged and if we are not feeling the same love within our own bodies then we are jealous that someone has got that flowing love that we so desperately want ourselves but haven’t made the choices or commitment to care for ourselves that then allows the love to flow.
How many of us have been honest about the level of jealousy that is present in our lives? I remember a couple of years ago, realising that I am jealous of a good friend of mine. Before the realisation, i wouldn’t call it jealousy but I compared my life to hers, I looked at her partner, her choices, the way she dresses and more and made judgements whether they were up to scratch or not. That is not jealousy per say, but the reason that was going on to begin with was because I thought she was better looking than me, thinner, longer hair & on top of that she had an amazing job that she loved. In that comparison, I felt like I was perhaps somewhat less than her, that my life isn’t up to scratch. So, slowly but surely i began to have digs at myself, completely irroding my insides with resentment. In that contraction, my only option is to pull in jealousy because when we feel like we’re not good enough, when we make ourselves feel as big as a fruit fly, there is absolutely no possibility to see that perhaps there may be a divinity to us, and that perhaps we too can make choices which are different.
Jealousy is a destructive force – however, there must be a purpose behind this too…as with everything. What if we used the jealousy we feel to understand that there are aspects of our own development that are yet to be lived and have thus been brought to our attention with and by the reflection of another?
I like what you say Henrietta, using jealousy as a springboard to deepen and evolve, rather than stay stuck in the quagmire of emotion that can be so debilitating.
Jealousy is a topic we do not really like to talk about for it makes us all squirm…we are not comfortable with it as we all dabble in it and it is very familiar to us in one way or another – from the way we have been jealous of another and also from the way another has been jealous of us.
What I have felt is that envy and jealousy are when we clock that someone has something that we want and we could have/could have had, but in fact have not or are not willing to do the work to get there or wanting to admit that we could have done this too. I’m not here necessarily talking about material possessions but rather a quality or a way of being in another. We are all prone to this (jealousy thing), for life is our school of learning as I see it, so we will always encounter those who have lived a deeper quality and those who have yet to live it – hence no one is really free of jealousy.
Something that you have said here Leigh that I really love is how when you observe that jealousy comes up for you now, how you do not berate yourself anymore, but seek to understand why this has come up. In that simple action there is a lot to appreciate. Often when we berate ourselves it drives those feelings of jealousy even deeper, so much that we don’t even want to look at them or why they are there for us. Being willing to show ourselves understanding is a great act of self love. The more we are this way with ourselves, then we can more easily be this way with others. There is always a ripple effect.
To be willing to look at the things/people we are jealous of is a great first step towards being able to address any issues of jealousy that we may have with others.
Jealousy, envy, comparison and competition are all bedfellows … there cannot be one without the other.
It is the only way with jealousy and comparison that is to be real and acknowledge to the best of our ability when these emotions surface in the body, to then turn them around and live what is being offered.
It’s so easy to get stuck in the self judgement or another judgement of ourselves when we experience jealousy. This is a much wiser perspective to see it as a stepping stone and examine what’s there to be claimed, integrated into our life, and for more love to be lived.
Judgement or berating ourselves is not a loving choice if we clock jealousy or comparison, ‘what I was really jealous of was the choices that others had made to support themselves in the way they wanted to, something that I was not choosing for myself.’
How gorgeously empowering and evolving it is to choose to relate to moments in life that we feel uncomfortable about as an opportunity to reflect and deepen our understanding, awareness and living the fullness of the love that we inherently are. Thank you for the beautiful example offered here.
Yep I agree Golnaz to ‘relate to moments in life that we feel uncomfortable about as an opportunity to reflect and deepen our understanding’ feels like a door wide open and to condemn or berate ourselves for our own behaviour feels like the same door slammed shut.
To be aware of the true harm of jealousy and understand it, we can see how it attacks not only the other person but also ourselves. We are all born with our own unique essence, if we forget this truth we behave in ways that are unloving.
Awesome point Anna – and when this happens, when we get caught by the bug of jealousy, one of the antidotes is to deeply appreciate ourselves and all the qualities we hold – for each and every one of us has unique qualities to unfold and share with others, as well as those qualities we are yet to live fully.
By not reacting and deepening to the Love that we are and knowing that this is who we are, I have started to feel and experience that you can’t hold the other in jealousy, it is a process of understanding and one that is deeply supportive for everyone involved.
This is super beautiful and inspiring, Leigh – ‘I am not yet fully clear of feeling jealous of another and this is something that I am acutely aware of. No longer do I berate myself when I feel it, but instead surrender to the love that I have within and understand it. These moments are now stepping stones, taking me to an ever-deepening love and understanding of myself and others’. Understanding jealousy enables us to commit to being more.
Yes Janet, there is no shame or guilt in sensing jealousy or comparison with another; it is there to support us to deepen the love that we are.
Choosing to love and appreciate ourselves naturally spreads out to include others, ‘I feel my grace daily, there is an acceptance and love of others that I had not ever before considered was even possible, let alone now to be living’.
Jealousy causes people to behave in ways that go against their essence.
This is beautiful to read Leigh and brings somehow a beauty to jealousy and all other separating emotions, in that we do not need to condemn them but are simply asked to be honest with ourselves why we choose / are ruled by them. There is much to explore about oneself to be able to let go and heal.
If we consider jealousy as just a choice or choices we have not fully initiated in our lives then the answer is simple – we just need to refocus on ourselves and explore the potential we have within us, rather than comparing to others who are making choices we have no yet considered or gone for.
Yes, and hence the importance to understand the true meaning or words and what they do with us. If we do we are not longer at the mercy of them but can start to make different choices.
That is great wisdom Meg, I like how you have expressed this as potential not yet explored and more choices to be made to live even more of the love we are.
I often still feel the jealousy of those that I hold near and dear to me but the difference now is reading that it is happening and knowing that it is the ability to appreciate that what we are reflecting is the level of love that is on offer for all if they choose.
I like that Natalliya, that jealousy is a sign that there is something amazing we are offering and more appreciation of ourselves to go to.
Jealousy gets us nowhere, it is very destructive and very dishonouring of each other. I have found the less you take anything personally the easier it is not to be affected by others.
This is super cool from jealousy, turning it back in on itself to envious and then to counter and not feed this you focused on the love that you are building for yourself and not accepting anything that is not love, even from yourself. This is powerful.
Focus on the love that you are building, and accepting nothing less, ‘to live the love that I am’.
When jealousy is let go of it is like releasing poison from the body, space that can fill with appreciation.
Comparison is deadly, as someone is always deemed lesser than, and when we are perceived as being the one lesser, by ourselves in our own mind, then there is fertile ground for jealousy to develop.
‘One of the most significant choices that I have made is to accept only love in my life.’ A very beautiful and supportive choice to make Leigh, for when we chose love first and foremost anything that is unloving stands out a mile and we can begin to look at that and let it go.
Imagine how our world would be if we all made this choice, ‘One of the most significant choices that I have made is to accept only love in my life.’
The moment we compare ourselves with another we are setting ourselves up to find fault with us or them in someway. We are all great at some things and not so good at others. It would be crazy for example for me to be jealous of a musician who has spent their life mastering what they do whether it be song writing, singing etc.. or equally say a tennis star who has practised hours on end and for me having done none of either to expect to be equally as good – it is absurd really yet is something we can easily get caught up doing. Often we need to make things sound absurd to see the ridiculousness behind them.
Yes, jealousy is truly coming from seeing another making true choices for themselves that we have not been willing to make for ourselves. Understanding this brings clarity for either if you are sensing you yourself are jealous or when you feel jealousy coming at you.
Thank you Leigh – it is huge to note that building more love in your body was what has stopped the envy and jealousy you once felt. it is so important we get to the bottom of why we feel the way that we feel.