Jealousy, often called the green-eyed monster, is seen almost as a character flaw. Something to be avoided at all costs or else it makes you a jealous hater.

But the problem with outright rejecting this totally normal, natural emotion, is that you don’t get to gain any wisdom or guidance from what it’s trying to tell you. Jealousy can actually point you in the direction of your desires and be a great starting point to make positive changes.

To effectively deal with jealousy, you need to: recognize it instead of ignoring it, figure out what it’s telling you, and gain some perspective through compassion and gratitude.

Instead of ignoring your jealousy and letting it fester, here’s how to make it work for you without destroying your relationships or leaving you constantly feeling less than.

Recognize Jealousy and Call It What It Is

Jealousy can be a tough emotion to nail down because you’ve probably been socialized to reject it outright since it can be destructive. But sometimes jealousy or envy can actually present as frustration, resentment, bitterness, or constant comparisons.

You might recognize it as things like:

Dreading seeing someone, even though they’re nice and friendly, and/or they’ve never done anything to harm your friendship.
Trouble celebrating someone else’s success
Talking behind someone’s back or making passive aggressive comments towards them

Recognizing your jealousy doesn’t mean you should act on it! Oftentimes jealousy will guide you in a toxic direction, which is why it’s so important to recognize it when it shows up so you can make a conscious choice about what to do. Again, it’s not a character flaw and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, it’s just a natural instinct that doesn’t always help you.

Remember that you can’t control your feelings, no matter how many internet experts tell you you can. Feelings are transient and everchanging like the weather. You can only control how you respond to your feelings by controlling your behavior.

I like the phrase: emotions are an experience and not an identity. Your feelings don’t define who you are; your behavior and choices define who you are and the kind of person you want to be.

Why ignoring or repressing jealousy doesn’t work

When you experience a difficult or unpleasant emotion, you might feel the urge to ignore it or make it go away. A lot of people will either try to logic their way out of it (“There’s no reason to feel this way”) or ignore it by numbing out or avoiding the source of their jealousy.

This will likely make things worse because when jealousy goes unchecked, you might end up sabotaging your relationships. Jealousy isn’t really the issue because it’s just a feeling. It’s the behavior it can inspire that’s the problem. Behavior like meanness or cruelty, vindictiveness, or sabotage are the issues.

Figure out what your jealousy is telling you

Try to find some acceptance that you’re feeling jealous or envious. This doesn’t mean you have to like it, it just means you accept that it’s there and understand that this emotion is trying to tell you something.

Stop judging yourself for a feeling you can’t control. Instead, shift into curiosity by investigating the message.

Ask yourself: What does this illuminate is important to me? What do I actually want? What am I wishing for?

Pay attention to what your jealousy is trying to tell you. It’s usually deeper and more complex than simply wanting a material item or a specific thing someone else has. It’s usually about what that “thing” represents.

It might be that you’re not really wishing you were traveling the world like some influencer. It could be that you wish you had the freedom and flexibility to do what you want, when you want.
If your friend got a promotion, you might be disappointed in your career. Maybe you’re wishing for some acknowledgement in your current position, or maybe you’ve been wanting to leave and are too afraid of the risks.
If someone else worked hard and reached a goal you’ve been struggling to reach, you might wish that you could figure out the key to your own discipline or consistency. Sometimes it can be as simple as “I want to feel proud of myself.”

This kind of deeper questioning will help you uncover the wish under your jealousy.

If you’re not sure, think about how you might feel if you had whatever it is you’re jealous of. What would change in your life if you had it? What would you start doing differently?

Practice self-compassion so you can respond better

practice self-compassion friend to yourself

Self-compassion doesn’t mean being too soft on yourself or letting yourself off the hook. It’s just treating yourself kindly when you’re struggling or suffering, instead of judging or criticizing yourself. It’s being a friend to yourself instead of an enemy.

Self-criticism shuts down the learning centers in your brain: so whenever you’re putting yourself down, you lose the ability to learn and adapt, or make meaning out of your experience.

Think about how you would respond if your best friend or someone you care about said they’re feeling jealous about something. Would you berate them or judge them harshly? Or would you comfort them, show support, offer some perspective or gentle honesty, and possibly help them with a plan to make some changes in their life?

Hopefully you’re doing the latter! Notice how that response is probably very different from how you naturally respond to your own icky feelings. Just because a response is automatic and natural doesn’t mean it’s the most helpful.

Being too hard on yourself is just your nervous system’s way of trying to make a negative feeling go away because it’s uncomfortable. Unfortunately you’ve probably noticed this can often backfire and intensify your feelings.

So next time you feel jealous (or any other difficult feeling), take a moment to say out loud what you’d say to a friend. The goal isn’t to trick yourself or lie to yourself, it’s to be honest and kind about how you feel so you can then decide what to do next.

Train your brain to find perspective and gratitude

If you look around, you’ll easily find people that have what you want and are doing better than you. You’ll also find many more that are struggling in ways you aren’t and wish they had what you have.

This isn’t meant to diminish how you’re feeling or turn into another form of repressing your jealousy, it’s just meant to give you some perspective.

Your brain has a tendency to magnify the negative and minimize the positive, which is called negativity bias. To counteract this, you need to actively cultivate the good, while acknowledging the bad.

Try holding the contradiction of feeling jealous, noticing what you wish you had, and feeling grateful for what you currently have and appreciate. Everyone experiences contradictory feelings, and being able to hold both at the same time can prevent comparisonitis and negative feelings dominating your entire experience.

Think about what you’ve accomplished, what you have and are grateful for, and goals you are struggling to achieve. Hold them together and widen your perspective to include everything, instead of just the negative.

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Comparing yourself to others to a small degree can actually be helpful. For instance, it can help you dress appropriately for certain occasions or help you learn a skill by watching someone else do it.

But comparisonitis is the excessive use of comparison as a way to measure yourself against others. It puts you in a precarious situation because the only way to feel good about yourself is when you’re doing better than others.

Remind yourself that someone else’s success does not take away from yours and vice versa. Instead of letting your jealousy create toxic competitiveness, try to pivot that energy into inspiration.

Ask yourself: If I was inspired by this person, what would I be doing differently?

This will help you suss out whether your jealousy comes from an innate desire, or from societal pressure. Because your answer to that question might be, I’m not actually inspired and I don’t really want to be more like that person or live that kind of lifestyle.

I hope this helps you uncover what your jealousy or envy is trying to tell you, without letting it destroy your relationships and make you act in ways that go against your values.

Take some time to think about recent incidents where you felt jealous and consider how you naturally responded. Did you ignore or repress the feeling because it felt icky? Did you ruminate and spiral? Did you do something mean?

Don’t judge yourself too harshly if your reaction wasn’t great! Make an effort to notice next time so you can try a better, more effective response.

And for anyone residing in Texas needing more support with this, reach out for a consultation call to see if therapy could help you better manage your emotions and respond in a way that feels more true to the person you want to be.