J is for Jealousy

Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value. Jealousy scans for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred and rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved. You will always think it's a mistake or luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within. Find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences. Put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them.

~Jennifer James

Jealousy is an emotion we all feel at some point in time. For some of us, it's a feeling we have on a daily basis. We envy the things others have - their car, their home, their job, their clothes, their jewelry, their children, their husband, their fertility - the list goes on and on.

Very rarely do we find ourselves content entirely with what we have. While we may not be eaten up with jealousy, there is always something someone else has that we wish we had instead. Maybe it's their hair color or eye color. Maybe it's the shape of their body or the way they can effortlessly turn heads as they walk through a room. Maybe it's simply the confidence they have in themselves or the way they make children smile when they laugh.

Whatever it is, there is always some small thing we find in others that we're envious of. For me, the thing I find myself most often jealous of others about is their children (go figure, eh?). I could live without all the other things that I want, but my desire for children burns through me and I feel the evil green-eyed monster rear his head every time I see a Facebook status update from my friends about their children or every time one of my co-workers or friends talks about their children and the silly things they say or do. It eats away at me, this longing for children of my own, and it makes me bitter.

I've spent most of my life walking under that hovering cloud, jealousy, whose acid raindrops blurred my vision and burned holes in my heart.

~Astrid Alauda

Learning to live without feeling such deep-seated jealousy is difficult. I haven't mastered it yet; in fact, I haven't even gotten very good in the beginner's class yet. I want to be able to be around my friends and family with children and not feel so envious of them. I want to not constantly be thinking what it would be like if we had children who could play with the other children in our lives. I don't see how to make this happen, though. As long as we are still hoping and still trying, I don't know how to not imagine the children we should have. I don't know how to not browse through the children's clothing at stores and imagine what it would look like on a child of our own, or how it would look in the pictures I would like to take of our children. I don't know how to not mingle through the toy department and imagine which toys might be the right choice for my own non-existent children. I don't know how to wander through the bedding department at shops and not imagine how I would decorate their rooms.

It's crazy, I know, but how do I not feel this all-consuming jealousy? How do I release this intense longing for something I want but may never have? Have any of you experienced jealousy on this level? If so, how did you let it go? Or have you managed to do so?

For now, I guess I'll just have to accept myself the way I am....jealousy and all.