We all know that jealousy comes from insecurity but what does it actually mean?
It means that on some level you feel threatened that the one you love might find someone else more important and give to someone else more than is given to you.
Your ego wants to control and dominate to insure its safety, growth and survival. Ironically, the bigger the ego gets, the more it feels insecure and the more it strives to control and dominate. This desire causes suffering because it is based in fear and the temporary moments of triumph are replaced with a deeper sense of insecurity and a greater obsession to control.
Your sense of entitlement and that someone has to do something or is not allowed to do something is also driven by the fear of the ego and the need to preserve your identity.
Did you ever stop to think why when someone has cheated on you or lied to you, or betrayed you, especially someone you deeply care about, feels so devastating and painful to you?
Behaviors
Why should someone else’s thoughtless and self-centered behavior affect you as it does if you are not the one who behaves inappropriately?
Because every painful reaction is based in fear.
Let’s examine what is this fear that affects you so deeply even though you remain the same person you were before someone else behaved, in what you feel, inappropriately or wrong?
Philosophically speaking, other people’s behavior should not affect you since you are only responsible for who you are and how you are expressing that sense of self. You cannot and should not feel responsible for the behaviors of others and then judge yourself based on what people we love (or those we don’t) do or do not do and the choices they choose to make.
So what really hurts you is not so much their behavior but the feeling of personal inadequacy and the fear that all the time and emotions invested into someone or something was a mistake and all for nothing. You fear that you made wrong choices and that too threatens your identity. You begin to feel that you are not good enough, and that is a painful feeling.
You are hurting because deep down you do not feel adequate, deserving, worthy and good enough. So when someone says they love you, you unconsciously pile on that person the responsibility of making you feel adequate, deserving, good enough, worthy and loved instead of taking that responsibility for yourself.
As a consequence, you fear to lose that almost as much as you fear death; and if it is threatened or you do loose it, you feel deep void, excruciating pain, and the desire to get it back no matter what.
Overcoming
But the truth is, if you love yourself, feel worthy, deserving and good enough, other people’s behavior should not affect you. If you don’t like the situation, you just walk away from it avoiding all the drama, allowing the other person to live his or her life as they choose and you living yours as you choose.
Nobody owes you anything. And it is not your job to save someone, especially when they don’t want to be saved. Just remember, the sense of entitlement is ego driven in the same way as the desire to change someone’s mind and actions, wanting to manipulate and control them. It has nothing to do with love, far from it.
To truly love someone, is to wish them happiness with or without you and on their terms.
Jealousy does not belong in a relationship where love is unconditional. Love yourself enough to accept that and do not settle for anything else. Only then you will discover true bliss, pure joy, and fulfilment of loving and being loved unconditionally.