Jealousy Is a Mirror

What the life you want is trying to show you

Do you know how many life-altering opportunities you’ve passed up while you’ve been busy not being yourself?

While you were too busy comparing yourself to other people out of jealousy?

I’ve been seeing videos about jealousy on my timeline lately, and I’m gathering that most people are misunderstanding the purpose of the emotion. Jealousy is not meant to be perpetuated outward. It starts as an internal feeling. Most people make the mistake of projecting that jealousy onto an external trigger instead of keeping the feeling internal and alchemizing it — a.k.a. asking the feeling what it wants you to do about it.

We’re supposed to take feelings of jealousy and envy for what other people have or who they are and ask ourselves: What does that represent for me? and/or How can I make that happen for myself? Then we look back at that other person and check our ego, reminding ourselves that they did nothing wrong by being who they are or by having the things they possess.

Unless someone is acting stuck up — like they know more than you or are better than you — you have to be able to recognize when it’s a you issue. We have to acknowledge within ourselves that we’re triggered because, subconsciously, we feel intimidated that someone has reached a level we want for ourselves. And we have to be considerate enough to remember that it’s not the other person making us feel that way. More often than not, that person is simply being themselves, and what you’re witnessing is their personal transformation. They’re learning to love themselves internally, and that’s being reflected physically out into the world.

I can name three times when I was genuinely jealous of someone else.

Number one: someone was on a food tour of Europe and filmed it.

(Self-explanatory.)

Number two: today, when I saw the Anthropologie Judarn upholstered floor mirror that retails for $1,298 in the background of somebody’s TikTok video.

(Also valid. I’ve been staring at this mirror longingly for over a year on my Pinterest board.)

The very first time I ever felt genuine animosity and envy toward someone was after I had my son.

I saw this girl on Instagram. She was outside. She was partying, taking fire pictures, and her hair and makeup were styled to perfection.

The first time she appeared, I voiced very judgmental thoughts. The second time, I tried to find things in her posts to scrutinize — but that didn’t make me feel any better. I couldn’t figure out why it bothered me so much until about the third time she came across my feed, when I looked down at my breastfeeding baby looking back up at me and finally understood.

She and I were both 24 years old. Yet here I was, at home with a child less than a year old, instead of out living my life the way I’d pictured as a child and now legally could have. I hadn’t yet gotten the chance to experience the level of freedom people tell you your twenties are supposed to offer. And now I was seemingly in a position where society tells women they’ll never get to experience that level of freedom again.

With that realization, the next time she came across my feed living her best life, I no longer felt that green-eyed monster telling me I had to hate her. I understood that the only option was to assess my own life and see how I could gain the freedom I was clearly craving, while still respecting the situation I was in.

I had to address the part of me that was denying myself the things I truly wanted because I was avoiding the work it would take to get there.

It’s kind of like that famous moment in When Harry Met Sally, where she’s clearly really enjoying the sandwich and the patron next to her says, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

You have to be brave enough to put yourself in the position to get what you want — even if you’re scared and insecure.

If you are over the age of 18, the only person telling you no — the only one with actual authority over you — is you.

Anyone else discouraging you from living a life that allows you to face the mirror and respect yourself every day is simply voicing their opinion.

If what you want doesn’t take away someone else’s autonomy or harm them, there’s no real reason not to go for it.

And if the thing you want tells you no,

then it probably isn’t for you anyway.