“Along the surface of every mind there are knots. Mindtangles. They appear as puckers, sink holes in the cohesion of the surface of your mind. They are mesmerizing, slippery, and they activate the Inner Story Teller’s energy before you even know you are lost in it. They have their own qualities. Each mindtangle is complex, and beautiful, in a complicated way.
Mindtangles. We have a tendency to identify with them beyond equilibrium. We believe our mindtangles, our one-sided opinions and beliefs, to the point of being enslaved.”
One of the most familiar, complex, enslaving, and beautiful mindtangles to observe is the samsaric knot of jealousy.
Jealousy is a powerful guru. When appreciated in a way that opens our mindful awareness, jealousy can be an awesome opportunity to notice and identify with your own panoramic beauty. Unfortunately, we usually shut down rather hard around jealousy, to protect a tender, long nursed hurtful wound.
All of us have slipped into the mindtangle of jealousy, either our own feelings of jealous tangle…or find ourselves enslaved by someone else’s… at one point of time or another.
Jealousy seems to be a function of relational complexity. For example, it’s easy to look at a tulip and acknowledge it’s beauty without becoming jealous of it. Most people do not look upon a tulip and say to themselves in a fit of jealous rage, ”God, what an absolute tart to be wearing that shade of magenta in broad daylight. Who does that trollop of a tulip think she is? And those petals…they must be augmented, there is no way those are real.” No, we simply appreciate the tulip as beautiful because we have an uncomplicated relationship, a simple definition, of tulip beauty. Maybe carnations think tulips are trollops but we humans usually do not. : )
We seem to experience our own jealousy more often then finding ourselves the target of it. Jealousy mushrooms inside the dimmer places of our mental landscape when we perceive what appears to be for us an unobtainable quality in someone else, such as a sense of ease, confidence, beauty, wisdom, or a type of relationship we always wanted, or the possessions of another. Sometimes we feel the “pangs of jealousy” without the epidural at the most surprising times. Those pangs have a way of shrinking the Technicolor prism of Easy Joy down to a single point so quickly it can take your breath away. Jealousy feels isolating, dark, toxic, bitter. Most of us wiggle away from it as quickly as possible. Few of us think to immediately, lovingly, and simply acknowledge feeling it, even though to do so is the most liberating, non-resistant, and healthy way to experience the lesson of jealousy.
There seem to be two ways that people interact with their own jealousy; aversion or aggression. We either distance ourselves somehow from the object of our jealousy, or we strike out at it and try to destroy it.
Being held hostage by someone else’s jealousy is a deeper level of complicated entanglement. It’s flattering and strangling all at the same time. It’s difficult to talk about because it feels conceited to acknowledge it; yet it festers if we try to ignore it and hope it goes away. The person who is jealous of you seems to seethe every time they see you, every time you are recognized or complimented, every time you shine in your own way. If you try to diminish yourself to appease their “hurt” feelings, you find yourself feeling controlled by their unresolved sensibilities in a way that, over time, becomes a thick, scaly resentment. It drains your energy and painfully stifles your authentic, creative expression. You begin to walk on egg shells around the person, trying to show them there is nothing to be jealous of; but in the end, that appeasement simply feeds their discomfort because now they know that you know how they feel about you! What a hot mess of a mindtangle!
It can be a no win situation, especially if the jealous party shuts down communication because they are embarrassed or scared. At times, the best way out of this mindtangle, the only way to stop their Jealous Inner Story Teller from running amok is to simply stop struggling and let the situation run it’s course. Sometimes the egg shells become so sharp that you must get off them, before you bleed to death trying to fix something that wasn’t your problem in the first place.
But how can we release ourselves from the mindtangle of our own jealousy? We can not walk away from it, it’s like our shadow…but since it is our own, we have the power to transform it.
Feeling jealousy, a body-soul tension in the belly or shoulders, can be recognized as an opportunity to simply notice a presence of beauty, to broaden our capacity to relate to beauty in all it’s aspects in a deliciously uncomplicated way. We have to be willing to drop the story-lie of what we are not and just appreciate what is. That takes practice. Be patient.
In order to take the power out of the story-lie, we recognize what we are really jealous of; and that is the positive, beautiful perception we have of someone other than ourselves. We wish that we felt as positive about ourselves as we do about the object of our jealousy, and we are so very hurt because we do not. We probably never really have. Jealousy is an expression of painful grief, self-hatred, of sorrowful unresolved hurt that longs to be addressed with maitri, loving kindness.
Simply acknowledge feeling jealous. To do so is the most liberating, non-resistant, loving, and healthy way to experience the lesson of Jealousy; that our rigid, small definition of ourselves is painfully stifling and untrue. That we long to identify with external beauty in a way that amplifies our self- expression and confidence, not diminish it. That is a gift you must give yourself.
So the next time you feel the pangs of jealousy, the pinching contraction of consciousness around a heavy, bitter feeling, stop the story-lie by taking a deep natural breath. Expand yourself into a knowing that beauty infinitely defined is the truth of who you are. Exhale the knowledge that jealousy is simply a reminder to live bigger, think bigger, love yourself and others bigger. : )
namaste’ my friends-b
I am really am in awe of this lesson. So eloquently put and compassionate in its acknowledgment of jealousy’s power to consume and destroy as well and teach and move us, all depending on our desire of how to use it. Simple awareness of it is the first step toward using it wisely and robbing it of its malignant effects–great words of wisdom here Becky. Thank you! Namaste’