Reverse Thinking

Jealous? Get over it.

How jealousy works

In my last blog - Suspicious minds - we looked at what jealousy actually is. It's not an emotion but an obsession that's created by ineffective thinking. Now we want to know how to reverse out of it.

Reverse thinking teaches us that the first step is to recognise that your mind is in fact playing tricks on you. It's doing that because it doesn't believe you are worthy of being loved.

It may be that this is your first serious love affair so your personal Headmind doesn't have any experience of love. It thinks that it is too good to last and must be a delusion.

Or maybe your Head thinks that no one could possibly love a geek like you. So it tries to protect you by finding 'evidence' that your partner is unreliable.

Another possibility is that Headmind sees other men/women as more powerful, attractive, confident than you are - so every person who talks to your partner is bound to take him/her away from you.

But the worse thing your jealous head does to you is to make up movies of your partner being ravished by someone else. Those movies can feel so horrific that you assume they must be true.

Reversing out of jealousy

Now, I am assuming that you know, at some level, that your partner is trustworthy. The s/he has told you often enough that s/he is interested only in being with you. That s/he gets exasperated when you keep bringing up your suspicions over and over again. You may even have been told that you need to get a grip or your relationship will soon be over. If that is NOT the case you are probably not jealous but scared because your partner has let you down in the past. If that is so then this advice will not apply to you.

Once you accept that Headmind has got it all wrong then you can use the worry treatment on your jealous thoughts.

When you use that process one of the things you are asked to do is to switch out of Headmind and connect instead to the emotional intelligence of Bodymind. Go into your body and recall a moment when you and your partner were sharing love (it helps to pick an intimate moment when you were both sexed up). Register the emotions you are reliving. Sense them in each part of your body and register how that feels for you. Do this often so that you can get the same state back automatically (an upcoming article will describe how you can do this in more depth).

Each time you catch yourself going into the jealous mind-state and listening to the 'script' that Headmind has prepared for you then you press 'stop' on the head-tape recorder and go back into the state you created in the previous paragraph. Stay there for a moment and then immediately get on with a more worthwhile activity that occupies your full attention. It is vital that you don't give any head-room to jealousy. Once Headmind realises that you are not listening any more it will get bored and give up.

If this doesn't work then there is another technique you can use which utilises Bodymind learning states. I will describe that in my next article.

            'In jealousy there is more of self-love than love.'

            La Rochefoucauld

Suspicious minds

I have been asked by one reader to write something about Jealousy.

This is a problem I know well because, years ago, before I married, I would get jealous whenever my fiancee spoke to another man. I would even get jealous just imagining she was doing that. The problem got so bad I was told that we wouldn't be getting married at all unless I learned to control it. Eventually, I did learn to do that. But I remember thinking at the time that is was crazy, out of control, destructive behavior on my part.

First, we need to make some distinctions.

Jealousy is not hurt. Hurt is the emotion you get when your partner flirts with other people, neglects you, or is unfaithful to you. When you get hurt you will feel scared and angry. At such moments you need to do some straight talking and either leave the relationship or demand proof that your partner is committed to you. (Unless, of course, you and your partner have given each other leave to have other relationships).

Jealousy is not envy. Envy is a mind-state based on powerlessness and competition. You imagine that others are happier, luckier, better than you are. Because you secretly think you are a loser, you feel frustrated that you can't do anything about that. Envious people are usually bitter people who try to blacken other peoples' achievements. I will write more about this in another blog.

Jealousy is partly based on possessiveness (the two frequently go together). Possessive people try to control their partner, putting restrictions on where they can go and who they go with. They also spend a lot of time checking up on, and cross-questioning, their 'loved one' about where they have been. Possessiveness is based on low self-worth: you get an ego-boost from controlling someone you consider more attractive than you are.

If you are jealous then you get angry when your partner gets attention from other people. It's as simple as that. It makes no difference whether the other party has sexual intentions or not - either way, you still get upset. Some jealous people get aggressive with their partner or the other party, while some just sulk, smouldering away and exacting revenge later on. A few try to conceal it, realising that jealousy is ignoble, but their rage festers and poisons the relationship.

Jealousy is based partly on insecurity, partly on imagination, and partly on disbelief.

Jealous people are often inexperienced in relationships. Either that, or they were hurt by a previous relationship. The result is they live in fear that their partner will abandon them at any moment.

Jealous people have uncontrolled imaginations. They 'see' their partner flirting, getting turned on, or having sex with the other party. In fact they 'see' it so vividly they assume it must have happened. It is strange how many people who are compulsively unfaithful are also the most jealous. In fact, what they 'see' is their partner doing what they do (or want to do) themselves. This hidden desire adds to the 'reality' of what they think they are seeing.

Jealous people do not believe they are worthy of their partner. They cannot believe their partner has chosen to be with an ugly, poor, boring, too young/too old, uninteresting failure such as they are. They put the partner on a pedestal, seeing him/her as more fascinating, beautiful, and attractive than they really are. Consequently, they do not trust what is going to happen when their partner is approached by a competitor.

Next up, I will be writing about how to solve these problems.