Jealousy and Control

I decided to start blogging my morning musings and devotion reflections so they would be captured somewhere other than my journal.

I read about jealousy this morning and it occurred to me that jealousy is not as much about who the other person is or what they have. Jealousy comes from the feeling that we, ourselves, are not enough.

And it’s when we allow jealousy to fester and grow that it can become controlling behavior toward others. Controlling behavior stems from our lack of self-worth and thinking that the person will leave if we don’t hold on to them tightly.

What we don’t realize is that in the moment we are gaining some satisfaction from grilling our loved one, forcing them to focus on just us, or gripping their time and attention tightly - they are suffocating. Choking under the weight of our stronghold.

Perhaps if we better understand that jealousy is poison we inflict upon ourselves and that poison can lead to us to toxic behavior with our loved ones, we would be more open to doing the work it takes to love ourselves more fully.