When it comes to my relationship, I am a jealous girlfriend and there is no denying that. I’m not over the top, don’t even look at another girl or I will cut your dick off type of jealous, but I definitely USED to have my moments. I believe most people experience jealousy in one way or another and in my opinion, a certain amount of jealousy in a relationship can be a good thing because it reminds you how you truly feel about someone. But we can’t let jealousy take over us or our relationships.
To be clear, if you are a jealous person, that does not make you ‘crazy’. In fact you can read my post on Why You Are Not The Crazy Girlfriend. But I know from experience that feelings of jealousy can be uncomfortable. No one actually wants to feel this way and no one wants to be labelled as a jealous partner.
Jealously is a feeling, but it triggers other emotions and feelings in the moment and can even influence our physical actions. It cause you to act out, feel out of control, be hurtful, aggressive or become distant towards your partner. We can probably all relate to experiencing an argument that started off with feelings of jealousy.
I may not be able to tell you how you can stop those jealous feelings completely, but I can give you my 1 simple trick to become less of a jealous person.
Fake It Till You Make It
Your mind is incredibly powerful and you are in control of your mind and that power. Sometimes it may not feel like you have control over your thoughts, but you have to believe that you do. Having this mindset has benefited me throughout my life, even if I don’t think I can do something, I tell myself I can. Here’s what I mean;
– I have applied and been interviewed for jobs that I was not qualified for, because I truly believed that I could just figure it out if I got the job.
– I didn’t think I was cut out for the digital nomad life, but I spent the first year acting like I knew my digital nomad shit whilst I was actually a complete novice.
– The first house I bought I flipped it for a profit. i had no idea what I was doing but I made out to everyone like I’d been doing this for years.
Why can’t we apply the same logic to our feelings? Turns out we can! I am strong believer in ‘Fake it till you make it‘; that means pretending you are not a jealous person (even to yourself), until that eventually becomes your true reality.
Having control over your thoughts is one skill to master, but having control over your feelings is almost impossible for some, that’s why we have to trick our minds. For example, forcing yourself to smile (yes, a fake smile will do) actually releases chemicals in your brain that relate to positivity and good feelings. Try it now! So you can actually trick your brain into feeling positive when you might not actually be.
Positive Affirmations
This goes hand in hand with believing that you are not a jealous person and it works exactly the same as when we listen and repeat positive affirmations to get what we want in life. I know I’m not the only one that during a meditation has told myself; ‘I have an abundance of money. Money is attracted to me.‘ We can use this same process to help shape who we want to be and change our mindset.
The more you tell yourself you are not a jealous person and you don’t care, it will eventually be true. Of course this takes practice and it’s not going to work 100% of the time but it’s a great place to start.
There are guided meditations specifically for helping with managing jealousy so do check them out on the Insight Timer app.
Ignorance Is Bliss
The other part of this is to not put yourself in situations where you might feel jealous. Because if you don’t see or hear anything that could bother you, then you have no reason to feel jealous. I know how tempting it is when your partner gets a message and you are intrigued to see who it is. But don’t do it to yourself, act like you don’t care and you will eventually stop caring and that will become the norm for you.
Me and my boyfriend work in the same space 99% of the time, his whatsapp is always open on his laptop and I could casually walk past and see who he’s messaging, it’s not snooping if it’s already open right? But I once heard this saying: ‘If you go looking for something you’re probably going to find it, even if it’s nothing.’ Which means by actively looking, you are more likely to create a scenario in your head that isn’t true because you’ve told yourself there’s a chance it might be. Don’t look in the first place and then your problem is solved.
Here’s a scenario, you are walking down the street with your partner, you spot an attractive person coming the other way and you don’t want your partner to ‘check them out’ because it makes you jealous. Instead of looking at your partner to see if they are checking out the other person, look the other way. The moment will be gone in a flash and you will never know. You can assume to yourself that they didn’t.
This is all part of the ‘fake it till you make it’ mindset. Fake that you aren’t a jealous person, until that becomes your true self and you won’t be faking it anymore.
If, however you have a partner that is purposely trying to make you feel jealous, that is a whole other issue in itself and needs to be addressed and dealt with in an entirely different way.
Do you have any tips for coping with jealous feelings? Please share them in the comments to help us!
Amber x
P.s If you found this post helpful, you may also like; How To Handle A Boyfriend That ALWAYS Talks About Their Ex.
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