I don’t know how your adolescence was. For my part, I went from the tomboy that I was at 15 to a real glamourous pin up at 16! This transformation closely followed a year long bullying while I was in my second grade. It was my revenge! I went from the harassed girl to the cover girl everyone wanted to be seen with… or almost! Because it’s also the moment of my life I discovered what female jealousy was made of!
Imagine that the ugly duck of the class turns into a real beautiful swan and begins tp attract all the males’ hearts the next school year! It does not take more to trigger a nice big jealousy from the other girls. I’m not complaining about my past because this part of my story helped me to build a big and strong self love and self confidence! Sometimes life triggers you with the worst to offer you the best!
This is just one simple example. In my life people still envy me for many reasons such as having married a handsome and intelligent man, owning a private mansion in a spa town, having my own therapist’s office or even taking care of my body, being constantly diet, writing, singing etc.
I’ve lost so much relationships because I’ve been an owner very early and because I’ve written books and recorded LPs. To resume what people are jealous of is really my great freedom. I’m free and I do exactly what I want. I want the best for me and for my family. I never forget my high criterias of life. I love beautiful things and living a life full of creativity and travels… So yes people are jealous about me. How do I react ? It has been something painful for years, but during my Psychology Practionner diploma I have been able to learn a lot about envy and jealousy. Today I know jealous people are really suffering in their inner self… Every thing you do that brings you inner joy hurts them more…
So how to talk about jealousy to our teenagers knowing that this scourge continues into adulthood?
Here are a few principles I use to talk about jealousy to my super and adorable children:
- Jealousy stems from a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. People who are jealous of you feel like something more is being given to you and that “little something”, in their mind, is taking away from them any other chance or ability! I love this biblical passage called “The Eleventh Hour Workers” which explains that giving to one does not take away from another. This is how I talk about jealousy to my children. If another child owns something you don’t, it doesn’t take anything away from you. Surely you also have something that the other does not have. And yet you don’t take anything away from it either.
- Jealousy is the prerogative of people whose lives are unfulfilled and uninteresting. When you know how to stay busy and happy, you don’t have time to be jealous of others.
In my class, in high school there were very beautiful girls and less pretty ones. There is no rule. Some very pretty girls have done well in their future. Others less pretty as well. So there is no point in envying others because we each have our history, our gifts and our personal events that come and go and are increasing our inner potential of success, accomplishment etc. Just love yourself, give yourself healthy food, healthy activities, give yourself love and congratulations! That’s the best shield to protect you from others’jealousy!
Sometimes changing something in yourself to increase your self-confidence and be less jealous of others can be a good way to deal with frustration. However, it is never good to change yourself for others. Any change must be initiated for oneself.
- When a hateful or jealous person annoys you with ready-made formulas or free criticisms, the temptation is huge to respond and enter into a little war of the style “You think you are better than me so I’m going to show you the opposite. “. The problem is that this war has been going on for years. Do you know how tiring wars are? When I was in high school there was in my class a girl who was not very beautiful, very traditional. She was never smiling and was quite haughty. She often made fun of me and my preoccupations of the time such as dance, beauty, sport, Paris and fashion boutiques. Passionate about fashion, I picked up a lot of clothes in charity shops but I didn’t tell anyone. This girl spent her weeks counting my jackets and dresses! “What, you have 9 different jackets!” Years later I saw her again on the subway and she was still condescending and mean to me. 20 years later she asked me if I was still dating the playboy of the highschool! Lucky me I was not anymore! This girl then fell very ill. I pity her with all my heart. I do believe that wickedness and jealousy make us sick! And that’s something I teach my kids: when you’re jealous or let someone jealous approach you then you start vibrating low and you can feel worse than before!
- If your child or teenager is confronted with a jealous person, they must:
-Understand why the person feels diminished in front of them
-Understand that jealousy is linked to self-esteem. Self-esteem born of our positive experiences. Someone who has parents who don’t allow them to experiment on their own will generally have low self-esteem.
-Understand that one should not respond to jealous people. A change of scenery is the best thing to do
-The more you respond to a jealous person, the more he goes to war with you
-The less you answer the more the jealous person goes his way
-To make a jealous person even more jealous is a very bad plan…
It is important to tell your child how you were targeted, at a previous time, too, by someone’s jealousy and to demonstrate to him that this did not prevent you from making other friends and from succeeding. your life.
As the Navajos people say, we have within us a white wolf, pleasant, courageous and loving, and a black wolf, jealous, envious, aggressive, annoying… Which of the two is the winner of our internal fight? The one we choose to nurture! Jealous people are black wolves. It is advisable to put them on a diet by ceasing to give them attention in order to see them disappear from our lives.
