Jealousy is my Greatest Teacher

About six months ago, I found myself in the deep, painful clutches of jealousy.

It felt like there were walls going up all around. Thick walls, without windows sealing me in and hiding me from view. Inside this fortress, I began to unravel, my heart aching for something I was yearning for.

Almost immediately, I swooped in to save myself from the abyss of hurt, walking in familiar circles with myself. 

You’re a loner. That’s your style. 

You can’t have it all. Your expectations are too high. 

Just be grateful for what you have. 

Then, the inner critic. 

Things like that just don’t happen to you. 

You aren’t good enough.

You aren’t lovable enough. 

There is something wrong with you. They can tell that you’re damaged. 

Finally, the truth :: I want that. I want that with my whole heart. I want that so badly that I am willing to take steps towards making that happen for me. 

Standing in my truth, with the sadness and grief from years of wanting and not knowing how to ask, I was small and vulnerable.

Standing in that fortress, designed specifically to create the divide of me vs. them, I allowed myself to feel the full breadth of my loneliness.

The childhood ache of wanting to belong, wanting to find my place.

The memory of rejection tattooed on my skin. 

The wish caught in my throat for years on end, while I pretended that I didn’t care, that it didn’t matter.

The loss of the pretending. The only thing that had held me together. 

The truth, my truth :: I long to be witnessed and loved for exactly who I am. 

But in order to be witnessed, I had to surrender to the vulnerability of unravelling the carefully constructed web of how I had let people into my world – cultivated out of my deep-seated fear that without that web, I would surely be alone.

I had to face the prospect that trying was worth the risk.

That standing in my own power and shining as the person that I truly am, is worth the potential for utter rejection.

Jealousy is my most powerful teacher. 

Her lessons threaten to decimate me.  She pulls me into her tender trap of compare and despair, where I told myself I was always coming up short and undeserving. But, her lessons, are not about my lack. They are about the secret yearnings of my heart. 

Jealousy guides me towards the life that I am hungry for. 

A life brimming with joy.

A life fueled with purpose.

A life where I am open to being seen and loved – no matter what the cost.

A life where I am free to show up exactly as I am.

A life of risks worth taking.