Jealousy & Envy

In this episode we are talking about jealousy! It's an uncomfortable subject, but Glenn dives into how to manage those feelings of envy, and how we might be able to avoid feeing jealous in the future!

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to the show.

Today we are talking about jealousy.

There was some song in the 90s.

Jealousy.

Hey jealousy.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's it.

Cool.

But we're not I apologize for everybody here having to hear me say no,

That was it was better than if I would have attempted it.

So,

Um,

So yeah,

We're talking about jealousy.

So,

Yeah,

Not sure where this is going to go,

But we're going to find out.

Well,

So obviously jealousy is something that everybody can understand.

I'm sure that everybody everybody has felt jealous about something at some point.

Yeah,

I think so.

You know,

I mean at least twinges of it.

Yeah.

If you haven't,

You're just so disconnected from yourself.

Right.

Speaking of jealous,

I'm a little jealous of the new house that you're sitting in right now.

It's pretty sweet.

I liked the virtual tour that you gave.

Yeah,

Yeah,

This is going to be a nice place for my son and Ida to,

You know,

Land our feet in Florida.

Yeah.

It's at least you know,

I had to stay in a certain school district and stuff.

So,

Um,

So I want to find a nice place that was in the school district so he could finish his high school.

So it was so far.

I'm really happy with it.

I like the layout.

It's quiet,

Which is very important.

The way that you described it to me,

Like a couple of weeks ago when you were talking about like the two or three different places that you were going to get.

I did not think that it was going to be anywhere near as nice as it is.

Well,

You know,

To be honest with you,

I looked at it and this was the first place I looked at.

And I don't know.

I think maybe my mind wasn't completely open yet.

Like,

I didn't know really what to expect.

And this is a townhouse and I was kind of leaning towards a single family home because that's usually what I live in.

And,

You know,

And so I don't know.

Like I knew it seemed decent,

But it didn't really jump out at me.

And then after I looked at some other places,

I kept thinking,

You know,

Why I think that first place was kind of nice.

And I had to go back and look at it again.

So when I went back and looked at it,

I was like,

Oh,

Yeah,

This is definitely,

You know,

This is definitely nicer than the other ones that I've looked at.

And I like it and I can see how the layout would work for me.

So,

Yeah,

It was.

It worked out really well.

I'm specifically just jealous about the bathroom situation.

Oh,

Yeah.

You know,

No,

It's so we'll let the listeners in on something interesting.

Like at my old place,

It was really nice place,

But it was kind of small.

And we only had one bathroom and I had a soundproofing wall between my business space and my living space.

So like that bathroom,

The wall went up on one side or the other of that bathroom.

You know,

So if I was working and I had people there,

My son didn't have a bathroom.

Yeah.

And vice versa.

So it was it was trying at times.

But yeah,

This one we have two and a half.

Yeah.

Now literally now literally everybody has a bathroom.

Yeah,

We each have our own.

Plus,

We have another one for the guest downstairs.

So it's like,

Yeah,

It's really nice.

So that's specifically the river view is nice to or the pond or whatever it is.

Yeah,

It's a big pond,

Which is nice.

I just got to make sure I keep my dog away from the edge.

Yeah.

You know,

They could be gators in there.

That is a scary.

All right.

You know what?

I'm not jealous anymore.

I'm very glad I'm still here in Rhode Island.

Well,

It does have a big I think they specifically put a big like bank on it.

Yeah.

Because I don't think it really does have a high bank and I don't think a gator.

I mean,

I'm sure a gator could make it,

But it looks pretty deep.

I think it'd have a hard time just waiting on the edge and,

You know,

Yeah,

If it's got a low bank,

They could shoot right out.

But I think this one would be more difficult for him.

Well,

That's good.

So so anyway,

I'm not not really jealous of the of the bit of the new house.

But anyway,

But some some people do,

You know,

Some people can't.

I think that that's kind of when jealousy gets extreme.

Well,

It can get extreme in a couple of ways when it can really basically control someone's behavior.

And when it starts turning to resentment,

You know,

Like I knew I had a friend years ago that lived in Boston at a very nice place.

And there was there was some concern about letting people know what he paid for it just because like certain people that he knew would get upset that he got such a good deal.

And I like I didn't even like it took me a few minutes to even understand what he what he was talking about.

I was like,

I'm your friend.

If you get a great deal on a wonderful place like that,

I'm ecstatic for you.

People would actually be angry.

And he's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

Mike.

Wow.

OK.

So that's,

You know,

That so that when it act,

That can be a problem.

You know,

When it goes in that direction.

So so that,

You know,

That that's one way for it to go south,

We'll say.

But another way is is,

You know,

The common I mean,

When people when you first say jealousy,

I think a lot of people think about relationships.

Definitely.

That's what I was thinking.

I was thinking that mostly this episode would be kind of like two prong,

Like it's a little bit of what jealousy does to you and like,

You know,

Why it's a why it's a negative thing to feel those feelings.

But then but then the main the main meat of this is,

You know,

Usually it doesn't matter if you're jealous of a stranger,

You know.

But if there's some but if there is some sort of jealousy in a in a relationship,

Whether you're jealous of that other person for something or you're jealous,

You know,

In a romantic relationship because of because of other people and that person.

Like,

That's when that's when jealousy really gets bad.

Yeah.

And I think,

You know,

I think you touched on something important there and that's that,

You know,

Jealousy.

I've discussed judgment in this way before.

Like,

You can't judge yourself and not judge others,

But you can't judge others and not judge yourself.

They're connected.

And the jealousy thing is basically the same thing.

You can't you can't be jealous of of if you're jealous of somebody else,

Like if it's you're jealous of a stranger.

Yeah,

Maybe it won't affect your life as obviously.

But in a way,

It's just as detrimental as if you're jealous of somebody or in a relationship because it's the same energy.

So,

Like,

You can't separate those two.

If you're if you're jealous of somebody in a relationship,

Then you'll probably be jealous of strangers.

If you're jealous of strangers,

You're going to be jealous of somebody in the relationship because you're either jealous or you're not just like you're either judging or you're not.

So if you're if you notice you're jealous of strangers,

That's a great time to start doing the work on yourself.

Because if you don't,

When you get into a relationship,

You're going to be jealous in that relationship.

You know,

Or if you are in one,

I'm sure jealousy is controlling your actions to some degree.

You know,

You of course,

Trusting the other person is very,

Very helpful.

But at the end of the day,

All work is inside work.

So,

You know,

Whatever is making you jealous is an insecurity within yourself.

And until you until you deal with that,

You're going to have it.

And,

You know,

When people when you hear the word jealousy,

You think romantic relationship person is,

You know,

Person A is jealous of person of an outside like maybe a person B is relationship with another person.

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

Like the guy might be jealous of the girlfriend's relationship with a male friend at work or whatever,

You know,

Just a generic scenario here.

But really,

Like the the root of jealousy is envy.

And you can be when you when you use the word envy,

You can it has a more natural feeling to apply it to different things.

You know,

Like I'm like maybe maybe you're envious that your partner has weekends off.

You know,

Right.

And then it builds up this this resentment.

Or you can be envious,

You know,

Like that's true.

If you say,

You know,

Like,

I think if you use that scenario and and the woman says,

Are you jealous of this guy at work?

The boyfriend goes,

No,

I'm not jealous of him because we think jealousy is like,

Oh,

You know,

Are you sleeping with him or are you going to sleep with them?

But then if you change it to the word envious,

It opens it up more and you go,

Are you envious of this guy that I work with?

Well,

Yeah,

Because now all of a sudden it's more so I'm envious that that I told you the same thing he was telling you like five times and you didn't listen to me.

But then also he told you once and you thought it was the greatest idea ever.

Like,

I'm envious of that.

Right.

Yeah.

Like,

Sometimes that can so you can you can notice where the root of the jealousy is coming from if you change it to the word envious.

Because,

You know,

A lot of that words have subconscious meanings and they can kind of direct our thinking in a certain way.

So I think,

You know,

Using the word envious or just,

You know,

Maybe maybe somebody has a preconceived notion of the word envious.

So,

You know,

Just looking what the word envious does is it just helps us get to the root.

So do whatever it helps do whatever helps you get to the root of the uncomfortable feelings that you're having,

You know,

And why something's bothering you.

And then you can you can deal with that type of behavior and like you say,

Go within yourself like I early in my life.

I got cheated on and it hurt me deeply.

And I did a lot of work to to let go of that and work through that and forgive that and understand it and all this stuff.

And I was good.

I'd say I probably got through like seventy five percent of it.

But there was still that part.

But then I got into a relationship later on with somebody that I trusted.

So it kept that jealousy at bay because I trusted her.

So but I still had that twenty five percent left in me,

You know,

That I hadn't worked through.

And then later on in the relationship,

It got triggered and man,

Her hair.

But it came up and,

You know,

Fortunately,

I was able to see it for what it was.

You know,

Well,

At first I got irritated that that it got triggered.

You know,

I want to point the finger and go,

Why did you trigger that?

And I actually I did point the finger and say,

You know,

You just triggered that.

And I got irritated with her at first.

But then,

Fortunately,

You know,

Right after I was like,

Well,

You know,

Glenn,

You know,

This is inside of you.

And it got brought up for a reason.

This is your opportunity to transcend it once and for all.

So I did the work to be able to do that.

And,

You know,

Which was beneficial.

So it's you know,

Once this type of stuff,

It can it can come up a few times for us to work through it.

And I really had to look at,

You know.

The situation and dive into it and pull up those feelings again and and look at it and really change my belief system on a core level.

And,

You know,

Apply all my the the lessons that I had learned over the years and go,

You know,

Really,

At the end of the day.

I can't fully 100 percent trust anybody.

To be there,

Be there for me.

And never change and never lose feelings for me.

Like,

You know,

We don't know what the future holds.

You could be in the most loving relationship possible and either you or the other person could somehow some way grow into a different direction or lose feelings.

I mean,

It's possible.

So to to wait for the perfect relationship to put 100 percent trust in something that's outside of you.

So you never have to worry about feeling jealous.

That's a losing battle because it doesn't exist.

We never know what the future holds.

So at the end of the day,

What we have to trust is ourselves.

We have to trust we have to love ourselves enough and trust in ourselves enough that no matter what happens,

We are grounded and stable that we're going to be OK.

You know,

We need to be self-contained units.

And if we're not,

Then what we're doing is,

You know,

People use the word needy a lot of times in this situation because it's we we're attached to the other person.

We're taking from them.

You know,

I don't feel secure.

So I'm going to I'm going to lean on you for my sense of security.

Well,

That's that's like energy sucking.

You're sucking their energy out of them.

So you feel secure.

And that's a neediness.

And it's not a good feeling.

And it's not a good energy exchange.

You know,

So that's not a healthy relationship.

When you have two self-contained units that are full,

You know,

Really full of self-love and then you both bring that love into the relationship.

That's you know,

That's what's really healthy and that's what can continue to grow.

But we have to really be self-contained and self-assured and not using the other person to make us feel something that we don't feel within ourselves.

Don't drop the mic because it's expensive,

But you could you could have a mic drop right there.

And I don't know how we would continue to do the podcast.

I had to think for a minute.

I was like,

Is my mic about to fall?

Oh,

Mic drop.

OK.

So that story just made me remember that I also got cheated on once but didn't find out about it until afterwards,

Which was weird.

Like,

I think that happens quite a bit after the fact.

And I don't think that I have been.

I never I didn't feel like it bothered me that much.

But looking back on other relationships since then,

I don't think that I've been as nice of a guy.

Not not not nice,

Right.

But not as like guarded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Completely guarded.

Like this isn't this isn't going anywhere.

Yeah,

I'm not going to let this go anywhere.

I'm not.

It's cool.

Nothing's it's fine.

Yeah.

You don't put yourself out there because you don't want to get hurt.

Yeah.

Not that I'm not.

I'm still very nice,

I think.

Oh,

Yeah.

You're very nice.

But yeah,

I know what you mean.

It's yeah,

It's it's just guarded because because you don't want to experience that pain,

Which is which is natural.

I mean,

That's you know,

That's the natural reaction of it.

It's you know,

We we do things so we don't have to feel the pain anymore.

But the problem is,

Is that,

You know,

We just build walls and we can never build.

So,

You know,

So what are we going to do?

Like,

I mean,

Really,

If you look at that,

It's our natural.

Well,

I shouldn't say natural.

It's our it's our response,

Our conditioned response because of society.

Whenever we experience something we don't like,

We put up a wall against it so we don't experience it again.

And the problem is,

Is that never works.

I mean,

And and let's say it did.

Let's say we could build walls high enough to where we could protect ourselves from ever feeling that any type of pain again.

Well,

We never have any experiences.

I mean,

We live in a world of yin and yang.

There's both sides.

So so we just wouldn't experience anything.

We just we just sit in a room and just not move forever until we died.

Like,

You know,

I mean,

That's the only way.

So,

I mean,

It's no way to live.

So if that doesn't work and we need something that does work,

Then if we can't protect ourselves from being hurt,

Then we need to get underneath and understand how we can be strong enough to handle something that doesn't feel good.

You know,

That's the thing in our society.

That's why it's such a big spiritual law.

We have to be uncomfortable.

We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Every time we feel something we don't like,

We think that the whole world is off and we're not supposed to be feeling it.

It's OK.

It's just that uncomfortable feeling experiencing something we don't like is just to tell us that we shouldn't continue in that direction.

It's not for us to build up a gigantic wall and shut down.

You know,

So if we just learn from it and we go,

OK,

I didn't like the way that felt.

You know,

What can I do to maybe be a little bit more cautious?

What can I what can I how can I be stronger not to get knocked so far to the left if that ever happens again?

You know,

How can I love myself more?

So if this were to happen,

I would be able to move on without being so crushed.

You know,

It's it's all the inside work.

And really,

At the end of the day,

It's you know,

I I knew we were going to get into ego somewhere when we talked about jealousy.

And this is where we're getting into it.

That's cool.

We're two thirds of the way in.

That's fine.

Right.

It's OK now.

But if you if you are feeling emotional pain,

Your ego got hurt.

You didn't get hurt.

Your ego did.

You know,

And that's important.

So like if we identify ourselves with what we truly are at our core and that's a spiritual being having a human experience.

So we are a spiritual being.

Our spiritual being can't be hurt.

It can't be hurt.

It can't be dimmed,

Darkened,

Scratched.

It's eternal.

It's love.

It's fine.

It's it's our soul.

It's you know,

That our true selves can't be hurt.

So what can be hurt?

Well,

Our ego can be hurt.

Who we think we are.

That can be hurt.

That can be emotionally hurt.

But we're not supposed to be.

It's not that our ego is bad,

But we shouldn't be identified with our ego as who we are.

You know,

So if we go,

No,

You know,

I'm fine as a spiritual being,

But who I think I am got hurt a little bit.

Oh,

OK.

Well,

That's manageable.

You don't want to be identified with your ego 100 percent anyway.

So why are you so concerned with protecting something that you don't want to be identified with?

You know,

So that's,

You know,

That's getting to the to the deep,

Deep level of it.

It's like once you understand that you're trying to protect something that doesn't necessarily need protecting because it doesn't actually exist anyway.

It's just a mind made construct of who you think you are.

That's that that took a blow emotionally.

Well,

Then it's you know,

Then you can start going,

Oh,

OK,

Well,

I'm fine.

Just my ego took a blow here,

You know,

And that's a lot easier to navigate.

So that's the you know,

That's the type of work that we need to do so we can.

I mean,

That's really the core work we need to do in all areas really is identifying with our true selves.

And then we don't take what's happening around us so seriously like it's this life altering blow.

So once we do that,

You know,

We can navigate all types of difficult situations and jealousy being one of those.

It just reminds me of every single time that we have one of these topics.

One of the spiritual laws,

As I think that you've called it,

Always holds true.

All work is self work.

Yeah.

You say it all the time,

You know,

Because and I think that this is one where maybe you you wouldn't naturally feel inclined to that.

Right.

Because if you're feeling jealous,

Especially in a romantic situation,

You be jealousy equals blame.

Like to me,

Right.

So you just protect it right.

You know what I mean?

If you're jealous,

You are projecting that right on to whoever it is.

Yeah,

They did something.

They it's their fault.

And as long as you stay on that,

You're never going to be happy because it's because you can't control them.

If our happiness is based on what other people do or don't do,

We're screwed.

So turn it into yourself and be like,

OK,

What what do I need to adjust to be able to stand in the truth of myself?

And then I can navigate all the all the,

You know,

Experiences that are happening.

And the more stable you are in that,

The more you learn that,

The more you live that,

The more you are that,

Then the universe doesn't have to throw all these difficult situations at you over and over to help you grow and learn and turn you into who you're supposed to be.

You're supposed to be happy.

You're supposed to not get donkey kicked every time something difficult happens.

You're not supposed to live like that.

So as long as you are living like that.

It's going to keep happening because that's not what you're supposed to be.

And the whole purpose of that happening is to donkey kick you far enough to where you go,

Wait a minute,

This isn't working.

I need to be different.

And then you do the self work.

You find the stability in being who you truly are.

And when,

You know,

I totally says once you understand that life is difficult,

Life stops being difficult.

You know,

And there's that kind of has a two part meaning.

Well,

It has more now,

But to main part meaning.

And the one is that once you understand life is difficult,

It stops being difficult because you accepted it.

And then you don't take the difficulty as a problem anymore.

You just accept it.

So that's part.

But then also the universe doesn't have to keep throwing difficulty at you to wake you up because you're standing in stability now.

So that happens,

Too.

So it's like it's a win-win both ways.

This is such a weird thing that just happened.

Considering what we're talking about right now,

I just got a Facebook notification like you know how Facebook will tell you a random person whose birthday it is today that you're friends with.

Yeah.

And you're like,

I don't I haven't looked at that person's profile since I accepted their friend request.

Facebook just popped up with a notification of that.

It's the kid who I was probably more jealous of than anyone else in high school's birthday.

So there you go.

Time to do some self-work.

I'm fine now.

But who 15 year old Ben did not like this guy.

So I think that it's ironic that that just popped up while we're having this big conversation about jealousy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you're getting signs,

Maybe you're not jealous of that kid anymore.

But I'm jealous of something.

So you got to be because otherwise why would the universe have just shown you that?

Maybe because it's,

You know,

July 16th and it's that guy's birthday.

All right.

So if anybody wants to,

You know,

Deal with this or any other situations,

Obviously you're available in person if they're in the Brinton,

Sarasota area.

Well,

Not really.

No,

No,

No,

I don't have an office space here.

I'm just doing everything by phone and Skype now.

Oh,

Nice.

Perfect.

And zoom and zoom,

Which is which is perfect because that means that anywhere in the world where you're listening to this,

You can contact Glenn and he can give you some help,

Which is great.

Because I know that you do have clients from all over the world now.

Yeah.

And I mean,

Even when I was in Rhode Island,

All my local clients really like the fact that they didn't have to plan the commute.

Yeah.

So most of my most of my local clients turned into phone and zoom and Skype clients anyway.

So I like it here.

I was like,

I'm not even going to bother getting an office.

Yeah,

This is an easier.

I mean,

You know,

Everything except for I'm in the so I'm in the same room right now that we used to have.

The podcast.

And I think I'm just going to get a cardboard cut out of you and put it on the couch over there.

I think everybody should have a cardboard cut out of me.

You can buy them.

I'm kidding.

Oh,

A bobblehead.

I always want a bobblehead of me.

I thought that would be really funny.

You know what?

Maybe I can make a bobblehead.

Yeah,

I know.

Yeah,

Make you maybe I'll make you a funko pop.

You don't even know what that is.

Sounds awesome.

You're old.

All right.

So that's it.

If you if you want to contact that head,

Everybody should get a fat head of me life size.

No,

No.

Stick it on the wall.

First of all,

First of all,

Fat heads are way bigger than life size.

Oh,

That's even better than oh,

Man.

All right.

Well,

So if you at this point still would like to hear Glenn talk to her life coaching,

Check it out at Glen Ambrose dot com.

Is there anything else,

Man?

That'll do it.

Thanks for listening.

And if anybody gets a cardboard cut out a fat head or a bobblehead of me,

Please send me a picture.

I would laugh my butt off.

OK,

Have a good one later.

Glenn is available for life coaching sessions to book an appointment or for more information,

Go to Glen Ambrose dot com.

Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or click the link in the description of this episode.

Reviews

The really helped me to understand jealousy and that it’s just a reflection of how I feel about myself. When I’m feeling jealous of someone else, I need to reflect on what it is about ME that I’m having insecurities about. Amazing!

Thank you for this discussion. Needed to hear in the moment🙏

This was recommended by another teacher here. It was the first podcast of yours which I have listened to, and I’ll probably listen to more now! I loved your insight—Everything you had to say, Glenn, was grounded and tangible. Only thing.. It would be super cool if Ben could learn to not check notifications during a recorded interview.. but anyway. Thanks again.

Really excellent one today. Very insightful and helpful. Thanks lads 💙x

Great talk and interesting! Thank you!

"If you're feeling emotional pain, your ego got hurt, not you. We are spiritual beings and the spirit can't be hurt. Who we THINK we are can be hurt" You said so many things that I loved in this podcast but this was by far, the best. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.