Feeling Jealous? Try these remedies...

A friend of mine shared recently in a common mentoring forum that she is finding it difficult to find solutions for curing jealousy.

Jealousy can be one of the most painful emotions to handle. I could totally empathize with her since I have allowed it to affect me periodically. I have done a lot of reading on getting over it during those periods and listened to spiritual discourses from different inspiring gurus.

Here are some of what I have learned. And will also share the material.

But learning is just intellectual but will share some practices. At least some may work or strike a chord

1) Jay Shetty says it simply and beautifully. When we are jealous, we forget our blessings and keep counting others’ blessings. So, get back to counting yours. It's basically gratitude practice and must be done deeply, not at the high-level layer. Imagine a million things that are happening because of others and the environment and then WE WILL REALIZE WE ARE NOTHING.

OUR EGO is so strong during jealousy THAT IT MUST BE SHOWN ITS PLACE. The only way is going deep. But going deep is not easy. But Rhonda Byrne's "Magic" book is a fantastic read. She suggests a 28-day practice book in which there is a lesson that helps us understand the dimensions of gratitude like health, money, relationships, water food, community workers, and many others. It also includes past gratitude and future gratitude. Every chapter has exercises at the end that must be done meticulously. The most comprehensive book on gratitude I have ever come across.

2) BK Shivani has dealt with jealousy and how to overcome it in several different YouTube videos.

a)?Go and search jealousy BK Shivani and you will get them all. She is a truly divine soul and is worth listening to.

Please go to www.youtube.com and search for “jealousy BK Shivani” and you will find tons of awesome videos

b) Another BK teaching is to look for good in everything, including suffering. They say, "This is also for the good". We need to seek what's good in the jealousy and jot it down.

3) Swami Paramatmananda elaborates in the Karma yoga discourse of the Bhagavad Gita that whenever we suffer mind-wise or body-wise, our past karma is burnt. This is for those who believe we are all here on earth for a purpose and that gets determined by the almighty. The good and bad experiences we encounter are not just because of our actions in this birth, but several others were taken in the past. So anytime we can hit anything depending on what accounts are being settled. Sometimes we may get an unexpected bonus of goodness and at other times we have to pay back for past deeds through suffering.

Another prescription he gives for cultivating healthy virtues is https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/5-methods-cultivating-healthy-virtues-swami-kartic-vaidyanathan/

4) Regular mind cleaning during the day (we don't give as much care to mind as we do for body or surroundings cleanliness etc) Hourly check and cleanse thoughts. Brahmakumaris has a nice “Traffic Light” app for mind control. A one-minute pause to think of God and also clean our minds of evil. This gives an hourly reminder.

5) From multiple different sources:?Mind is like Pendulum. We cannot control its swing but the extent to which it swings should be controlled. At least in my case, this was a big learning. If we get super excited or hyper about our success, then the pendulum swings far from the center and there is no choice, but it has to go too far left on the other side. So, when it goes far down during low phases it’s difficult to manage it. The only way is to manage it during wins or up phases by not allowing it too hyper.

6) Nature of the mind is to attract attention. When we are in the high, we ourselves will talk or post about ourselves and feel good. When we are in the low, everyone will seemingly be doing something better than us. Not just one or two people. Every single person. This was my experience. This itself is evidence that the problem is NOT AROUND BUT WITHIN US. THE WAY WE PERCEIVE THINGS NEEDS CORRECTION. And that can happen only by association with pure people and filling with pure thoughts.

7) Bhagavatam or Narayaneeyam talks about how many people across different generations have had this basic problem and seemingly much more evolved species like the Devatas are also not free from this attribute of jealousy. It also says that the ONLY guaranteed way (in addition to trying other methods) is the association with God and SURRENDERING TO DIVINE.

8) *Unself* is the latest curated learning for Maria Popova in her 16 years of Brain Pickings (Now known as The Marginalian). If we can make it a habit, then life is fully joyful all the time and no misery exists. It's a conscious habit to be built in. - This is the summary of the 16 learnings

https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/10/23/16-learnings/ ?and within that the 16th one is

UNSELF. NOTHING IS MORE TEDIOUS THAN SELF-CONCERN — THE ANTIPODE OF WONDER*

The detailed blog about *Unself* itself is https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/09/10/unselfing-social/

9) This is also supported by authors like Bruce Kasanoff, Clayton Christensen, and Adam Grant.

A blog curation of the 3 authors mentioned related to Unselfing is WHEN YOU SEE A CHANCE TO HELP, STEP UP.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/when-you-see-chance-help-step-up-kartic-vaidyanathan/

10) Apart from these standard recipes of Journaling, Gratitude, and Seeking Inspiration around.

Please share with others what you seek (YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE philosophy)

I shared all of these with her and thought of sharing with others too if in case parts of these are of any help.

Happy to hear from you all your thoughts on these and any others that you might have heard, practiced, and benefited.