Not long ago I was working with an inquirer who heard about a friend’s new job, and felt jealous.
A month before, I worked with an inquirer who was jealous of her husband’s career success (they were in the same line of work).
Sometimes, people feel jealous around love relationships….my partner, or my love-interest, is drawn or attracted to someone else (not me) and I feel threatened.
it feels so true that this other person has it made and we haven’t made it. They’re set. They’re safe. They’re loved. They’ve arrived.
People even feel this way about other people who have “awakened” or “woken up” spiritually.
They’ve gotten “there”.
Not me.
I’m left out here in the dust without security, stability, love, peace, intimacy, popularity or success.
Wow. It’s a rough place to be.
The first thing I always notice about this kind of comparison, is that whomever we’re looking at, who has “more” of something desirable….
….we feel absolutely positive they’re having a better time than we are. They are happier, more fulfilled, doing it right, proud, satisfied, peaceful, relaxed.
Those people with all that money, fame, beauty, even those “spiritually enlightened” people are enjoying themselves.
Not me.
So I better keep trying to get over there. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll spend money, I’ll travel, I’ll go on trainings or retreats, I’ll fix myself, I’ll plan. I won’t truly rest until I get what I want.
What I want is not right here. I have to go get it.
But who would you be without thinking that happiness is achieved by getting “x” or doing “y”? Who would you be without comparing in any way?
Who would you be without believing other people are happier than you if they have “more” of something? Who would you be without the story that achieving “x” means you’re now at peace forevermore, or at least closer to it than if you didn’t achieve “x”?
Huh.
It’s weird.
Who WOULD I be?
No idea.
You mean….I can stop trying?
But. What if I lay down in the street and just let cars run over me? What if, when I stop, I die? What if I dissolve into a puddle and stop caring? Won’t that be depressing? Or sad? What if I never make a bunch of money, then, or find the perfect partner, or do that thing?
Nooooooooooooooooo!
Except.
If I don’t need that other thing in order to be happy, like I really don’t need the same job as my friend just got, what would that be like?
What if I didn’t need something called “awakening” or “to become enlightened” right NOW in order to be happy?
What would it be like to let go of all of it? No more expectations. No more plans, hopes, wishes.
No more waiting.
No. Waiting.
Ha ha.
Wheeeee!!
“That’s how powerful LIKE and DISLIKE are. They steal your entire life. They own you. They possess you. They destroy your life and they keep you from God. But if you watch this process of “like” and “dislike”….and you stop participating in this process anymore, it’s like the ants step off the treadmill. ‘I don’t care who’s ahead. I’m done with the entire process of liking and disliking’. You no longer have to stay there to monitor or participate. When you no longer play in that process, your state of being is released. At that point you are a gift to all of humanity.” ~ Michael Singer in a talk on Preferences
Much love,
Grace