Since I was little I was raised with my three male uncles (and after a while a stepfather) who often said they were jealous of me. A lot was said about when I had a boyfriend and many attitudes were justified by this jealousy. I grew up believing that this was completely normal. Yes, being jealous in my life was something totally ingrained. Today I stop and think: How awful!
In my family, thank God, jealousy episodes never went beyond comments and warnings. Nothing too serious and that is super understandable due to the education and upbringing that everyone had.
Later, when I started having relationships with boyfriends, at 14 or 15 years old, jealousy was something that corroded me inside, because my love, even if immature for someone, was entirely associated with jealousy. It was basically: “Feeling jealous was a sign of love”, “having jealousy crises was a sign of loving the other”, and so on. And that lasted a long time in my life.
It's obvious that no relationship went smoothly, what's the doubt about that? None. It's clear as water that this needed to stop or I would harm myself and I would harm any partner who agreed to share life with me.
I went through three relationships in my life until I understood all this, it was difficult, I needed to be a mother to finally deconstruct myself and change. Guys, I'm a Taurus and, believe it or not, this is hard for us. But motherhood arrived and changed everything, but let's go by parts, the real motherhood subject will arrive.
Before I talk about how I allowed myself to take jealousy out of my life, I need to explain what current relationships are like and how people allow themselves to suffer. With the digital age and this online world that we live and explore here, communication has really become something extraordinary and relationships, like the rest of the world, have undergone these changes as well. What I mean by that is that people talk a lot more, meet a lot more, know too much about each other's lives and finally expose themselves too much, I say because I'm like that myself. This is a full plate for those who suffer from the evil of jealousy. A world where everyone posts the best pictures every day, the perfect bodies, where they are, what they're doing and anything else, all of this makes the jealous head spin. Is this a problem of who feels? Of course it is, but let's organize things.
First, we must exclude cases where the person betrays the trust of the other and cheats and lies to his partner, ok?
Second, a relationship must be based on love, respect, trust and empathy. Love really is the basis of everything, but it alone cannot sustain itself. Love without trust does not succeed, without respect even less. That's why you need balance and wisdom. I say with great certainty that most of the topics of fights in current relationships are, yes, because of the internet, because of the jealousy caused by the likes and comments on social networks. What happens is that the cell phone becomes a thermometer for the relationship and that's where trust comes in and even more self-confidence. When you have someone on your side that you trust, there is no like or photo that will make you freak out, because you trust the other and you. What often happens is that the jealous mind creates many things and this generates such a bad feeling in itself that it makes this person blind and crosses all limits of respect and trust, and the worst and biggest mistake is justification to be love.
Since the current youth scenario is now clearer, we can understand that for someone who thinks jealousy is a sign of love, looking at their cell phone, scouring the smallest likes, calls, messages and whatever else they can is always a sign of care and love, love, love. Guys, what kind of love is this? This is not love, this is disease. Yes, I was sick.
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It is not necessary to go into details of everything I did, of how many times I cried and fought out of jealousy until I understood that this was an illness and that it would make me worse and more alone. When I ended my third relationship, with my son in my arms, I decided it was time to find myself and rebuild. Everyone knows, ending a relationship makes us grieve. I moved on and went after taking care of myself, living, changing my look and being the Fernanda who had gotten lost in the middle of so much in such a short space of time.
I once got a text from Osho that talked exactly about relationships and jealousy and that text devastated me. It was there that I understood and assimilated everything I was and what I never wanted to be again. The snippet was:
“(…) just remember: don't ask anyone for happiness. Nobody can give it to you. Only you are able to give yourself that gift. It's a gift from you. So, give yourself that gift and be happy! I'm not telling you not to relate to people, but when you're happy you relate to a totally different dimension, you relate to happiness. Now you are relating to unhappiness, you are relating like a beggar. Start relating like an emperor or an empress, you will not be looking for anything in someone else, you will be sharing.” OSHO – “Far Beyond the Stars: A Darshan Diary”
When I realized the greatness of those words, how true this was, how much I needed to make myself happy and just share it with someone else, my path was lit. I started to look at every person and every relationship I had (I say this because of friendships too) and I have it with other eyes and in another way. The suffering that jealousy caused me would no longer exist, because I would know that whoever was by my side would be free and that I would only be with someone to share something and be free, not to hold them to me.
Love only happens in freedom, and jealousy, most of the time, is the rope that hangs you.
Let's go together and always forward?
We are together, somehow, for some purpose.
Be happy!
Gratitude
