How To Stop Feeling Jealous

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself second, and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about something that is extremely relevant. If you experience this a lot, and if you do, it's. It has a major impact on your life and your relationships, and it is feeling jealous. And that can come up in so many different ways. I am excited because we have our guest expert co host back with us, Amber. Amber Grubman. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Thanks. I'm so excited to be here.

Yeah. Amber is a coach on our team and she also helps out with some of the events, the dating event she was at, and all kinds of good stuff. So if you're intrigued in what she's saying and you're. And you're interested in working with her more, that's. That's a. We were talking about this beforehand, actually, right before we were recording this. And she's like, I have so much. I don't know if we're gonna get to it all. And like, we're probably not gonna get to it all. If someone wants to get to it all, they have to coach with you. But we're gonna give you, you know, a lot of what. What we found to be helpful in this area. So if you struggled with jealousy in relationships and sometimes it's real obvious and overt and like comes out, but oftentimes it's kind of an internal experience that we try to hide and. And yet it affects things extremely. So we're gonna talk today about how to stop feeling jealous and what I've been doing with some of these co host episodes with. Cause Amber's got so many insights. I love kind of turning it over to see what you say, Amber. And then I add on it, build on it, and we just kind of have a conversation about it. So the way I wanted to start is, okay, how do we stop feeling jealous romantically?

Okay. So first of all, I would address the cause of jealousy. And the main cause of jealousy is that we believe that somebody loving us means that we are more worthwhile, better, attractive, good, or worthy. And naturally, if you believe that somebody loving you makes you better or good, you also believe that if somebody stops loving you or rejects you, that makes you less attractive, less worthy, less good, bad. And so jealousy is actually just anxiety. It's a specific type of anxiety. And when you feel jealous, you're worried about somebody retracting their love from you or giving it to someone else because of all the things that you make that mean about yourself. And that's what causes us to feel jealous in relationships.

So it's a fear or an anxiety of a loss of love, and then I'm going to lose that love, and then I'm going to feel bad, less than unworthy in some way.

Exactly.

Sure. And it does feel like we're losing something in those moments. Right. And it could be you really are losing that person's desire for you, or it could just be like they're talking to someone else. And then you feel like. Like in that moment you're losing that love or attention. But in either case, it seems to trigger a pretty strong reaction of, I want it to stop. I don't want this anymore. I better do something right now to fix this. And usually those attempts to fix it are probably counterproductive. But what you're implying there is that there's a way to sort of not even get hooked. Like, not even feel it.

Yeah. I think a little bit of jealousy in relationships can be normal and natural and actually contribute to your desire for that person. But to the point where you're suffering, that's when you really want to look at it and see if you can get it down to a level where you're just kind of intrigued by them talking to someone else or having relationships outside of yours instead of suffering because of that.

Yeah. So let's talk about what might be that kind of healthy range or range where it's beneficial or maybe not problematic or anything like that. What does that look like?

For me, that's just being aware that my boyfriend is an attractive guy and other people think he's attractive, and I'm aware of that. And actually you can kind of turn that into pride. So you can feel a little bit jealous, but then you can think, you know what, it's cool that other people think he's attractive. And obviously, if I'm dating someone attractive, other people are going to share my opinion about that person.

I want them to be a Wretch. I want no one, no one to find them attractive. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. And it's a sign of confidence, right, to be able to know your partner is desirable and let that be so and not need to somehow control that or guard against that. And I would say I've seen that with Candace. I mean, and some sometimes like a, a little bit of jealousy can actually Candace can find that she likes that. There's a little bit of a sort of protective, like primal guard my mate quality to it that if it's, if it's, you know, reasonable. I think where it starts to get problematic is when we, it becomes excessive. This is really interesting. If it comes from like, man, there's so much here, right? There's if you. To me it seems like it's all coming back to a lot of self esteem, right? Because you're talking about this fear of losing that love. And it's like if we lose that love, it's I'm worthless, I'm terrible, or I feel like I'm nothing. That's just a sign of maybe a lack of self love or lower self esteem. And if we have that higher self esteem, then when Candace or your boyfriend or partner is interacting with someone, we don't feel as threatened because why would she choose him over me? I'm awesome. It's sort of a protective element of self esteem that I find really can keep jealousy into a sort of minimal or healthy range.

I think that mindset is almost a little bit dangerous where you think like, why would she choose them over me? Because it depends on other people not being as good as you. So as soon as you see someone where you can definitely see why somebody might choose them over you because they have a really awesome quality or set of qualities, then you'll see, start to feel insecure again because there's always going to be somebody out there who beats you in every way.

Well, others perhaps. Not me. No, I see what you're saying. And actually it's not so much like why would she pick him? I'm the best. It's like, why would she pick him? We have such a depth of, of history and connection and such an amazing relationship. Like it doesn't matter if he is more, if he's better looking or more muscular or more charming or earns more money. Like there's no threat there because there's such a strong connection here. There's such a, there's so much more here in the, in the relationship. And that could be if it's not Accurate, then that is a. Then you might, you know, your partner might go with someone else. But if it's accurate, I find for me, it leads to me basically having minimal experiences of jealousy.

Yeah. One thing that I always think is that if my boyfriend will leave me because a girl who looks better than me walks into their room, then what was our relationship really based on? Or if just one quality or one trait from someone else can make him doubt our entire relationship and what we built together, then I know that that's how strong our relationship was. And so I think that's why jealousy tends to fade away once you've been with someone through many experiences, is because you realize that your relationship can withstand all of those things.

Hmm. Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. And I just see how much, so much of the time the jealousy is not about, like, the likelihood of that person leaving, or it's a form of anxiety, as you said. It goes well said. Because, you know, you see that person who has that one quality, right? Like, you know, even to say that woman's better looking, it's like, well, based on what qualities? Like, what are we assessing? I mean, our brain does a little calculation on whatever we in society deem as important. Is it her skin, complexion, or her figure or whatever? And same thing goes for a man might compares himself to the appearance or the qualities of another man, and we find one or several where we think they're really good and we think that we're not as good, and then we just feel less valuable, less significant, less lovable. And that process probably has nothing to do with the partner. That's our own stuff coming up.

Exactly. It's so important to remember that it's never actually the circumstance that makes you feel jealousy. So you could feel maybe angry at someone for cheating on you, for example. But jealousy isn't a fact that naturally comes up in those situations. Jealousy comes from all of the negative thoughts that you believe about yourself when you're in a situation that makes you jealous. So if my boyfriend were to cheat on me with another girl, I would feel jealous if I had the thought, well, that means she's more attractive than me. That means I'm not attractive enough for him. That means someone else won't find me attractive. That's what makes me jealous. Not the fact that he kissed her or cheated on me.

Hmm. Yeah. That's a really interesting thing. In fact, as you were talking, I just had to actually look up the actual word of jealous, because there's something about jealousy that it involves. So the Definitions I got here are feeling or showing envy, which is not really helpful because envy is just a synonym of jealousy. Good old dictionaries. Feeling or showing envy of someone, or their achievements and advantages. Feeling or showing suspicion of someone's unfaithfulness in a relationship. And the synonyms are suspicious, distrustful, mistrustful, doubting, insecure, anxious. And I think that's what you're really pointing to, is that the situation inherently doesn't trigger jealousy. Although we often think of it that way. Right. We get very externally focused when it comes to it. It's like you. And sometimes this is how people will bring it up. You shouldn't have been talking to him in that way. Or, why were you talking to her so long? Or you look so engaged and animated when you were talking to her and sort of like this upset, accusatory quality. So I guess the question would be, let's say someone listening is like, okay, this all sounds good, but I do feel jealous when my girlfriend talks to guys at parties. Or I do feel jealous. Flip that around. Right. Other scenarios. What should people do?

I think you have to find out what the thought is that you're thinking when they do that. So the question would be, what does that mean about you? So if my boyfriend is talking to another girl and they have a really great connection, what does that mean about me and my ability to connect or be a great conversationalist? And that is the thought that you have to work with and disbelieve. And I think there's a couple, like, little mindset shifts that you can make to make you feel less jealous.

Go on.

So the first one is that if somebody likes you or loves you, it doesn't make you special. It just means that their tastes are compatible with your qualities, and it doesn't mean anything more than that. So if somebody boo.

What about all the songs, Amber? What about the pop music?

Well, that is a story. That person. That is all great. And you can build that with somebody that you're compatible with. But if they leave you, that doesn't mean that you're now less worthy or less good. It just means that their taste changed or you changed your traits and you're not compatible anymore.

No. That's really interesting. So it's kind of removing that, you know, you can get a sense of. This is so interesting because it makes me think of the human needs. And there's love and connection, obviously, but then there's also the need for significance, to feel special, worthwhile, better than in a lot of ways. And what you're talking about is we can. When we receive love, we can then also use it as a way to meet our significance. Like, because so and so loves me now, it shows I'm special. But then when you have it based upon something external, so if their attention goes elsewhere, all of a sudden, now I'm not special. I'm also less than. I'm nothing. So, yeah, I can see how it puts you in a vulnerable place. So you're kind of pulling apart those two and saying, just, look, someone loving you is about love and connection doesn't necessarily make you special.

Exactly. And I think when we're with somebody that we really like, we value their opinion especially highly. So we think that their opinion about us has more weight than somebody else's or our own, even. And that's just not true. And another mindset shift is that at the end of the day. So another part of the anxiety is that you're afraid of a future outcome. And you think that if they cheated on me, if they wanted somebody else, if they left me, that would be bad for me. But you don't actually know that any outcome could be ultimately bad or good for your life. And let's say you did break up and that's your biggest fear. You could meet somebody who maybe doesn't cheat on you, or somebody who you're even more compatible with. Or if you're feeling jealous and you're in a situation where they're making you jealous, it could lead to a conversation where you increase your connection. So you don't actually know that it's bad for your life if your worst fears about them with other people happen.

Sure. And, you know, and this, what you're describing is definitely a. A cognitive approach to, like, sort of change your belief, change your experience approach. And I've seen the power of that again and again. And I've seen also that when it comes to the matters of the heart, someone's, you know, that situation and their partner seems interested in someone else. And, like, you don't know if it's better or worse. And there's like, wow, I do know that. Shit, this feels terrible. So I feel like in order to really apply what you're sharing, we also need to have a capacity to. To be with discomfort. You know, you see, there they are. They're talking to that person. Oh, my God, now I'm freaking out inside. Oh, this hurts in my heart. I'm, you know, and to not. And in order to really get to that clarity of like, okay, I don't I don't need this. I'm all be okay, I don't think. I think in my experience, we get there by kind of retreating to our heads and getting away from the messy feelings. It's really about this path of courage to go into the pain and come out on the other side with that powerful insight. And so in the spirit of that, let's say someone is experiencing something where they're upset and they're feeling jealous. Do you think they should talk about it with their partner?

It depends. On. I know everybody thinks that you should talk about everything with your partner, but I actually think you should mention it if there was a standard that was broken. And I know when you're jealous, that's really hard to determine. Like, so, for example, if they're talking to another guy, are they actually breaking a standard of trust and safety in the relationship, or are they just having a conversation with someone? But then if they're maybe, like, cuddling with a guy on the couch when they're drunk, that's a standard that you need to enforce in a relationship. So I think. And the way that you do that is that you express how their action made you feel and you inform them that that was a violation of a standard that you have for trust and safety in a relationship. But I think when you mention that you're jealous every single time, even when no standard was broken, the other person starts to feel hopeless because they think I'm being accused even when I'm not actually doing anything wrong.

Yeah.

And also, then you become really dependent on them, always proving that they didn't do anything wrong to you.

And everybody loves that in a relationship. Prove it. I don't trust you again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like, oh, go ahead.

Yeah. And also, like, the reason I wanted to bring up this topic is because I was an extremely jealous person in a relationship. And I actually disagree that the mindset shifts and going to your head and working with your thoughts doesn't change the jealousy. Maybe in the moment, like, in the heat of the moment, it doesn't have a huge effect, but when you reflect on it, if you journal, if you evaluate your thoughts, that is what cures your jealousy, because emotions are created by thoughts.

And so you found that in the, you know, taking a step back, really reflecting on what was happening for you, what you were believing and telling yourself, you know, obviously, it sounds like you're in a very different place now.

Yeah, I still get jealous, but not to the extent that I did.

And so what about Those situations where someone. Yeah, I guess this is where you. With the inner work is needed. Because I think a lot of. At least a lot of people that. That we work with and I'm talking to, you know, they realize that a standard is not being broken a lot of the time. And it's not about being assertive and like, hey, I don't. You know, I don't want you touching or cuddling or something. It's more. They just. There's a guy there, and then she's talking to the guy, and he's more muscular and seems more charming, and she's laughing as. As she talks to him, and nothing major comes of it. They're not like, making out or anything.

And.

And so there's no sort of transgression. But the other. In this case, the man is feeling sort of awash in inferiority and then hurt. And this is an experience that I definitely had when I experienced. So in those instances, I think it's what Amber's talking about. And what I'm going to really reinforce is like, the solution to jealousy is inner work. Not finding a more, like, submissive, compliant, docile partner who is socially isolated or something. Like, you know, definitely know what your standards are. You know, maybe, you know, people do all kinds of stuff. Maybe you do want cuddling in your relationship, but they got to be clear agreements. Like, you guys know where you stand. But, you know, in a standard sort.

Of.

Monogamous relationship, there's sort of these boundaries. And. But within those, you want to. If it's. If they're not doing anything to break those standards, then it's. It's a sign. It's. An inner work is needed. And so there's kind of two ways to think about that in the context of relationship. One is like, okay, I'm gonna do my inner work, and I'm gonna kind of, you know, keep it together on the outside, not look like a mess and not make her feel. Or him feel uncomfortable. And then you do your inner work, but you gotta, like, actively do it. You can't just be like, oh, that was terrible. I never want to go back to that place. And let's never go back to that friend for a dinner party because the husband there is too attractive. You know, like, that's not inner work. Inner work would be like, do what Amber's talking about. Do journaling, write out. What is it that I tell myself? Why do I think this person's better than me? What about me do I do I think is inferior and why and all this stuff. Working on that. And though I'm gonna throw out there that you can actually inform your partner about this. I found that it. When people are. When people share jealousy, but share sort of own it without an accusation, make it like, yeah, this is about me and my stuff. It's actually very. It can bring people closer together, is what I've found. And so it might look or sound something like this, because then. Then there's no need to, like, kind of hide. It's like you're leaving the party and you're feeling tense, and they're like, hey, what's going on? You're like, no, it's fine. It's fine. But, you know, you can't take it, right? And so you can be like, oh, it's good. You know, I. Hey, I just want to share something with you. When you were talking to Jake over there, I was comparing myself to him, man. I was just like, that guy is, like, shredded and fucking charming. Damn him, you know? And. And I. Look, you didn't. You didn't do anything wrong. You were just, like, obviously enjoying talking to him. And I just noticed myself kind of shutting down, feeling just slightly inferior to him and, you know, stuff that I'm gonna kind of look at and work on. But I just. I wanted to let you know what I was experiencing. And if you can say it like, that the other person is not. They don't need to defend themselves because they're not. You're not saying. You're saying, this is my stuff. And then they have the opportunity to be like, okay, good. Or. What I've often found is in the times where I've done this with Candace, my wife, the response is, like, very affirming. Like, oh, like, no, I love you. You're amazing. And then you get some. You know, you guys can connect over that, as opposed to it being a source of conflict.

Yeah, no, I actually really agree with you on that point. Another thing that I think is important to remember is that you can't prevent people from living by their values. So if you're with somebody who just doesn't value loyalty in a relationship the way you do, you can't prevent them from exercising their values in life. And I think we take a lot of the blame when people do break our standards, but the most you can really do is observe. Is this somebody who shares the same values that I do? And if I see that they're not, then let's talk about those values and see if we can come to an.

Agreement about that, man, that Is such a. That almost makes me want to do a whole other episode with you that's all about, like, how to. How to enter into relationships in dating. Because I feel like, you know, so many. And I did this for so long, we have it just like, ass backwards. It's like that person over there. Yeah. Oh, man, they're amazing. Or maybe. Maybe it's not first sight. Maybe it's like the first date or something, or the first evening out or whatever. And you're just like, that person's. I'm in love. They're amazing. And then there's like, okay, I gotta make this work. No matter what. We're gonna. This is good. This is amazing. We're destined to be together. Maybe I listen to too many pop songs and, you know, the result, though, is that you're not go. You're not. You're not doing what you're talking about there, where you're like, let me observe over time how this person shows up and what their values are and, you know, if it's a good fit and do I really like them and do they really like me? Beyond our initial appearance and Personas and how do they handle. How do they handle stress in life? How do they. What do they do if something doesn't go their way? How jealous are they? How much do they take ownership of their jealous. Like all those things you're not going to know in that first date or that first meeting. And it's really that, like, really coming to know someone over time is really discovering all that stuff. So I think that's so important what you're saying, because we can't control. I love that we can't make them with threats and coercion, live by our values. Although we might try. We certainly do.

That's so true.

That's good. Well, so any. Any last thoughts or ideas you want to share about this idea about how to free ourselves from jealousy?

Yes. One more thing about jealousy, like, with any negative emotion, don't beat yourself up over it if you do experience that emotion. Because I know when I got jealous, not only did I feel the boiling rage of jealousy, I was also thinking to myself, oh, my God, like, why can't you just be cool? And that would make me feel even worse. And now you have two problems to deal with. Your inner critic and your jealousy. So don't do that to yourself. It's a natural human emotion, and it's okay.

Yeah, Right. Because if what we're. I love that. And what we're talking about, if anything, is Just a sign of when we say like do the inner work, it's really like how to find your way back to unconditional self acceptance, love, compassion, healthy belief, knowing your value. Like it's, that's, it's just a, like a, like a light going off on your dashboard saying, hey, you need to work on that. And so the last thing we want to do is like look at that light and be like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat the shit out of this car. I'm just gonna like start hacking at it with a bat and a crowbar. So no, we don't wanna do that generally ever to ourselves. So great, great points, Amber. Dude, this was, this was awesome. And look forward to doing more of these. In fact, we're gonna shift over and in next week's episode we're gonna be talking all about how to feel good enough. Which is actually a great sort of follow up to this episode because one of the, maybe the simplest, core healing element to jealousy is to really feel good about yourself no matter what. And so we're going to talk about how to actually experience that because so many of us are walking around not feeling that way most or much of the time. So we're going to dive into that until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are. Oh, and for those of you who are digging what Amber's sharing, she is just the more I do these with you, Amber, the more I realize just how, what a wealth of experience and knowledge you have. And I love it. And so if anyone's drawn to working with Amber, we do have space in the coaching through the social confidence center with her directly and some one on one coaching, which I would highly recommend especially in the. If you want to work on this stuff in more depth, this topic or many, many others, you can go to our site socialconfidencecenter.com and there's a form, just a simple name and email about coaching and then we'll reach out to you and you can specify somewhere in there, reach out and say, hey, I'm curious about working with Amber. Then we'll know who you're talking about. So thanks for being with us today, Amber.

Thank you so much for having me.

Awesome. And everyone else may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos. For related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.