Eckhart Tolle explains jealousy as an ego pattern where a suspicious thought fuses with emotion, making an imagined scenario feel like present reality. He advises catching jealous thoughts as they arise through strong present-moment awareness, then disidentifying from them before they take hold.
You're struggling with the pull of the thought of—
Excessive jealousy. Jealousy.
Jealousy.
Jealousy.
Jealousy. Okay.
Jealousy.
Okay. You're jealous, not because you're French, you're just jealous.
It might be linked, but—
So, yes, okay, we're getting there, we're getting there, just a second. So you are struggling with jealousy.
Yeah, in love relationships.
Love relationships.
And emotional insecurity.
Emotional insecurity.
Imagination, you know.
Right.
Building scenarios, and I know I'm not the only one.
No.
But these thoughts are intense to deal with.
Yes, okay. Well, that can be a huge obstacle in relationships, jealousy. It can be very destructive, as you probably know, can be very destructive of relationships. It's a dis— what is it? Obviously, it's ego-created, and it is a distrust of the other. The ego feels the other is betraying me, or it may be betraying me, and then it projects those thoughts onto the other, even if it's not the case. It may not be the case, and you almost create it by continuously focusing on that. So the key is self-awareness in the present moment so that when this feeling arises, which is a combination of emotion and thought coming together, and the thought, it is this suspicious thought, and an emotion. The emotion is as if the thing that you think had already happened. So when you're jealous, the emotion you feel is as if this person had already done the deed that you think might be the case. So because the emotional reaction that comes through the energy field of the body cannot tell the difference between a thought and a reality. So when you think a fearful thought, you have a fearful emotion as if the fearful thing were an actual situation. So when you feel jealous, the emotion is, it's actually already happening for you, even if it's not happening. That's what you're experiencing, that emotion, and that's created by the thought. So you have to bring presence into intense self-observation so that you feel the thoughts as they arise, identify as this particular type of thought so that that the thought doesn't grab you, take possession of you, and controls other related thoughts that you think. You have to be able to recognize this type of thought that you call jealous thought for what it is. It's a certain pattern in your egoic mind.
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