Learning to stop being jealous often involves addressing underlying insecurities, fixing communication, and practicing self-love. Jealousy impacts not only your self-confidence but also your relationships and overall well-being. Coping with jealousy can be challenging, but managing and overcoming these feelings is possible with time and effort.
What Is Jealousy?
Jealousy is typically rooted in fear and insecurity, and people may project feelings of low self-esteem, inadequacy, or self-doubt onto others when they succeed. For example, seeing others receive appreciation, reach goals, and mature can leave individuals wanting more in their lives, contributing to envy and jealousy. Determining why you feel negatively about your life and belongings can help when dealing with jealousy.
Why Am I Jealous?
Fears and insecurities behind jealousy often stem from a lack of confidence and control over life. Examining situations, people, and places that trigger these feelings can help when wondering, “Why am I so jealous?” For example, do you feel personally lacking in specific characteristics or a lack of control and influence over your life? Whatever the case, exploring the possible reasons can help you start overcoming jealousy.
Below are possible reasons why you are feeling jealous:
- You feel left out: We may automatically feel replaced or betrayed when others leave us out of events, conversations, or similar situations. Exclusion can trigger jealousy because we want that sense of belonging and acceptance.
- You don’t have what others have: You may feel “less than” when someone else has the things you want for your life. For instance, you may believe your life is lacking because you do not have a better car, house, or job than your neighbor.
- You feel behind in your life: We can easily create a hierarchy of comparative success when we constantly compare ourselves to others. Doing so highlights the areas where you feel lacking, leading to feelings of jealousy.
- You doubt yourself: Doubting yourself leads to insecurity and fears that can be a foundation for jealous feelings to develop.
How to Stop Being Jealous: 15 Helpful Tips
Determining how to overcome jealousy will depend on your unique situation and experience. Each person has different reasons for jealousy, so you should choose healthy lifestyle changes that best suit your journey toward self-acceptance and gratitude.
Below are 15 tips on how to stop being jealous:
1. Practice Mindfulness Meditation
Finding a specific or sacred meditation spot can help you reflect and take things slowly. Meditation offers space to process emotions differently so you can react to distressing situations more healthily. You can become more mindful of your jealousy as it arises, identify the cause, and take necessary action to deflect any self-doubt or negative feelings.1
2. Be Honest About Your Feelings
Healthy communication enhances romantic partnerships, friendships, and professional relationships. Open discussion allows you to express yourself when feeling jealous, uneasy, or anxious. Share your struggles with your partner or loved ones to gain insight and collaborate on the next steps moving forward.
3. Determine the Cause of Your Jealousy
Getting to the heart of your issues is the most important thing when figuring out how to deal with jealousy. For example, insecurities from childhood may leave you feeling unfulfilled, leading to jealousy when others succeed. For others, past relationships or traumatic events could fuel envy. Whatever the case, identifying these triggers can help you determine areas of improvement and growth in your life.
4. Seek Social Support
Insecurity breeds in isolation, reinforcing jealousy. Seeking support from trusted friends, family, or professionals can help you challenge negative narratives about a person, situation, or past events. Doing so may aid in controlling your envy and addressing your triggers.
5. Practice Gratitude
Losing sight of things to celebrate is easy when we only focus on the negative aspects of ourselves and our lives. Cultivating a habit of gratitude can help rebalance your perspective and ultimately decrease jealousy.
6. Address Underlying Issues
Addressing the underlying issues in your life can be powerful when managing jealousy. Healing past wounds from childhood, relationships, and experiences may shift your focus toward the positives in your life, allowing you to combat unwanted jealousy.
7. Focus on Improving Your Self-Esteem & Confidence
Because jealousy is rooted in insecurities, comparisons can reinforce our negative self-beliefs. Building our self-esteem and confidence clears the kindling needed to fuel the fire of jealousy. Over time, the intensity and frequency of envy can reduce as we develop an innate sense of self-worth.
8. Be Patient
Sometimes, jealousy stems from feeling out of control in situations. We may envy those who have already achieved similar goals, passing and evolving past us. However, remind yourself that everyone moves at a different pace. Staying present with yourself in the current moment can help you accept your current circumstances and feel hopeful for your future.
9. Reflect on Your Jealousy & Make Changes
Our emotions alert us about inner problems and experiences. For example, your jealousy may indicate where you have unresolved pain or something you greatly desire. Reflecting on what jealousy is trying to tell you may help you heal the issues behind these feelings, make improvements, and find self-acceptance.
10. Practice Self-Love & Compassion
Struggling with jealousy is easy when you cannot see the good things about yourself. Lack of self-love and grace means you will always feel unworthy, which sets the stage for jealousy. Learning to love yourself will help you challenge and balance jealousy when you feel overwhelmed by envy.
11. Identify Your Triggers
Experiencing jealousy without recognizing the cause means missing opportunities to manage jealousy in the future. Reflecting on the events that preceded these feelings can help you work backward through the situation sto build awareness. When you know your triggers, you can address the underlying issue and respond differently in the future.
12. Build Emotional Intimacy
Focus on building emotional intimacy in a relationship to reduce your feelings of insecurity. Your sense of safety and stability increases when you feel more connected with a person. You can communicate more directly and clearly about your needs and hopes for the relationship. All of these things can reduce your feelings of jealousy.2
13. Revisit Your Expectations
Sometimes, we get jealous because we set unrealistic expectations for ourselves and our relationships. When we do this, we subconsciously compare the current moment to the ideal expectations we have created within our minds. Revise your standards if you constantly and consistently feel jealous about a specific person or situation. No individual is perfect, and setting yourself up for failure will only exacerbate your envy.
14. Recognize the Impacts of Jealousy
Unchecked jealousy rages and wreaks havoc on our relationships and self-esteem. We have little motivation to tackle uncomfortable emotions and situations if we cannot recognize the impacts of jealousy. When you identify what you may lose if you do not address your jealousy directly, you are much more likely to take active steps toward managing and working through the causes of your envy.
15. Forgive & Let Go
Holding on to past events and insecurities contributing to jealousy will only erode your relationships. Permit yourself to forgive someone and move forward if they have taken the necessary steps to apologize and work on themselves.* Doing so can be invaluable when letting go of jealousy.
*This excludes abusive, coercive, and toxic relationships.
When to Seek Professional Help
Objective feedback and guidance from a professional are always helpful when getting over jealousy. Therapists can encourage you to acknowledge and address your inner critic, allowing you to overcome self-doubt or anger-fueling envy.3 Coping with jealousy may sound challenging, but seeking support can provide valuable skills and tools to enact change. You can start finding the right therapist on an online therapist directory or reviewing in-network providers.
In My Experience
Silvi Saxena, MBA, MSW, LSW, CCTP, OSW-C How to Stop Being Jealous Infographics
