I think we can agree that we are doing much better as a society/world at accepting emotions. There’s so much more normalising talk around the subject. We have great things like #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and they even teach children at school now about emotions. However, I still find there is one emotion that not a lot of people like to admit to…

Jealousy

For some reason this still seems to be a very taboo emotion. If I ever bring it up in the therapy room I get people thinking that I might be judging them and they immediately will start justifying themselves. Even in my everyday life it seems to be the one emotion people still think is dirty. So I thought I would start by making my confession:-

“Hi, my name is Kelly and I’m a jealous person.”

I get jealous of my friends. I get jealous of people who are more successful than me. I get jealous of people who have nicer houses than me. I get jealous of people who are famous. I get jealous of people who are rich. The list goes on, and on and on……………..

There that’s done. And, for me, it was quite easy. This is because I know that pretty much every single human being on this earth would be sat in the same circle with me because I have not yet met one person who has never been envious or jealous of others. Also, I know it doesn’t make me a totally bad person – I’m just flawed. A bit like everyone else.

The other reason I’m not ashamed of my jealousy is because I don’t think it is an entirely negative emotion. In fact, it can be a very helpful emotion. It can tell me what I feel that I might be missing in my life right now. I can let me know what attributes, character qualities, achievements and values that others have that I wish I had. This is good information to have because it means it can give me a goal. It can give me direction. It can also help me to appreciate others and the things that they can do that I can’t right now. I can then tell them that I admire this in them and then my jealousy might make them feel better.

So, which one of you is next to stand up and admit to being a jealous person?