Hi , Lately I’m struggling with jealousy. I’m feeling so jealous about a family member who is much younger than me and is going to have better education and better life than me. I know that’s bad. I need help to overcome it. How can I stop it? I wake up at midnight with these thoughts are bothering me. I know that’s not right and good, but how can I overcome this? Thank you.
—Lavanyan, USA
Dear Lavanyan,
Jealousy, like all harmful emotions, is caused by only one thing: attachment or wanting things to be different from the way they are. Remember that negative emotions are primarily harmful to YOU more than anyone else, keeping you from your natural state of peace and inner joy. Meditation is an excellent way to work on the process of letting go of attachments and dwelling in inner freedom.
When you feel jealous, first, realize that what is happening to or for someone else is really not your concern. They are getting what they deserve, good or bad, based on their own karma (good or bad) from past lives. The same is true for you also. Determine that you want to change this energy pattern as a way of helping yourself.
More specifically here’s an excellent technique for letting go of jealousy: The next time this negative emotion attacks you, especially if it happens when you wake up in the night, try this: Sit up straight in a meditative position. Say a brief prayer for help and guidance from God and your Guru, if you have one.
Close your eyes and take few long, slow, deep breaths. Visualize a cord or cable coming out from your heart and attaching itself to the person for whom you feel jealousy. Then take an imaginary knife or sword and cut the cord completely. Mentally watch the attachment fly away and say goodbye to it. You are free from this feeling—at least for a while! With practice, it will leave you forever.
Now center your attention in your heart chakra in the middle of your chest. Feel the wonderful compassion and unconditional love which naturally live there. Then visualize lifting all your heart’s energy up your spine and place it at your spiritual eye at the point between your eyebrows, giving it back to the Divine from whom it all comes. If any negative thoughts come back, go through the same process again as often as needed, until you can remain in a peaceful place inside yourself, with only love in your heart for your family member, yourself, and the whole world.
A regular, daily practice of meditation will help you very much. Please consider making this a priority, if you are not already doing so.
