395 - 50 Ways to Handle Jealousy - Part 2
The final 24
The final part of our series on handling jealousy also has two categories of tools: ones for your relationships and ones for your heart and soul.
Relationships
Sometimes jealousy and envy are a warning sign that there is something going wrong in the relationship or something missing. But do remember that humans are social creatures and did not evolve to be alone or handle big, scary feelings on our own. These tools for your relationships include:
Journal prompt: What are you longing for from your partner? Or from your life? - This can help to reveal what may be missing. It doesn’t mean that something is necessarily wrong, but can give some clues about what you might be yearning for in general.
Pay it forward.
Friend at the ready - Enroll a friend for support ahead of time. You can have them “poor baby” you, but be explicit with the Triforce.
Make social plans - Connect with other partners, friends, family.
Connect to community - online or offline. Be picky about community though. Certain gigantic online FB groups are less than sympathetic if you’re going through a rough time.
The stash.
Heart and soul
We get a little more “woo-woo” with tools for your heart and soul. “Heart and soul” is a little bit of a catchall for the tools that don’t fit into the other categories. These are the deeper, more philosophical tools that often have to do with changing the meaning we attribute to jealousy. These ones are very much take it or leave it; for some people these will really resonate, and for others they will be hokey and fall flat.
They include:
Spend time in nature - A 2016 study published in Scientific Reports found that a visit to a green space anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes significantly reduced depression and high blood pressure.
Found that these benefits were consistent if you hit at least a 30 minute visit within the course of a week.
Reconnect to your philosophy and values - Read non-monogamy books, follow creators, find content that inspires you and gives you hope.
Find your anchor - Callback to Lola Phoenix during episode 378. Remember your reasons for being in the relationship, for choosing this particular type of relationship, etc; reconnect with your why.
Gratitude list - You can list out what in your life or in your relationships you are grateful for. Again, caveat: This works great for some folks, and some people aren’t really able to connect with this.
Meditation - Caveat: If your experience of jealousy is a very active spiraling brain or an extremely upset body, jumping straight into meditation if you’re not already an experienced meditator may not be very effective. Find the meditation approach that works for you: use apps, go to groups, establish a practice outside of the moments that you are feeling distressed.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about 50 ways to handle jealousy, or to be more accurate, we're talking about the remaining 24 ways to handle jealousy since we did 26 last week. We're continuing on with numbers 27 through 50.
Dedeker: I think some people are going to be mad at me that I didn't do a perfect 25, 25 split.
Emily: You had to keep it in its specific lane, in its specific category. That's okay.
Dedeker: That's just how it went. That's just how it went. I'm sorry.
Jase: They do fall into four different categories, all with different numbers in them. We did the first two categories last time. We're doing the second two this time. That's why, there's a good reason for it. I hope that helps assuage any worries about the lack of symmetry between these two episodes. Jealousy, as we mentioned before, it's a question that comes up a ton for non-monogamous people, but it's also something that everybody deals with no matter what type of relationship you're in. It might show up for you more in your friendships or in monogamous relationships, non-monogamous, whatever it is.
Even if you've really changed your relationship jealousy over the years, it's still something that comes up every now and then. Jealousy or envy, even if you have great compersion for your partner and their other relationships, it can still come up sometimes. Just a general emotional regulation can be challenging at times. It happens to all of us. The point of these two episodes is to be a resource that you can come back to whenever you need it so that you can get some tips and see which ones might resonate for you.
Dedeker: Again, like I said last time, my word choice was intentional here, so we're handling the jealousy, not coping with it, managing it, taming it, trying to deal with it like animal handling. We're going to be gentle and compassionate, but also in control.
Emily: We created this big toolkit so that you in your panicked uncomfortable moments can grab a specific tool that feels good for you to emotionally regulate and bring yourself a little bit more back down to peace and to understanding and acceptance and happiness and kindness. Now, last time we talked about tools for your brain and tools for your body, but this week we're going to be talking about tools for your relationships and tools for your heart and soul.
Dedeker: Again, these are useful when you're in a situation where you know things in the relationship are above board, but you're still feeling jealous or envious. Again, this is distinguishing from when feelings of jealousy and envy are completely legitimate, as in your partner's lying to you, they're neglecting you, they're not treating you well, they are intentionally excluding you, like the security, the attachment in the relationship feels really shaky.
Again, there can be fundamental issues with the relationship and with the security of the relationship. In that case, you feeling envious and jealous is completely understandable and totally expected. Again, there isn't a single tool that can fix all of the relationship issues. We do recommend going back and looking at other resources, looking at our back catalog for other tools that will help with that. Sometimes this is just about detoxing from old scripts, rewriting some neural pathways around what produces jealousy or doesn't. T
hat actually perfectly segues into our category here of tools for your relationships. There could be a lot more that goes in this category again. Sometimes the intense feelings that come up can be a warning sign that there is something going wrong in the relationship, there is something missing, there is something that you're craving that you're not getting. The reason why I categorize some of these as tools for your relationships was just that I think it's important for us to remember that we didn't really evolve to be alone or to be always handling big scary feelings on our own.
Actually the experience of, I'm alone at home by myself, my partner's gone on a date, maybe both all of my partners are occupied and can't be with me, all the people that help me feel safe and secure and happy aren't here and I'm just by myself, from an evolutionary perspective, like our nervous systems, we didn't evolve under those conditions. We evolved as a group and we evolve to be regulating and co-regulating with other people. You don't have to deal with this alone. That's the whole point of looking at your relationships and connecting to other humans as well.
Jase: Let's start off here with number 27. This is journaling, which I know you're going to say, "Wait, wait. You did that in the cognitive category from last time, what are you talking about?" The point here though is journaling about your relationship specifically. This is just to get some introspection into what might be going on for you, what might be behind these feelings of jealousy or these fears that are coming up. This is to journal about what is it that you're longing for from your partner, or even from your life in general.
This can help to reveal what might be missing. Just because you find something here doesn't mean that that's necessarily something wrong, but it can give you some clues about, what is it that I'm yearning for, am I getting that but it doesn't feel like enough? Or am I not getting something that I could be? Is this something that I could be getting from my partner? Or is this something that it doesn't matter how much they give me, I'm still going to feel like it's not enough because maybe there's actually something else in my life that I'm wanting or I'm craving that I'm not letting myself have if I'm not getting it?
It's just as a way to start to look at what are some of these things so that hopefully you can then bring that knowledge to your partner and start having those conversations more proactively about not, "Stop doing what you're doing because I'm jealous," but here's stuff that would help, focus on more what are the positive things that could benefit me and this relationship and hopefully, that your partner is happy to give as well.
Dedeker: Tool 28, I've talked about this one on the podcast before. This is my pay-it-forward tool. I also talked about this in my book as well. Basically, I don't even know where I got this idea from or if I just pulled it out of my butt-
Emily: The Haley Joel Osment movie
Dedeker: -one day. It was not from the Haley Joel Osment movie. I've never seen it, so maybe I accidentally outsourced this from that film.
Emily: That's probably fine that you didn't.
Dedeker: The idea being that in the moments that I'm feeling the most lonely and jealous and sorry for myself, that instead of throwing a pity party, I decided to just pull a complete about face and decide, I'm going to reach out to someone and express gratitude and love and positivity. Maybe it's another partner, but it could just be a friend, it could be a family member. It doesn't have to be super deep and profound, it doesn't have to be a wall of text that you send somebody.
It could just be really simple of like, "Hey, I was thinking about you and I hope that you're doing well. Let's make time to chat or to catch up," or things like that, or "Hey, I just really wanted to express how much I appreciated us hanging out the other day. That was really fun."
It can be super simple, whatever's organic to you.
There was something about that that I found just like, I don't know, it got my brain in this different mode of focusing not just on myself and on my problems, but on the connections outside of me that weren't just this specific connection with this particular partner where I was feeling lonely or jealous or things like that. It really helped. Honestly, sometimes even when it wouldn't help was if I was still feeling lonely and jealous, it was still a nice thing to do. It would still often open up a good conversation or help me reconnect to a friend that I haven't connected to in a while. I think ultimately still a net positive.
Emily: Number 29 is to have a friend at the ready. You can enroll a friend for support ahead of time if you know,
hey, my partner's going out for the first time with a new person. That always tends to really make me feel intense emotions or get down on myself in some way or something along those lines.
You can have a friend there, call them up during this time, or have them come over to your place and they can poor baby you. You can ask them specifically what it is that you want. Again, use the triforce in a situation like this if you want advice or if you just want their love and support in that moment.
Jase: Again, it's a good example of that planning ahead, of being proactive, we talked about with some of the tools last time, is have this set up in advance so that you're not just, Oh shoot, now I'm freaking out by myself. Number 30 related to that is to make social plans. This is connecting with partners, with friends, with family. It could be remote it could be a video call or playing online games with your friends or something like that.
Just again, to be proactive about if that you're going to have a hard time, and maybe you don't know it first, but if you're like, "I anticipate this might be challenging for me," make other plans for yourself so that you have something to do so you have something that you're doing so you're not just stuck there, trapped in your own thoughts and feeling lonely is to be proactive.
I think what's important about this is to not try to match one for one of like, "Oh, my partner's going on a date, I need to find a date to go on at this exact same time, on this same night." I actually think a better solution is to find something else, right, to hang out with your friends or to call your dad on the phone or your mom or something, right? Check-in with your sibling, but try to plan something in advance so you have something to do, but that's not relying on, I have to manage to find a date with someone who happens to be available at this exact same time.
Emily: Number 31, similar to that last one is to connect to community. This can manifest in a lot of different ways, it can be online or offline. If it is online, be really picky about the community that you're going to be reaching out to because there are certain gigantic Facebook communities, for example, that might be less sympathetic and not very kind or not very understanding if you're going through a rough time. Something puttin-- getting out of your own way and going outside of yourself is to connect to community in maybe a community service type way.
Something that I used to do with my mom, we used to go to a food bank every single Thanksgiving and that was really great, and volunteer there. Especially if something intense is going on in your life, it's great to give back in those moments and pay it forward like Dedeker said. You can do that in a variety of ways, including through your community.
Dedeker: I like that a lot. Tool number 32. This is the last one of this section and this I call the stash. This is one I've been using for years now.
Jase: You grow a mustache.
Dedeker: Grow a mustache, that's a skill that you're going to learn.
Emily: Easier for you than me, although I did have one a bit when I was younger before I learned the art of what, depilatory creams, and waxing.
Dedeker: I'm imagining you as a baby with a mustache.
Emily: I wasn't a baby. It was like going through puberty and my voice was dropping and it was a bad time. Pimples, yikes. Anyways-
Dedeker: I'm sure you were adorable.
Emily: What stash are you talking about Dedeker?
Dedeker: Well, I'm talking about S-T-A-S-H like my stash of goods. Again, this requires some thinking about it ahead of time and planning ahead of time, but basically, it's whenever it could be your partner, multiple partners, it could even be from friends and family as well. I want to extend it out to that, but basically, anytime someone does something for you or expresses something to you or like, makes you feel loved and safe in some way, you know what that is for you.
It's finding a centralized location. To make a note of that, or something that I've done many times over the years is to take a screenshot of like a text that I've gotten that made me feel like really nice and loved and warm and fuzzy inside and just keeping that in a safe location. For many years I would have a specific Google Drive folder where I put all of these things, both a combination of screenshots and pictures of memories and little notes of stuff that someone did for me.
Now I use a journaling app called Journey. What it lets you do is it lets you put hashtags on entries to make it easier to filter by them. I started doing that in the journaling app, but then putting in that hashtag in particular and literally called it Stash, my Stash hash. Then in the moments when I'm feeling lonely, envious, or jealous, I can go to that stash to have those reminders of like, "Oh, right, my partner does love me." Or just I am loved and I am safe and I am worthy." My stash that I got is, it's one of my favorite things in the world. It's one of my favorite secret tools and secret resources that I use all the time.
Jase: That's fantastic.
Emily: It's a great idea.
Dedeker: I've been thinking about for Multiamory, we need to create a stash for ourselves.
Emily: Oh, that's a good idea.
Dedeker: Like when we get praise and messages from people because I think it's so easy to only be bombarded with like people's complaints and criticisms to forget.
Jase: That's fantastic. I have heard this suggested before with emails as well of doing it as an email category in your inbox does anytime you get positive feedback, like at work or in personal life, do it there or you can email it to yourself and then just stick it into that folder in your inbox. That's so that you have that some way, whatever works for you of a way to get back to these messages. I'm not as good about this as I really should be, but there are times when I could really use that stash. I like that suggestion a lot.
Dedeker: That brings us to our last category, which is tools for your heart and soul. We're going to get a little more woo-woo here. Put on your favorite shawl and light a candle, say a prayer.
Jase: You can take off your shoes. Let your feet feel the floor.
Dedeker: Whatever flavor of grass you want.
Emily: Flavor of grass.
Jase: Far out man.
Dedeker: Far out. Far out. This is a little bit of a catch-all for the tools that didn't fit into other categories, but these are grouped by being the deeper, more philosophical tools that often have to do with interfacing with or changing the meaning that we attribute to jealousy or the meaning that we attribute to the situation that we're in. All the tools we've covered so far, these ones especially are very much take it or leave it.
For some people, these will really resonate with them on a super deep level and for other people, you're going to be rolling your eyes this entire time and it's just going to feel hokey and fall flat for you. No wrong or right answer. I think this is all just up to the person you are personally. This really starts to connect to your own existential philosophy and how you find meaning out of life. There's a very wide variety there.
Jase: First one in this category is number 33 and that is to spend time in nature. In 2016 there was a study published in scientific reports that found that a visit to a green space anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour to an hour and 15 minutes significantly reduced depression and high blood pressure, so tried to lower blood pressure. They found that these benefits were consistent. If you hit at least a 30-minute visit within a week. Within each week having at least a 30-minute visit to some green space, you would get these benefits.
This is fascinating to me. We also, a few weeks ago, I think I talked about another study that I'd read about that was specifically visually having the-- how would I even describe it? Like the perspective of seeing things go by your vision as if you were walking through a forest and seeing trees to buy your vision, that something optically about that also triggers more relaxation and groundedness and helps to reduce stress. Going for walk through a green space.
Emily: Why we fall asleep in the car sometimes because like things are going by us, like nature is going by us?
Dedeker: I assume that was always like a from a rocking or like the vibration or something, but I guess that would make sense because you're also having that sense of stuff going by in your peripheral.
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Dedeker: Tool number 34. Reconnect to your philosophy and values. What I mean by this is, if this is specifically about your experience of non-monogamy, it can just be revisiting some of the resources that got you interested in this in the first place. It could be going back and reading non-monogamy books, following creators that talk about non-monogamy, or educators that talk about non-monogamy on social media.
Basically, it's about finding content that inspires you and gives you hope, and helps remind you that you're not alone in this. Again, helps remind you of just maybe why you're doing this in the first place. Again, this may not resonate for everybody, but for a lot of folks just kind of coming back to the ideals even though sometimes the way that the ideals play out in real life is less than comfortable or perfect, but sometimes still reconnecting to that vision or that dream can be really helpful.
Jase: Yes, I just want to add with this one that even if your jealousy is related to non-monogamy or something, just reading some other kind of philosophical text, or poetry, or something, that that for you is comforting and helps you try to aspire to be your best self. For me, that's every now and then if I'm really having a hard time, I'll go back and reread sections from The Sacred Path of the Warrior.
Emily: Shambhala, I was going to say that.
Jase: Yes, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, and for me, it's just there's quotes in there that's just stuff that has nothing to do with relationships really, but it's just kind of about being okay with your feelings and your place in the world and stuff like that and that really helps for me.
Emily: Number 35, is find your anchor. This is a call back to our most recent episode with Lola Phoenix, which was Episode 378. It's essentially just to remember your reasons for being in relationship or in any type of relationship that you're in whether or not that's monogamy, non-monogamy. Specifically, Lola talked about being in non-monogamous relationships that when the going gets tough, it's time for you to recall the reason why you wanted this in the first place and that that's really important to know.
I think, especially in moments when you're jealous when a partner may be out with someone else to remember, "Yes, okay, this hurts right now, but there are reasons why I wanted to engage and embark in this type of relationship structure." Just really reconnecting to your why that's super important to recall in moments of challenge.
Dedeker: To reiterate something that we talked about with Lola in that episode that this applies even if you weren't like the gung-ho one who pitched non-monogamy in the first place. You still were like, you were the one who agreed to try it. I think, well, this example was like why your anchor can be in supporting my partner to be their best self, or in connecting to myself in my alone time. Again, just finding those whys.
Jase: Yes. Number 36 on this list is a list within a list. This is a gratitude list. This is to write down and list out some of the things that you're grateful for in your relationships or in your life in general, but, in this case, may be good to focus on that relationship. Caveat here, of course, is this works great for some folks and some people just don't connect to this, but just the idea of focusing on what are the things I'm really glad for in this relationship?
What are the things that feel really good? What am I really happy about? What do I feel really fulfilled within this relationship? Kind of reminding yourself of those because it can be easy to forget when you get laser-focused on all the things that feel threatening or scary.
Emily: Number 37 is meditation. That's something we talk about a lot on this podcast. We did want to throw out a caveat that if your experience of jealousy is very active, spirally brain, or an extremely upset body, jumping straight into meditation if you're not already an experienced meditator, it might not be very effective. I think for myself that's definitely challenging.
Sometimes you have to emotionally regulate first, or have a practice of meditation already to be able to get yourself into that spot. Really, just find the meditation approach that works for you. You can use apps, you can go to groups, you can establish a practice outside of those moments that you're feeling distressed in order to help you out when you are distressed because that can definitely help to emotionally regulate if you are doing it over a long period of time.
Jase: Find the approach that works for you. Don't let anyone tell you there's just one right way to meditate, maybe there is--
Emily: It's always great for me that's a moving meditation. It's different, but it still can be a meditation.
Jase: Yes, that works through the park that we talked about. Could in itself be a type of meditation if you're not there listening to a podcast, or music, or something, but you're just kind of standing the moment and doing that, or even listening to a guided walking meditation or something or listening to a guided sitting meditation. Whatever it is just find what works for you and what feels good.
Dedeker: If you want to listen to this podcast while you're walking through the park, we won't stop you.
Jase: Totally cool.
Emily: Be still.
Dedeker: We're going to keep rolling along with the rest of this list of 50 tools, we're going to bring it home, baby. First, we're going to take a little break to talk about our sponsors for this week's episode. If you appreciate the content of this show, if this has been helping you out, it's something that could really help us is by listening to our ads, checking out our sponsors, it does really directly help the show and help us keep producing this for free.
Hello, and welcome back, we are continuing on with tools for your heart and soul. Tool Number 38. I call this one just feel the feelings. This doesn't require a formal meditation practice, but the whole point of this is that rather than fighting the feelings that are coming up, or trying to calm them down, or trying to fix them in some way, rather than trying to get comfortable, just let yourself feel what's going on.
It can be helpful to set a timer, you can decide I'm going to set a timer for half an hour, or five minutes, or an hour, whatever feels appropriate, and just feel the feelings without any judgment, without trying to manage them or control them. One of my consulting supervisors, essentially for my SC program introduced me to this idea he called it taking the grief to tea.
This was specifically about grief, but is this idea of our brains and hearts and nervous systems really like there being a beginning, middle, end to something we really like ritual? For him, it was this idea of like, "Okay, I'm going to sit, and I'm going to pour myself a cup of tea, and I'm going to drink that tea and that's when I'm going to experience the grief. That's when I'm going to sit with the grief."
You can do the same thing with any intense emotion. You're going to be the one who knows whether or not this is effective for you. If it's super overwhelming, or you're just going to be miserable and tortured and in pain, maybe not a good time to have tea, maybe turn to a different tool on this list, maybe work on getting more physiologically regulated first, but just creating that space to feel what wants to be felt.
Sometimes not all the time, but sometimes just letting yourself feel the feelings helps them to pass because that's all they want is they want to be felt and they want to be paid attention to. That leads into tool 39, which is to personify the feelings. What this is, is you can characterize your feelings, your jealousy, your sadness, whatever it is, as something separate from you.
It could be a small creature that you give a name to, it could be your younger self at a particular age. Whatever it is, we encourage you to make friends with that personification of your feelings. There are some other resources about handling jealousy that sometimes recommend almost making it a villain or making it like, "Oh, this weird annoying little ogre is there again." I don't usually recommend that to people, because I think it's a little bit--
I just think it's better to cultivate more kindness and understanding and gentleness for that part of you, rather than being in opposition to it, but for some folks that can help. If they think about their jealousy as like this annoying gross cat that won't leave me alone, and so I'm just going to brush the cat away, or I don't know, whatever it is. For some people that helps, but if you've never done this before, I recommend trying to create something that's a little bit more friendly, something that you can have that sense of friendliness and warmth toward.
Jase: Yes, you could even go through a whole visualization exercise if maybe picturing it as like a big scary guard dog, but kind of realizing it's here to protect me. It's just trying to take care of me and I think this thing is scary and it's trying to protect me but you can kind of comfort it and be like, "Hey, I really appreciate you for trying to take care of me," but also like, "It's okay, you can stand down," as a way of simultaneously accepting, yes, this thing is scary, but also it's trying to help me. Even if it's not, it's trying to. That's what our minds are trying to do. They're trying to protect us. It just might be misusing some of that power or some of those resources.
Emily: Number 40 is to know that this too shall pass. This is great because it's really challenging in certain moments to not feel like you're always going to feel this way, but remember that the intensity of the feelings that you're going through, they will pass. Every intense feeling that you've ever had has eventually passed. Even if that intensity just goes away temporarily and then comes back at a later time, know that it will go away for some time. I think this is a really important thing to remember, that it's never going to last forever. That's good.
Jase: I love that. Related to that is number 41, which is the concept of no fixed self. The basic idea here is that you yourself are not one fixed thing that never changes. In fact, you're actually changing every moment to every moment. Part of that is realizing just because you're feeling jealous right now doesn't mean that you are jealous or that you're a terrible person because of it.
You're just experiencing jealousy. Remember that you contain multitudes of feelings and interests and quirks. There are so many different parts to you that are constantly evolving and changing, that are influencing other people, that are being influenced by other people, being influenced by the world. So much is going on and that you're always changing, and so no one thing that you've done or that you feel is you.
Everything in life is transitory. To let go of some of that feeling of, "Oh gosh, I'm broken and I'm ruined and guilty because I feel this thing, and so therefore I'm terrible and unlovable." It's just, no, these are all just things that we experience as we go through this life, and none of that is you.
Emily: Number 42 is to think about your ideal self and visualize what your ideal self would do in this situation, or how your ideal self might feel about whatever it is that you're going through. Now that's different from this idealized robot-perfect version of yourself. That's probably not an attainable thing, and that's fine because, again, we are going to have emotions and feelings and that's okay.
If your ideal self were to go through this thing that you're going through in the moment, what would they be feeling? How would they react? How would they soothe themselves? This can lay the groundwork for fake it till you make it. We talk about that quite often on this show, that that's an okay thing to do just because it can get you in the habit of, I'm going to go through the motions of this thing because it may eventually get me to a point where I can actually do that in reality and feel it and agree with it and, and believe in it.
Dedeker: This is a good way to reconnect to your values. We've talked about values a lot on this show, and I think this is a good exercise as well to just-- thinking about what's actually important to me as far as how I show up in the world and show up as a partner. Next tool. Number 43. This one's called the Next Tetris Piece. I got this tool from the Secular Buddhism Podcast, which is a great podcast, by the way. Again, not just for, if you're into Buddhism, I think it's great for anybody.
He laid out this metaphor about how when you're playing Tetris, you don't know necessarily what your next piece is going to be or what your next three pieces are going to be. Part of the whole fun and frustration of Tetris is that you have to respond in the moment, and then of course, sometimes it gets faster and you have to respond even quicker, and it's all about staying on your toes.
He was laying that out as this metaphor of, in life we don't get control over what the next Tetris piece is going to be. Unexpected stuff both really good that works out perfectly for the stack that you're building, and stuff that works out terribly for the stack that you're building come along and you just have to figure it out and pivot and make it work. For me, this resonated really hard in the early days of the pandemic because good God, talk about a really inconvenient Tetris case.
I think that the way that this relates to jealousy, I think is just that. Is just learning to take the bad with the good, learning to reconnect to your own innate abilities and your own innate sense of like, "Okay, whatever comes, even though it may be challenging, even though it may be difficult, I can get through it, I can find ways through it, I can find ways to the other side." There's going to be a pathway through. Just think about your Tetris pieces.
Emily: Related to that is number 44, which is looking at something from a bird's eye view or from 20,000 feet. Essentially just zooming out and seeing how this particular moment in time, these particular emotions that you're feeling, how they fit into your life and your whole life at large, and even the huge spectrum of human experience that's taking place right at that same moment.
Sometimes it's really good to be able to zoom out and be like, "Wait a minute, okay, this is just one single moment in time and it may really hurt and suck right now, but in the grand scheme of things, is it going to matter in a couple of days, in a couple of weeks, in a couple of months, in a couple of years? Am I going to really be feeling these things? Most likely no." Most likely it may not matter as much as it feels like it matters at that particular moment. This can be a good thing in general to do, but also to give yourself some perspective on the moment.
Jase: Again, related to that a little bit is number 45, which is called all other beings. With this one, you sit with those uncomfortable feelings and let those connect you to all the other beings in the world, human or otherwise, that are suffering from jealousy or envy at this exact same moment. There's enough billion people in the world that there's probably some other people experiencing a similar feeling to you at this exact same time.
To let yourself feel that connection of, "I'm actually not alone.
There's probably people around the world that I will never directly interact with who are experiencing this, and some of which I will." It can also be a way to finally be able to empathize with maybe another partner who when they've experienced jealousy, you've had a hard time getting it or understanding how they might feel that way, or maybe you had a friend who went through something that you just were like, "Well, come on."
You can just think your way through it or whatever. Maybe use it as an opportunity to see, "Wow, okay, I am connected and this is something that can make me a more compassionate, more empathetic, kinder, more giving person in general to the world, but also to the people that I care about."
Dedeker: Number 46, objection without contraction. Gosh, I love this one. It's also really, really difficult. This tool is from this therapist, Leila Carney, who I think also adapted this tool from some resources from Kathy Kain, who's a pretty famous trauma therapist. It's this idea of you notice in yourself the feelings of objection to what's happening. However, it shows up for you the sense of, "I don't want this to be happening, I don't want this to be true, I wish things were different," that's the objection.
Then paying attention to when the objection arises, what's your habitual response to that feeling of objection? For a lot of us, it is contraction. It's tensing up, it's tightening up, it's curling up, or it's emotionally wanting to shut down or shut yourself off or to withdraw or to pull away from someone that often-- It is just this aversion response that when we feel that sense of objection, we also contract around it.
The whole point of this is about, can I hold this sense of objection, acknowledge it, accept it, know that to be true, but not go into my habitual response of just contracting around it. What that means is, can I not go into my habitual response of shutting down, of being passive-aggressive to my partner, of pulling away from them? This can get complicated if you have a trauma history and stuff like that. There's a more complex background to this, but sometimes I've found, and I've run into this too, there can be the sense of like, "Oh, but if I do things to regulate, if I do things to make myself feel better, then I need to just be totally okay with what's going on. Or I need to pretend that I'm happy with what's going on, or I need to make it so that I feel totally great, and that's not true.
Therefore I can't let myself regulate or find a way to be okay." It is a little bit of this trickiness of just trying to hold both those things at the same time that like, "Yes, I can acknowledge this sucks, and also this is the way that it is right now, and I'm also going to make the choice to not contract around that."
Jase: That's cool.
Dedeker: It's tough.
Jase: This next one is a personal favorite of mine, actually, and that is called Follow the Downward Spiral. Also, the name of an album that I'll write someday. This is basically getting to the heart of what is the worst that could happen. We're freaked out and we're scared of something terrible happening. It's saying, "Okay, what is the worst? What then? What then? What then," and keep following this spiral down and down and down into what is actually the worst? What is the thing I'm really afraid of?
It's I'm afraid my partner's going to fall in love and get stolen away by someone new and shiny. What then? Well then I'll have to move out of our home and move back in with my parents, what then? Then I die alone. It's like letting it go all the way to this most extreme intense, just like, "Oh my gosh, this is terrible." Get to the heart of that core existential fear. Often when you get there, there's a couple of things.
One is you may get to this point where you realize the absurdity of it, and it's like, "Okay" Even if those few steps before happened, it's probably not going to go all the way there. I realize I'm being a little bit melodramatic and over the top and maybe even talk to yourself and be like, "Okay, Jase. That's all right. Sure, sure, sure. Cool, cool, cool but like, probably not going to happen."
You might get there or you might find yourself going down a path to this point of, "Yes, that would suck, and also I would be okay, and also I would live through this," and that maybe this wouldn't be the world ending thing that I think it's going to be. This is actually something I was just talking to Dedeker about a couple of months ago as I was reading a book, talking about various sorts of things. One of them was about this, of when someone's afraid of something, telling them, "Oh, don't worry, that's not going to happen," doesn't really help, because the fear is, but what if it does?
That there have been some studies showing that the opposite tactic of more approaching it from this, "Okay, yes. What if that bad thing you are afraid of did happen? Then what? Could you live through that? Could you be okay with that?" Accepting that actually takes away from the worry of the thing happening at all that probably was a misplaced and exaggerated worry in the first place. I love this one. It's hard and challenging at times, but definitely, something to explore and see if that might work for you.
Dedeker: That's related to tool number 48, which is to follow the Upwards Spiral. It's going to be my competing album that I write.
Emily: Yes, it's like a two-part there.
Jase: What if we released it-- Yes, exatly it's like a two disk--
Emily: Yes, you collaborate.
Dedeker: Oh, it's a collab.
Emily: So I'm a guest star on both. I don't know where you are on both, please. Thank you.
Dedeker: It'll be Jase Lindgren, X Dedeker Winston Feat Emily Matlack.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Love that.
Emily: There you go.
Dedeker: Follow the Upward Spiral. That's tracing what are all the good possibilities here? What are the possible best-case scenarios that may come out of this? For example, my partner's going on a date with someone like super hot and threatening, but best case scenario, we may end up becoming best friends and then successful podcast business partners. It happened to me folks.
Emily: Damn. That was the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
Dedeker: Emily, you were genuinely surprised you didn't read that. Didn't you?
Emily: No, I did not. Of course not. Come on, you're talking to me. That's not where my mind would go initially, but thank you. Thank you.
Dedeker: It doesn't have to be quite that extreme, but it could-- I don't know. It could be so many different variations of, "Yes, my partner goes on the date and I feel really jealous this time, but then next time I feel a lot better. That's a possibility. Or maybe, I don't know. My partner goes on this date and is just an okay date, and they don't go on a date with that person again." I mean, that could go into some wishful thinking, but if you're brainstorming all the possible positive outcomes here, it can really help.
Emily: 49, the penultimate one is create ritual. Can you make a ritual that helps you to honor these feelings that you're going through? Maybe that includes writing a letter to the part of you that is feeling really down, really jealous in this moment. You know that perhaps this is a pattern that occurs, so you need to do something to self-soothe in that way. Maybe writing a letter is one thing, or you could do a ritual that helps you prepare for moments when you expect to experience challenging feelings.
You could take a bath. You can incorporate any of the above into a routine that becomes your go-to. Any number of things you could do, that indulgence that we talked about earlier, talking to a friend, that becomes your ritual. There's so many different things that you can do to help yourself in these moments, especially if you know that it's a pattern within yourself.
Dedeker: I like to dress like a witch.
Emily: Yes. I was like, "Isn't that thing that you do anyways"
Dedeker: Sometimes I think there is something about changing your clothing, especially if you're thinking about your ideal self. Changing your clothing into something that makes you feel really badass.
Emily: Your ideal self is a witch.
Dedeker: Anything that makes you feel powerful, that can be part of your ritual as well if you know ahead of time, "I'm heading into a situation where maybe these feelings may be coming up."
Emily: That's lovely.
Jase: Yes. I was going to say on that same note of preparing in advance, I want to go into this experience of my partner being out on a date that I think might make me feel jealous feeling like a badass. It could also be before that, or even at the same time, go out and do something that you feel like you kick ass at. If you're Emily go do karaoke or you play Mario cart.
It's like, go do something where you're like, "Yes, I rule at this," so that you have that energy going into that experience. I actually love the idea, like Dedeker said, of dressing. It's like, "I'm going to be home by myself, but I'm going to put on a nice shirt and I'm going to look good." Instead of flipping around in my baggy sweatpants or whatever. Whatever it is for you.
Dedeker: If the baggy sweatpants are like that nice indulgence that you let yourself have, that's also very nice.
Jase: The point is is this something I'm doing because I feel bad, or is this something I'm doing to make me feel like, "Oh, wow, what a delight that I get to do this thing and feel great like a badass, like this?"
Dedeker: Last tool number 50, which is a loving-kindness practice. This can look a variety of different ways. If you come from a Buddhist tradition, this is traditionally known as like a Meta meditation or a meta practice. It doesn't have to necessarily be Buddhism informed, but it's basically any way that you can offer positive sentiments, feelings of loving kindness to yourself and to others.
I think also in particular, to that part of yourself that is hurting, or that is struggling, or that is really feeling challenged in this particular moment. I think it's so important and something that I've played with in the past as well, this intersects a little bit with the pay forward kind of is going on a walk where my intention is literally any other being I come across, I'm going to offer them some loving kindness in my heart.
It sounds corny, and it sounds woo-woo. Again, so many of you are just rolling your eyes so hard, but the times that I've done that, it's really helped. There's something about just like taking it out of my own head and my own focus on myself and putting it on wishing well for others. I don't know, there's something about it that just like shifts the mood and shifts the energy. If you're combining it with walking and being in nature then you're getting all those benefits as well.
Emily: That's lovely.
Jase: Love that.
Emily: Stack it. Stack all of these on top of Each other.
Dedeker: Do all of them at once.
Emily: I don't know about all 50 but wow.
Dedeker: Any of you who can incorporate all these, like as many as possible, let us know. We'll see who takes the world. Thank you everybody for listening. I hope that some of these have resonated for you. I hope that some of these have been helpful for you. I hope that you've taken some notes of the stuff that sounds exciting to you that you want to try next time. As always just take the best and leave the rest and really hope that it's helpful.