The energy of jealousy, I eventually learned, is best spent working on yourself.
I am Olivia S. Benson and I’m the author of a book titled For the Love of My Father. By the way, the book is about dealing and healing with issues related to having an absent father. This week I wanted to talk a little bit about some comments that I got on Facebook and Instagram about how some people felt sad or depressed by watching others gush about the fact that they had such wonderful dads and the positivity of their experiences with their dad.
And I can understand that. Because it’s in the past, I can’t remember specifically, but I can imagine thinking, wow, I wish my dad would have done this or would have done that. So that’s a pretty normal kind of feeling. But there are a couple of things that I wanted to point out that might be helpful to you in terms of any jealousy that you might feel about this.
Everybody’s got a different bag of issues
First of all, let’s remember that everything you see on Facebook and Instagram or whatever, and on social media in general, is not true. Second of all, I believe that each of us has what I call a different bag of issues to address in our lifetimes. So you might have an absent dad, you might have a wonderful mom. Another person might have a wonderful dad and maybe an absent mom, or an issue somewhere else, something that you cannot see and would never be able to determine.
So it’s very difficult to really look at somebody and say, I’m going to be jealous because you had this and I didn’t have it, because you don’t know whatever else is going on in their life. The energy of jealousy, I eventually learned, is best spent working on yourself. If you had issues with your father that caused you to be hurt or damaged you in any way, instead of being jealous about what someone else has, the thing would be to spend that time and energy working on yourself, healing yourself.
Be happy for somebody else’s good
So the other thing is that it’s important as you go on your spiritual journey, as I believe has been the whole basis for my, let’s just call it healing, for my salvation, whatever you want to call it, going on my spiritual journey. The thing is that it’s important to be able to be happy for somebody else’s good, because everybody’s going to have different experiences and everybody’s going to have different challenges. You may not be there in the moment of the challenge for the person, but one of the things that’s super important is to be able to be happy for others, because in the moment of their good, it’s just a snapshot that you might see and you really don’t know what else they’re going through.
But if you can be happy for them, that is something that you carry within yourself. Your ability to be happy when somebody else is having a good experience builds happiness in you, as opposed to looking at somebody who you think is doing well. They had a dad, and they had a wonderful dad, and they had a doting dad, and they had some experiences that you didn’t have, and now you have within yourself a negative experience, and that negative experience is jealousy.
In fact, you have the ability, once you realize what’s happening within yourself, you have the ability to decide that you are going to give good, meaning be happy for someone else, and build good within yourself, as opposed to sort of closing in and being jealous at watching somebody else’s good. Everybody is not going to have the same bag of issues, and many times we have no idea what other people are experiencing in their life. We have no idea what their challenge is.
Underneath that happiness there was still an issue
Now in my particular case, I’m talking about this challenge, and it’s something that I have said publicly, so it’s known this was, I think, one of the most significant issues in my life. But if I was not talking about it, you would never know that this is or was the thing that significantly had ruled my life, and you would have seen me as a very happy person. And I am. I generally speaking have always been, but underneath that happiness there was still an issue.
So if you were to see me and you decided, oh look, she’s so happy and she looks like she’s doing great, and I’m going to be jealous — that would have been poorly placed, because just like every other human being I have and have had my issues to deal with. So I’ve learned — haven’t always felt this way, but I’ve learned, and that’s why I’m sharing it — that it’s really not a good investment of time.
What’s going to happen when you’re mad? Nothing
The other thing that’s a good investment of time is sort of being mad. Okay, mad, because let’s say she had a wonderful dad and you didn’t have a wonderful dad. You can choose that. You can be mad. But what’s going to happen when you’re mad?
Nothing. Nothing’s going to happen. You’re going to be mad. You’re going to have mad energy, and you’re going to carry all the chemistry of a person who’s mad, and it’s not going to fix your life.
It’s not going to heal you. It’s not probably going to change anything that happened in the past. So what would be the point of continuing to be mad because your life experience was not that of someone else’s?
None of it is easy
Now, all the things that I talk about — I don’t think any of the spiritual teachers that I’ve listened to, read, or what have you, have ever said that any of these things are easy. None of it is easy, because as a human you look and you say, well — and especially when you’re younger, you look at it and you say, well, why her and not me? So it’s not easy, but you get to the point where you begin to put two and two together and you understand that everybody’s got a bag of issues to deal with. I don’t know why I got mine. Answering the question why is not necessarily going to change anything. It is just a matter of me deciding that I’m going to work through what I had.
That I’m going to grow myself spiritually. That I’m going to grow my connection to God so that I can heal and that I can live this life experience that I got to the best of my ability. Many times I can say I’ve seen many women who are angry about their circumstances.
I think I said this before — resentful about their circumstances. Bitter. And today we’re talking about jealous, and this is something that, if you can become conscious of it, it’s something that you can heal, and you can make yourself better by healing it, and you can make yourself better by being able to learn to be happy for somebody else’s good.
Every experience can serve as a teachable moment
Every experience that you have in life, it can serve as a teachable moment. So even if you watched people gushing on Facebook about how wonderful their dad was, you can take that. You can have the feeling of jealousy and you can say, you know what, I’m feeling a little bit jealous. I wish it was me. And you can work that through and you can say, I feel a little bit jealous, but I’m capable of being happy for this person, for their good. And then you can turn it around and then you can say, they might have had a wonderful experience with their dad and that wasn’t my experience, but I am grateful for what I have.
I didn’t have that one experience, but I had this, this and this — and now all of a sudden the energy changes, because the energy of jealousy is not a positive, let’s say, vibration, but the energy of gratitude, gratitude for what you have, is a much more powerful vibration. It’s a much more positive vibration, and it’s a vibration that can attract good to you. But you need to become conscious of what you are thinking and what you are feeling, and then you can manage your circumstances.
As you know, this entire channel so far has been about For the Love of My Father, which is a spiritual guide for healing from the absence of a father in the age of spiritual evolution. Everything related to my experience of growing up without my father and how I was able to overcome that. Not an easy process, but the good news is that it’s a process that’s possible, and that is what I want to share with you.
I turn my energy and attention to the good
So if you watched on Facebook as people gushed, it may not have been a happy moment. In one of the videos I said, look, I wanted to be able to celebrate Father’s Day with my dad. I would have wanted to get him presents for Father’s Day, but that just wasn’t my experience, and I accept that that wasn’t my experience. And then right after I accept that that wasn’t my experience, I turn my energy and attention to the good of the experience that I have had and how good God has been to me in so many other ways. So now I change from the possibility of negativity to focusing on positivity.
Not necessarily an easy task. And I say it all the time: the only way that I was able to do these things is to get to know myself as a spiritual being and to know my connection to God. That is the thing that strengthens me, that directs me, that energizes me, that gives me insight. It is so powerful.
If you think that you’re doing this journey all by yourself and you have to rely on your, in quotation, self, it is very difficult. But if you have that connection to God, all of a sudden the flow happens and it’s so much easier. So much easier, because it’s not just that you are doing it, it’s that God is doing it through you, or you are doing it through your connection with God. So the next time that you look — and I happen to be talking about people gushing about Father’s Day, but it really can be applicable to anyone else’s good. Somebody’s doing good, you’re happy for them, and that’s a positive feeling in you, which can only bring good to you.
Again, my name is Olivia S. Benson. I wanted to take a minute to have that little conversation and bring the insight about how I grew out of being jealous about not having a father present. The name of my latest book is For the Love of My Father.
It’s available on Amazon. I am also on Facebook, author Olivia S. Benson, and Instagram and Twitter, Olivia S. Benson. Lots of posts there, lots of information, and my website is Olivia S. Benson.