What is your relationship to jealousy?

Do you shut down, reject people, beat yourself up, project your inadequacies onto others, talk smack?

Or do you get curious, poke at it, play with, dive into, even love your jealousy?

For most of my life, I did the former.

I would shut down when someone succeeded at something. I’d take it personally. I’d beat myself up: “You already had that idea. Why didn’t you act on it?”

The sting of jealousy felt too sharp for me to want to lean in any closer. I wasn’t “good enough.” I’d let myself down.

A world where jealousy is bad supposes something false: that there’s only one go round at success, one shot at an idea, only room for one bright, shiny person.

Which, of course, is a lie. (You know that, right?)

When you start poking at jealousy, some very useful information emerges.

Jealousy…