jealous much?
rethinking the dichotomy: why negative emotions don't make you a "bad person"
Earlier last year, I graduated from my two-year Mindfulness Teacher Training course at Uni Berkeley with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. It is not something I have ever talked about here, but it was an incredible experience that changed me. The course, combined with years of therapy, has enriched and expanded my experience in so many ways and has helped equip me to handle life’s difficulties, especially the complex and shadowy area of unpleasant emotions. I bring this up because
, one of my favourite Substack writers, recently wrote a great post on jealousy. It really struck me as being relevant not only to people producing outwardly creative works but to every human being.
As a writer and artist, I am exposed daily to success stories of other writers and artists on social media and Substack. Although I know most of these people have worked many years to achieve success, jealousy is still a common emotion. It is normal to compare ourselves to others who seem to have more of what we want in our lives—better health, bigger homes, higher income—the list goes on!
A lot of the time, when we experience negative emotions like jealousy, we want to push them away. This is because we associate jealousy with shame and do not want to be perceived as envious or bad. I also think we partly live in a world where positivity and the ‘shiny’ are emphasised, and anger and other unpleasant emotions are discouraged. However, suppressing these emotions strengthens them and makes us feel even more ashamed. This creates a vicious circle.
Feeling jealous is a natural human emotion, like happiness, hopefulness, or joy. Emotions are simply energy that rises and falls. The issue can come when we act on our emotions, turning them into reactions. Reacting does not necessarily mean telling someone they are evil because we feel hurt. It can also mean internalising our emotions and telling ourselves we should not feel jealous and that we are bad for feeling it.
“When a person has an emotion to something in the environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.” Dr Jill Bolte Taylor
It's important to pay attention to our emotions, accept them, and allow ourselves to release them. Letting go of an emotion does not mean ignoring or running away from it. On the contrary, we need to embody and illuminate the emotion without judging or acting on it. This may or may not sound easy, but anyone who meditates knows how tricky it can be. There are so many intense emotions that keep coming back, and we keep falling into the trap of wanting them to go away, especially when we have already tried bringing awareness to them and letting them go.
However, at some point, we have to realise that as long as we live, the not-so-pleasant emotions will also be part of our lives. We all have our insecurities, and even if we have worked on ourselves, it's normal to feel insecure at times, especially in this hyper-competitive online culture, where we are exposed every day to other people's successes and pressured into turning everything into some sort of success story.
Paying attention to our emotions -> accepting them without judgement -> allowing ourselves to let them go
This is a continuous process of paying attention, and we can practice it daily. If we go a step further, Buddhism teaches that even positive emotions can cause suffering if we desperately try to cling to the pleasure that comes from them. Our attachment to them brings disappointment and frustration when they don't last—and they never do!
Our emotions are fluid, and life is full of ups and downs. While savouring happy moments is an art in itself, we also need to allow ourselves to experience the less pleasant emotions without judgment and learn from them; what are they telling us?
During my two-year teacher training, we learned a powerful tool called RAIN. It is an acronym for:
• Recognize what is going on
• Allow the experience to be there, just as it is
• Investigate with interest and care
• Nurture with self-compassion
This can be practised during meditation or quickly on the go when certain emotions arise. As one practices more frequently, it becomes a more natural response to unpleasant emotions.
R—Recognize what is going on
When we recognise our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, we actively acknowledge them. A mental whisper can be helpful—for example, note when you feel jealous, angry, or sad.
A—Allow the experience to be there, just as it is
Allowing means letting your emotions expand without trying to fix or avoid them because they feel uncomfortable. This can be extremely difficult, especially when you're angry, but it can also be a relief to permit yourself to feel your emotions fully. I sometimes visualise how the emotion fills my entire body. I mentally reassure myself by whispering, "I'm okay. It's safe for me to feel this way."
I—Investigate with interest and care
After giving space to our experience, we can investigate it further by asking ourselves a few questions. For example, what am I believing? Where do I experience this feeling in my body? What does this vulnerable place need and want from me? By answering these questions, we may realise that we feel angry because, deep down, we are hurt and don't feel appreciated. We may feel this hurt strongly in our chest, and we need to allow this hurt to rise instead of focusing on our anger or jealousy towards the person.
N—Nurture with self-compassion
Following the above steps and giving ourselves the time and space to attend to ourselves intentionally can help self-compassion arise naturally at this point. Personally, I find it helpful to whisper mental affirmations such as "you are not a bad person", "trust in your goodness", or "I'm listening, I'm sorry, and I love you"—whatever feels good in the moment. During meditation sessions, I sometimes find it helpful to place my hand on my heart gently.
“True Meditation is letting go of manipulating our experience.” Adyashanti
Our emotions do not define us as good or bad people. Through my mindfulness experience, I have learned that even if certain emotions keep resurfacing, it is possible not to react to them in a knee-jerk way. Of course, this takes time and effort. But I no longer feel as guilty as I used to when I would become jealous because I know it is a human emotion like any other, and it too will pass. The more we bring clarity and shed light on our emotions, the less heavy and scary they feel. This is probably why many people write; writing can be therapeutic because it helps us bring more clarity and structure into things, making them less strange, foreign, and scary. We can own our experience more authentically.
Disclaimer: It's important to note that trauma-related emotions can be deeply rooted, and discussing them with a therapist is often safer than attempting to deal with them on our own.
Thank you for your support!
Take care!
Your friend
Tuğba
Hi 🙋🏻♀️ I’m Tuğba, a Turkish-Greek Artist based in Berlin. If you're interested in reading more of my work, kindly consider subscribing to my newsletter.
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Hey @tugbaavci, well written article. Really liked the perceptive writing. Every once in a while, it's nice to read such articles. It keeps me on my toes and makes me aware of all these things that go back into memory bank and get dusty. It's nice to clean them up every now and then. Subscribed!