A Discovery I made about Myself with Self-Awareness...

The key to understanding yourself is to gain self-awareness into the real and inner you which is often quite different from what you believed and expected to be as @likedeeler said on one of my previous posts that the more you find out about yourself, the more you realize it's not who you thought you were. That is what's so enlightening about self-awareness- it makes you really dig deep into yourself and know who you truly are and this awareness helps you make peace with a lot of the issues you experience in life.

I thought I knew myself really well, but when I really started to dig deep into myself like about a year ago and still have that shovel in my mind that keeps digging a tad bit more with each passing day, I made so many interesting discoveries about myself that I was never really sure about. Today, I'd like to share one of those discoveries with you- one that I find a little difficult to share because I feel it is one of my shortcomings and it somewhat made me feel guilty, but then I chose to own up to it and accept it so now I am not feeling too bad about it.

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I have a Huge Tendency to Feel Jealous from Others

As a child, I was quite loving and caring, but I was also quite jealous of my other siblings especially when any one of them received more affection, appreciation and care from others in particular my mother. I often used to complain to her that she loved the other 3 more than me and I fear I am not her biological child hahaha. Deep inside I knew she loved me a lot and honestly a tiny wee bit more than my 3 siblings, but you know I was always hungry for love, still am :P

With time, I sort of tried to work on this tendency to feel jealous because it really did make me feel bad at times and kept me from enjoying the times when my siblings were getting affection and recognition from others so I slowly started to manage my jealousy and did not let it get to my head and overpower me. However, at that time I did not realize that it wasn't just my siblings I felt jealous from but others at different instances too. This discovery I made a few months back and since the time I realized that, I have been analyzing it a lot.

I do not feel bad when someone does something great but I don't know somehow or in some way I do feel a tad bit jealous of that person especially if that person is a woman and that too of my age. I am still trying to figure out why I feel that way maybe because I start to compare myself to that person and feel inadequate and incompetent in some way. I am still trying to get to the root of this problem, but yeah that jealousy bit is sort of in-built in me.

When I found this out, I wasn't proud of it at first and really cringed from within. Oh my God, I am a jealous person, really? Why the hell is that? Jealousy isn't supposed to be a good thing so why do I feel that way? Man, why am I so negative? Why cannot I see others happy or doing something good? All these questions began orbiting my mind and I felt so disgusted at myself. I wasn't happy with myself for some time and that feeling started to eat away on my happiness and peace. Then I became aware of self-acceptance and mindfulness and the importance of being nonjudgmental to your emotions and accepting them for what they are. That brought me a lot of peace and really started to soothe my worries and concerns. Oh so it is okay to feel jealous and it is alright if that emotion bubbles up in me- was the first thought I remember thinking of when I became aware of being mindful and accepting of your emotions.

I discovered that reacting to your emotions in an illogical manner and in a way that it brings some sort of harm to others isn't healthy, but experiencing different emotions isn't bad at all. So it was alright if I did feel jealous of someone, but it was important that I did not react on it and did not let it get in the way of me doing something good for someone. Like I remember I didn't share a piece of knowledge with a person long time back before making this discovery because I feared he would do better than me in that area. That was something I am not proud of and something I should do, but feeling something is fine I guess.

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This discovery has also helped me realize why at times I reacted irrationally and had long dialogues with my inner critic. That realization was enlightening because now that I knew why my inner critic was firing up at times, I just had to acknowledge my jealousy, accept it and let it subside on its own. I actually started doing that and the more I did it, the more I felt at peace with myself. Now I just let my jealousy subside on its own but make sure to acknowledge and accept it instead of running away from it and even started being aware of the other feelings I experience in that time. I also try that I do not let my feelings toward that person become influenced in any way by my emotion of jealousy and keep the two feelings as separate as possible. This is really working well for me and I am enjoying my ability to keep different emotions separate from one another and tackle each individually. So for me, self-awareness is really doing wonders. What about you? Do share your thoughts on the topic. Your support means a lot to me!

Love and light,

Sharoon.

I am running a writing contest with 5SBD up for grabs for the winner so if any of you would like to participate in it, click on the following link:

Shary's Writing Prompt Contest #3 and Results of Contest #2

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