Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Why tackling jealousy is a challenge - ARTICLE

Simply trying to suppress an emotional reaction usually does not work.

What you need to do is use your energy and power in a different way.

Imagine a powerful mountain stream.

This is your power.

It is your energy.

Your emotional reactions are fed by this energy.

If you want to shift an emotional reaction, you need to adopt a new mind model.

Simply telling to this powerful mountain stream to stop is not enough.

You need to channel its energy in another way.

In other terms, you want to consciously build trust in your relationship.

You want to secure what you share with your partner and basically develop new communication skills within your relationship.

No worries, you won’t kill the passion or the intensity.

The goal is not to delete the emotional power of your relationship.

It is to express it in a different way.

Suppose you see you partner building a friendship with one of her male friends.

The goal is to keep on communicating and sharing what is happening.

If she just had a phone call with him, and you feel challenged by that, you can go to her and say something like:

“You know what? I really don’t like you talking to that guy. In fact, I don’t want him to call here again!”

Now, what do you feel will be the effect of your words on her?

Destructive, right?

You will clash.

She will defend her right to see who she wants and when she wants to.

In fact you could end breaking up over this issue!

Is there another alternative?

Yes! There is!

Here is what you can say:

“So, how is he doing today? Still fancying you?”

Hey? What was that?

It is teasing.

You tease her with it.

You don’t try to “swallow” what you feel.

You see this man.

He is a potential threat for your relationship.

You stay cool.

You know it is with you she shares her life.

You deal with it by teasing her about it.

You can as well say something like:

“He looks like a nice guy. You seem to have a good connection. Is he fun to work with?”

Dialogue, communication, sharing… These are magic words.

The moment you develop the ability to respond to this situation in that way, you open a whole new space in your relationship.

This is the space of trust!

It is empowering for the two of you and for your relationship!

Dare to try new behaviors and attitudes in situations like these.

You know that your mind and instincts have a whole range of possible patterns and attitudes you can manifest in your life.

Play a different card.

It does not mean that you stop playing.

You simply let go of systematically taking the possessive role and replace it with trust, respect, humor, etc.

These are attitudes you can train and develop right now.