On some level, we’re born jealous and we’re set up to be jealous. We are trained from childbirth to think that we’re not enough. The point where we don’t feel fully awesome in who we are is where jealousy kicks our ass. Most people in the world are nervous or intrigued or controlled, or worse, non-confronting the power of jealousy. Your partner may be attracted to someone else right now, it happens. We’re attracted constantly and it doesn’t mean that we want to have sex with every single person we’re attracted to. Your willingness to communicate around that attraction is actually an empowering thing. It can be a powerful tool for you to know what your internal state is or a notification that you’re not at your full potential and living the life you want to live. When you learn how to harness that power, it will make every aspect of your life better.
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Every week we tackle things at how to improve your life, and this one is about jealousy. The green-eyed monster, the thing that stops people from having what they want or stops our partner from telling people the truth. Jealousy is a killer but you could also flip it and reframe it into a power. We then traveled to my friend, Rachel, talked about her relationship with jealousy and her partner. For more shows, please visit us at TuffLove.live. As always, if you’d like to make a little donation to the call, please visit PayPal.me/KandellConsulting. Thank you.
016: The Power Of Jealousy
I want to go over on something personal before we jump into our fun topic of jealousy. The words, fun topic and jealousy often not in the same sentence. I completed my last workshop with three amazing teachers, John Wineland, Eva Clay and Kendra Cunov. I’ve been teaching workshops for fourteen years. I completed the last one that I’m going to produce in my life. I’m glad to travel anywhere and teach if someone else organizes and enrolls. I’m glad to lecture anywhere, but the thing I felt deeply during this weekend one was the profound experience of teaching with three other people that I love and respect. Also, the gratitude I felt for all my students and for all the people who have so deeply affected me in this process of teaching. When I look at my life and look at how happy I am with who I am, I think a significant part of it has been the students who have molded me. When you teach you have to show up and sometimes you show up more aware and more awake and more brilliant. Other times, you show up like a piece of shit and you’re clouded and you’re foggy and you’re thinking about your fight with your girlfriend.
When you start and you, you, you put your attention on the students, there’s something magical about that that you have to leave your shit at the door. You have no choice. Some teachers don’t do that, but I never had the choice. I always had to show up fully. That happened again. I was tired, I was whiny and still those students were the ones that have me show the fuck up. The lesson that I’ve got was that I always have the choice, no matter what the circumstance to show up. Even these calls not this week but other call other weeks I’ve been like, “Tuff Love, fucking people. I hope no one shows up. Maybe I’ll pretend there are technical issues or I’ll break my leg or something.” Then I get on the call and there’s at least one of you out there and I’m like, “I’ve got to show up and this is my choice because if I say I’m going to do something and I don’t show up, that’s on me.”
In life we always have the choice to show the fuck up. With your kids or with your job or with your partner. The first thing I want to say is if you think you don’t have a choice, 99.9% of the time you do. I want to extend my gratefulness to the people who have shown up week after week, the new people. The people who are online, the people who gave me positive feedback, the people who say, “I’ll do a coaching call with you. I can’t make it to the call, looking forward to the recordings.” Every time someone does that, I feel more empowered in my life and I feel more grateful. I want to say thank you and acknowledge how powerful this call is for me because there are no more workshops I’m planning and unless someone invites me, I’m done. This week, this call would go week by week and this gives me the opportunity to talk about the shit I want to talk about and hopefully help people.
Let’s get to this exciting topic of jealousy. I think of all the calls I’ve done, this has definitely generated the most interest because I think most people in the world are nervous around jealousy or intrigued or controlled or worse, non-confronting the power of jealousy. Let me define it first. The definition was jealousy reenactment against the rivals, of person enjoying success or advantage, etc. or another success or advantaged itself. It’s resentment against a rival or someone else. Definition number two, mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims. Vigilance in maintaining or guarding something. It also refers to a jealous feeling, dispositions, state or mood.
I don’t know about you but I’ve got nothing from that stupid definition. I’ve got nothing from that thing because it doesn’t express. Jealousy is in it for me, Rob Kandell, Tuff Love improvised definition, jealousy is that sucky, crazy, awful energetic, malaise that fills your body when something’s fucked up going on around you and you feel like you’ve lost control of your system. That is the intense definition of jealousy. Jealousy is when someone else has something you want or someone else is doing something that you want, especially to someone that you want to do something to, if you know what I mean. Jealousy is when someone else gets the raise or has the nice shirt or the good car or going home with that special someone or somebody. Jealousy is when something else is happening that you feel disconnected from. Jealousy is when you often feel less than.
My career with jealousy has been going on for a long time, a long time. On some level, I’ve been jealous my entire life. I think we all have though. I haven’t paid much attention to it until my later years. I think we’re born jealous. I think we’re set up to be jealous. I think the world defines is imbued in our DNA like nothing else because what happens is that we are trained from childbirth to think that we’re not enough. I think this is what the core of jealousy is. It’s this belief or definition that we’re not enough. We’re not doing it right. I think when we feel positive and powerful and in our bodies and believing that we’re truly awesome, when something happens to the external, we’re like, “That’s pretty cool.” When you feel confident in your relationship and who you are in that relationship, if your partner’s flirting or kissing or sexting with someone else, you’re like, “That’s cool.” It’s the point where we don’t feel fully awesome in who we are. That’s where jealousy kicks our ass.
Figure Out Why You Don’t Feel Awesome
If the first tenant of this conversation is any time you feel jealous, my advice is to do a scan and figure out why you don’t feel awesome. If you can click to I am awesome then anything else is going around you can be further of interest. Easier said than done, but that’s the first thing. To a lot of people jealousy is something they shunned or avoid. What they do is they try to create circumstances. They try to control their lives in such a way that they never feel jealous. What they do is they’ve locked down their relationships and locking down their relationships they then put their partner or their friends or their family into little boxes to ensure that they don’t do anything that’s going to cause negative ways that might evoke jealousy. You see this in a lot of relationships, and to me this is the cancer of relationships because this is where people start to lie to each other.
Here’s a news flash to the entire world. Your partner is attracted to someone else right now. My partner is a mega babe. Morgan, you are a mega babe and I am attracted to thousands and thousands of people constantly every single day, but it happens. I’m walking down the street in Hollywood and someone walks by me. I feel a flare of attraction. I read something online and I feel attracted to their intellect. I saw a car and I was like, the car was cool and I was attracted to the person because they have the car. It happens. We’re attracted constantly and it doesn’t mean that I want to have sex with every single person I’m attracted to. It means I feel that flare of inspiration of respect. In that attraction, there’s an energy that gets drawn from my mega babe partner to that person. Sometimes for seconds, sometimes it lingers. The cool thing about my relationship that I’ve talked about in the past is Morgan and I have created the container for us to share our attractions with each other about other people.
In doing so there isn’t this rigid sphinctering of our feelings to protect our partner from our attractions. In doing so, I’ve learned constantly who Morgan is and she’s learning more of who I am. There are times where I say I’m attracted to this person and I see the roll of the eyes and she’s like, “Rob again.” I feel that contraction inside of her. I think those are when she doesn’t feel that she knows how awesome she is and that I think she’s a mega babe. We get jealous and worse is if she assumes I’m attracted to people and if I don’t talk about my attraction then she’s actually making up bigger things that are happening in my life than actually are. Your willingness to communicate around your attractions is actually an empowering thing. Jealousy is a powerful tool for me to know where my internal state is.
You’ve Created The Jealousy, Not Them
It’s a powerful, unused and unpotentiated tool that all of us have to know where our internal state is. If your partner does something to evoke jealousy in you, if your partner does something, creates stimuli that evokes jealousy inside of you, therefore you’ve created the jealousy, not them. It’s not their fault. Then for me it’s an inkling of information. Morgan and I have an expanding relationship that’s constantly changing and morphing. That’s what I love. I was teaching and she was going to go on a date with this guy, a guy I didn’t know. We were talking about bed. I’m getting turned on and I’m like, “That might be fun.” I’m like being my normal Rob self, “Sensation, sensation, sensation, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me.” We had a speed bump and we actually got into a rut and there was a disconnection around our intimacy that I don’t need to go in.
The Power Of Jealousy: When you teach, you have to show up and sometimes you show up more aware, more awake and more brilliant.
She sent me a text, “I’m going to go dancing or something with this guy.” There was a flare of jealousy. It was like all over my body. I was like all the usual bullshit. “I’m fucking working and you’re playing.” I can’t go off by myself. All this bullshit arose and then I’m driving, I read the first text. I’m driving, maybe a mile from Whole Foods at the back to my house on 7th Street in Venice. Then as I looked up to the second text, which came in right after the first one, she’s like, “Then I changed my mind because I didn’t feel like it was the right connection.” I had that one mile or two miles of complete jealousy and like, and I try not to read my texts when I drive because it’s dumb.
The two miles of jealousy was interesting to me. I sat with it and I was like, “I want her to have everything she wants.” Then I realized what was happening was that I didn’t feel connected to her as I wanted to. The fact that her going out with some other guy, it wasn’t the act of her going out with a guy is that I and her did not feel the full connection that felt the most pleasurable to me. I wrote that back and I said, “I am happier doing it.” When we don’t feel connected, then you’re going out with another guy who doesn’t feel as optimal as it could. The flair of jealousy for me was the warning sign, the beacon, the red light that basically said, “That I’m not as connected to her as I want to be.”
You’re Not As Connected As You Want To Be
The power and jealousy to me is the ability to feel everything fully. The power of jealousy is a warning sign to me, it’s information. If you feel jealousy, use it as an apartment. I posted something about jealousy on my group and I’ve got a great response from Liz. She wrote, “I’m learning to love it and as soon as I approve of it, I’m jealous of him heard that. It feels hot, fiery, lustful and true, and a step towards stuff I want and the letting go, it wakes me up if I ever want to take that shit for granted, and it sucks when I deny it. It’s a big bad motherfucker to try and squash down with shame.” There are so many great things that I totally agree with her comments there. As soon as I approve of it, I love it as soon as I approve of it and if I don’t approve of it, it’s a big bad motherfucker in his hardest squash now. It feels hot, fiery, lustful and true, but this is the biggest piece that I love what you wrote. It’s a step towards stuff I want.
It’s A Notification
Jealousy to me is a notification, a marker, information of stuff I want. If you feel jealous, first check your internal approval state, but the second thing, think I want that. You could be like, “No, I would never want that.” Maybe it’s not the exact thing, but perhaps there’s some element of it. Some freedom that person has that you don’t have. Some permission they give to themselves, that you don’t give permission to yourself. Perhaps it’s a notification that you’re not at your full potential or not living life the way you want to live it. To me, jealousy is the most fun emotion I had and on some level one of the most important. When you harness it to learn and empower yourself and when I learned to empower it, it actually made every aspect of my life better because I’m not shunning it.
It Can Be A Huge Lubrication Of Intimacy
Jealousy to me can be a block to intimacy, but it also can be a huge lubrication of intimacy. You’re willing to say, “This is the part of me that’s being affected. When you did that, this is the part of me that wants more attention.” I watched the kids, one can read and one can’t. I watched the one who can. She’s two years older, I watched the one read and I watched the younger ones get jealous because she wants to be able to read. I learned to read when I was four because my sister could read. I was reading at four years old because I wanted to have the same skill set she had. Look at the power of jealousy as maybe as one of the most powerful things you can bring to your life, into your relationships.
We have a question, “I’m curious about the relationship between intimacy, vulnerability and jealousy.” I think I went over this pretty much abstractly, but I want to hone in onto this because this is important. Intimacy, vulnerability and jealousy, the parts of my relationship where I don’t feel jealous is the part where I feel the relationship is dying. If you’re a super jealous about a person in a relationship and then all of a sudden you stop feeling jealous, I would look at this. This is a marker that something’s going on. Sixteen years of handling jealousy, Morgan sends me a text, I feel jealous. There’s a part like, “Thank God she felt jealous. Thank God that I still have those feelings because I think they’re intertwined.” There’s a part of me, there’s an animalistic part of me that wants to claim Morgan and take her and put them into a box and say, “She’s all mine and then display her and have all the men and women like I want to meet that one.” I’m like, “No, she’s mine.” There’s part of me that’s in there that has those animalistic feelings, but truly I want her to have everything she wants. The animalistic feelings of jealousy to me are good.
If jealousy starts to go down, look at how intimate you actually are. If you’re drifting and if you’re not willing to express your jealousy, if you’re not willing to be vulnerable about it, that is a dangerous thing as well. Why do you hide your jealousy? Some partners work very hard at making you jealous, and if you don’t admit you’re jealous, they’re going to try harder to make you jealous. They’re going to spin up the sensations with little tricks and actions, so you might as well admit, “When this happened, I felt jealous,” not, “When you did this, you’ve made me feel jealous,” but when this happened, I felt jealous.” Be willing to be vulnerable and true about when you feel jealous feelings. It will enhance your intimacy and it will enhance your relationship.
We’re going to talk to a woman who’s mastered jealousy. Her name’s Rachel. You mastered jealousy, is that what I heard?
I have definitely come a long way. I would agree with you in that. I’ve noticed since I started the practice of orgasmic meditation that jealousy is definitely something that when I feel it I’m like, “I want this person or this thing.” To me, I use it. Like you said it’s that barometer of like my desire almost.
What do you want to talk about? What’s going to make this fifteen-minute coaching awesome?
My question that I run into a lot in my romantic relationship as well as outside is I often get messed up around handling other people’s jealousy. A lot of times it confuses me because I’m like, “Why are you jealous about that thing?” Especially when it’s projected at me, but in my romantic relationship we’re both on similar paths. We both practice Om. He just started his practice about eight months ago.
You brought up something. Can you give an example of why you’re confused about other people’s jealousy? Do you have a specific one you could bring up that we could diagnose?
One might be thinking about my romantic partner. We’re both in a want to be in the expert’s industry, like speakers and authors. I quit my job in order to work on my own business. He wants to do that too, but he’s not to the point where he couldn’t quit. It’s like this place where he’s jealous that like, “I see that you have quit and now you’re able to spend all your time working on your business.” He wants to be there too. A lot of jealousy arises. I admit I do go into coaching mode, “You’re on that path too.” Then it creates a big battle.
Here’s the first thing, don’t coach your partner. I know we’re all coaches. We’re all brilliant. We all know exactly what to say to have them feel better. We don’t listen to our partners as much as we should, that’s our dynamics. Stop that. I do it all the time with Morgan. You have to be careful. I often actually wait for her to ask a question. I’m always available, but I have to be careful. Don’t coach your partner. The second thing is because you’re a crazy motherfucker for quitting your job to build your business. You’re crazy in your faith of your ability to do it. I would suspect that he doesn’t have the same faith in himself that you have in yourself. He’s jealous of that power, that intestinal fortitude, you have that strength that you really feel. It’s not like he wants to take that from you are you not to have it, but he wants it bad. That goes back to the marker of, “I’m jealous of this person. I want that” What’s confusing about that or it’s annoying?
I think there is a piece that’s annoying, but then it’s also it’s like one of those things where because it happened to you or at least for me I have this thing of like, “That was no big deal. I’ve done that, been there. It’s not that big of a deal. I don’t understand why. Like, “You can have it too, so you don’t have to be jealous of me.”
Here’s the thing, you asked for advice on how to handle other people’s jealousy. The first thing I would say is one, remember who you were in their position. I watched guys go crazy insane about women and I was like, “I remember that feeling back in 2002.” I remember myself in that position. That’s the first thing. Have sympathy or empathy of that person or remember where you were before you were afraid to call with him. The second thing is sit and be with him. Don’t coach, don’t advice. Let’s go back to Morgan, she has this thing called hand in hand parenting where she sits with the kids where they have the emotions and she doesn’t try to fix it.
She doesn’t call time out, she lets them have the emotions and what happens very quickly or sometimes it a long time. It could take an hour, but the kids run the feelings run out and then they’re closer. Be committed to your partner and say, “I’m going to sit with you and I’m going to. Listen to everything you say. I’m not going to try to change you, I’m going to approve of your emotions. I’m going to sit with you.” Morgan has feelings about my flirtatious, attractive and attracted nature. My dedication to her is never to shame her for her feelings. Never to say those were wrong. Never to say, “I wish you didn’t have them.” I sit with her and I’m like, “Just tell me I’m going to sit and you don’t have to apologize. I want to know everything.” The willingness to do that has us get closer and closer and it doesn’t feel like she has to hide it from me.
That makes sense. Once you’ve sat with her, then what happens? You just feel closer?
We feel closer and then a week later something else comes up and she’s upset with me again. I’m like, “I’m going to sit with you again and I want to listen and I’m going to adjust my way, I do things and I’m going to learn.” Every time I try to shun or push away her emotions is where we get more disconnected, and my ultimate goal is to be connected to this woman because when I’m connected to this woman, the parts of me that I like are alive. I would say, “Fuck up. Get over and sit with a partner and be willing to invite all of him or her out.”
As you were talking what has come up for me was that he was like, “I get jealous when I’m reminded of the fact that you are home all day working on your business. I’ve noticed that in turn what I’ve done is stopped talking about it.”
The Power Of Jealousy: The flair of jealousy is a warning sign or a beacon that said we are not as connected as we want to be.
Warning sign, danger. I’ll do the same thing with Morgan. I’ll think, “I’m never going to mention another woman I’m attracted to again. I’m going to hide this part because I think she’s weak and fragile and can’t handle all of me.” I’ll start to build those thoughts. As I try to block the parts, she’s afraid of other parts of me get blocked, so cut it out. Not to say you should vomit, “I’m working from home again.” I’m not saying that and I’m not going to do that either to Morgan, but the most important thing for you to say something like, “I’m noticing I’m not talking to you about some things. I feel like I’m trying to protect you and I don’t want to be that way with you. How would you like for me to talk to you about this?” Get the conversation going, prime the pump and find out how he wants you to check in with him. Don’t hide it but find a place right in the middle. What do you get jealous about him?
We’re in an open relationship. I encourage him to follow his desires if he has a desire for another woman. Where I get jealous is when we end up spending all of our time talking about the other woman and finding that balance between, “Yes, I want to know but I also don’t want to talk for 60 minutes about your connection with somebody else.”
I think that’s fine. I would start to communicate that there are limits or you don’t want to spend an hour talking about another woman. You’re going to have to speak up and say, “I do have boundaries.” I don’t believe in compromise in relationship, but I do believe in boundaries. I also in going slow where a lot of people want to go fast. I’m continuing learning how to tweak my communication skills so I have the optimal relationship with my lady. Which is hopefully it will be a lifelong process because hopefully both of us are going to continue to evolve in this lifetime and our desires and needs are going to change. You have to be willing to say, “No más.” There’s no shame. We want to be rigid and solid. We can handle everything for our partner, but that’s bullshit. Be vulnerable enough to say, “This is what’s happening.”
The Power Of Jealousy: Be committed to your partner and say, “I’m going to sit with you and listen to everything you say. I’m not going to try to change you, I’m going to approve of your emotions.”
That’s definitely a place where I ended up checking out instead of saying, “I’m full on this conversation and thank you for letting me know. Let’s switch topics.”
I get it, you’ve got to be honest. That’s the thing about relationships, you have to keep coming back and being honest and honest and honest. There’s some part of it’s like, “I was so honest yesterday. Do I have to say this thing again? I did the hundred units of honesty and now we have five more. This is so annoying. Can we snuggle and watch Netflix? Why do I have to be honest again?” All of a sudden, you say those five units of honesty and then it starts to contract. No, it’s a constant practice.
To me it is like teaching, you’ve got to show up and you’ve got to be fully there. You can say things like, “I want to table this conversation like feel fully. You don’t have to do everything in the moment, but you have to address these things. The parts of our lives that we not confront, gain power and that power has the ability to cause disconnection and our willingness to keep playing is the only thing you can do. If you want an optimal relationship. If you want a mediocre relationship then say, “Fuck it.” If you want an optimal relationship, you’ve got to be there.
Thank you for having me. This was very valuable.
Live Coaching
I’m going to bring my friend, Ken Blackman. Ken, what’s up?
How is it going?
It’s good. I didn’t tell you I was going to do this, did I?
No.
I know. That’s the friendship we have where I can put you in the limelight. First thing I want to announce that Ken and I are going to talk about open relationships, non-monogamy, etc. It will be a little different dialogue than normal. Ken and I have known each other for 150 years at this point. Ken was my first coach. He’s pretty much a master at open relationships because he’s seen it all. I’ve seen a lot, he’s seen more. What do you think about jealousy? What are your viewpoints?
First of all, I want to say your talk on it so far has been fantastic. It’s been amazing. I decided to do a little talk, a little lecture, a little workshop on jealousy. I did it and it was good. The material was good. I could tell it was good. It needed a lot of work. I jettisoned everything that I did and I spent the last year or so looking at all the conversations I have with my clients and everything. What’s funny is when I got to the end of that, I came up with pretty much the same thing that I had the first round. What I’ve concluded is there are three things and I was amazed to listen to you and you touched on all of them. One of them is jealousy being envy. It is an intense pointer to something that you want. Jealousy tells you something, a desire, that you have in often it reveals a desire that you’ve been denying.
Then secondly, it also is a facet of a self-esteem and your self-worth. Something happens and everything that you don’t like about yourself comes up. If you’re treating your partner poorly, you are going to be more jealous. If you know that you’re treating your partner great, if you know that you’re a good boyfriend or a girlfriend, you’re going to feel less jealous. It has so much to do with how you feel about yourself. Then there’s this third piece around possessiveness. Where you want to own your partner. You have this thing that you want to create. What’s funny about the possessiveness piece is, the things that we want to own our partner because we want to be owned by them. That comes up again and again and again. I so want to be owned by my partner and that is what raises my desire to seize them and own them. If you see any of those three dynamics it tells you what you need to look at. Do you see that you’re an awesome human being? I was enjoying listening to everything you said.
I like the possessive part. I didn’t think about that. That’s totally true.
It’s like if you give someone the keys to your Maserati and then you worry about how they’re going to drive it, how they’re going to treat it. Is it going to come out back all wrecked up? What you do is you plop yourself shot gun even though you’re not invited on this drive and you have one hand on their steering wheel and one hand on their shifter and you’re barking instructions on how to drive. That’s the feeling of this possessiveness piece where what you’ve given them the keys to your heart and you’re worried about whether they’re going to handle it or not. That’s where that possessive jealousy comes from where you start putting fences all around your partner.
You and I are going to have a dialogue about this very topic and the challenges of open relationship. If you want to check out his blog, check out KenBlackman.com. I’ve got a question, how do we combat that possessiveness? How do you combat that?
The Power Of Jealousy: Possessive jealousy is wgere you start putting fences all around your partner.
Here’s how it often goes. One of the things is let’s say you have a crush on someone and all of a sudden, you’re being territorial with them or possessive with them and you’re not even together yet or you’re with a partner and you are building all these fences around them. What you need to do is look at, “I am coming into this situation with a whole set of what I want to happen and what I think should happen in all of my ideas about how relationships are supposed to go and how I want it to go.” It’s taking you away from actually being present in what actually is arising between you and this other person. The possessiveness comes from a conflict between. You’ve got chemistry with this person but it doesn’t look anything like what you were expecting. Then you’ve got your expectations and everything about how you think it’s supposed to go, and there’s this clash and that where you start to clamp down.
My recommendation to people is you take a minute to set aside all the things you think are supposed to happen in a relationship, all the things you think the way it’s supposed to go and look at the actual relationship that is that is arising between you and this other person. What is the chemistry there? What is the actual organic relationship that is arising? Give it a chance to take hold because it’s going to be that organic real thing that exists between you and that person that creates the sustainable relationship. That creates the long-lasting, rich intimacy. Not you fitting them into your box that you think it needs to go into. Set aside what your expectations are and see what’s actually arising between you and this person and give it a chance to be organically arise.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Don’t forget, this is a donation-based call, so please help support the podcast if you’ve got something out of it. We accept donations via PayPal. The address is PayPal@KandellConsulting.com. Give a little loving of your own and send me a little love. A little donation to help support the call. We appreciate it. That’s our call on jealousy. Our dialogue we’ll continue on next episode with Ken Blackman about open relationships. I want to thank you as always for hanging out with me. To all my podcast audience, wherever you are and hopefully it added some value to your life and go forth and be awesome.
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