There is a girl I know who is a friend of a friend. She is lovely and has a great sense of style. But I don’t like her. Whenever I am around her, an evil green jealousy monster rears it’s ugly head and I start acting like a crazy person. I get stuck in comparing everything, judging everything and generally being a royal bitch. I don’t like the person I am when she is around. I really hate myself for being so petty and horrible.
I know I’m not alone in this. I’m sure you can think of at least one person in your life who triggers you in a similar way. We all have that one person who knows how to push all of our buttons just by breathing.
Why does this happen??
It actually has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the relationship we have with ourselves.
What we see in others, how we react to what other people do, is actually a reflection of what we see in ourselves and how we judge our own actions. So, when I see that girl and feel jealous that she has a better car than me, it is just the symptom of me tying my self-worth to material things and feeling like I’m not good enough. Those feelings of jealousy and judgement towards her are just coming from my own insecurities and negative self talk.
So how can we find peace with the people who trigger us?
We need to see a little piece of US in THEM.
Rather than focus on how we are so different and making them seem like an alien from another planet, we should instead see how we are the same. Start noticing that how they are acting is really what we would do, whether we’d like to admit it or not.
Look at the parts that trigger us the most and notice how those parts of ourselves need the most love and attention.
Approach them with compassion and empathy rather than criticism and judgement. Because how you treat others is also an external demonstration of how you treat yourself. The more you can love yourself, the less others will trigger you and the easier it becomes to show them love.
It all comes back to loving yourself. So that is your challenge for today: how can you show yourself some love.
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