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10 Ways to Combat Jealousy
To tie in with the publication of The Comparison Trap, author Helen Roberts suggests 10 ways that we can combat jealousy.
Jealousy can cripple us, rob us of confidence and fuel a sense of inadequacy, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Here are a few ideas which might help you escape the comparison trap, defeat jealousy and live liberated:
1. Be honest with yourself.
Admitting your capacity to be jealous of others is like picking up the keys to the locked door which can liberate you.
2. Choose gratitude.
We tell our kids to ‘say thank you’ but often forget to do it ourselves. Start every day talking to Jesus and find three things to thank him for. Focus on what you do have and who is in your life rather than what/who isn’t.
3. Be the weakest link
Be the person where gossip stops by letting yourself be the weakest link in the gossip chain.
4. Adopt Authenticity.
Gratitude can’t exist alongside denial. It is good to be grateful for what we do have but it is also important to be honest and authentic to admit when we are experiencing or have experienced loss.
5. Check your glass.
Some people say they are either ‘glass is half full or half empty’ types. A friend of mine suggested we would be more content if we were just grateful we had a glass at all! Then recently I heard a new idea – if you are complaining as if your glass is only half full get a smaller glass!
6. Be a witness.
Jesus invites us to be a witness for him. When we choose to see what he is doing and talk about that to others there will be no place for jealousy. When we are describing a person by the grace and works of Jesus we won’t have time to focus on what we don’t have.
7. Look long distance.
Making a snap assessment of someone can fuel our jealousy but if we remember there was most likely a long journey that got that person to where they are. Eddie Cantor, an American entertainer said ‘it takes twenty years to make an overnight success’. Everyone has a journey and to honour their journey will reduce our jealousy.
8. Grow grace
Jealousy stems from wanting what someone else has and believing it should be yours. This sense of entitlement fuels your awareness of what you don’t have. Grace reminds us that every blessing is a gift from God and we don’t earn it.
9. Intentional intimacy
Every relationship will benefit from intentional investment in it. None more so than intentionally focussing on becoming more intimate with Jesus. The closer you are to him the further away from jealousy you will grow.
10. Dare to detox
Detox your mind and heart by checking your motives and wounds. Life can hurt but God heals. Live out from a place of inner health.
Helen explores the complexities of female relationships in workplaces, families and friendship circles, using contemporary, historical, personal and biblical examples. She investigates Scripture to see how, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we can cease the all-too-frequent “she wars”.
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