160. Jealousy & Envy After Divorce

Hello. Hello, my amazing, beautiful listeners. How are you? Thank you for joining me today. This is an episode that I am sharing with you. It's a recording from September's live Q and A session, what I had shared with everybody in the beginning of that session, which is what I do. If you haven't been to one of my live Q and A’s, I always teach something, share something, offer something.

This one came with a worksheet. For those that have registered, they get access to that. And I was talking about jealousy and envy, and I thought this, I think, is gonna be one that I take and share that recording and throw it on the podcast to make an episode of it because I think it's a really good message.

Good reminder, as I walk you through some steps on how to navigate jealousy and envy when they arise. Before I hit play on that recording and air that, I do talk about the worksheet, and those of you that have not ever registered and might be saying, wait a second, I want that worksheet, head over to amy woolsey.com, go over to the Q and A, I think it's on additional resources.

Go to Q and A, register for that. It's free. All of it's free, free registration. You will get access to that portal, and the recording will be gone by then, but you'll get access to that portal. And in there, there are several worksheets. Well, a few worksheets that I have shared in the past. I've just been leaving those. You won't have the lesson of the recording to go with it, but you can have access to those worksheets.

I do have them copyrighted. That they are in PDF and they are available for you to use those for your own processing.

Now that you've registered, you will get notified for the next live Q and A. For those of you that are like, oh, I keep forgetting to, to jump on live for that, you'll get a reminder the day before. You'll get a reminder an hour before. I know sometimes it's hard for people to join, especially if you're working, but I will tell you this: if you jump on, you have to jump on with your camera on that I can do a safety check.

Make sure everyone's there that's supposed to be there. Then if you need to go off camera and just listen, you are welcome to do that as well. I have a lot of women that are in that situation, so head over to amy woolsey.com, or the link is in the show notes as well to register for that live Q and A.

It's a way to see other people, join a community, learn, feel, support, it's free, so why not? Alright.

Here is the recording from the Q and A.

📍 Hello everyone. Hi. Welcome. Good to see some of your faces again. As always, wanna get right to it 'cause I know we only have a limited time and I always like to leave enough time for y'all to ask questions and share and stuff. You know I like to share something with you.

So I'm gonna get into that. I decided to create another worksheet handout that just has a couple additional, self-reflecting questions, prompts, that goes along with what I'm gonna talk about today. I'm getting good feedback when I throw something in there like that for y'all.

I, when I have the time, I'm happy to do that just to kinda help those of you who maybe 📍 aren't getting help or, not getting support right now, to have just a little bit, of extra support there. This has been coming up often enough that made me go, hmm, I think I'm gonna talk about this, what I'm noticing when jealousy and envy, when those parts come up. There is an incredible amount of shame, frustration, self blame, anger, like, oh, I don't like this part. And we're wanting to just shove that. Judge it. Be mad at ourself when we notice jealousy and envy coming up.

Now, those of you who might not be in this stage or have experienced that part of your divorce, where that's coming up, just wait. I'm sorry. Like this is part of it. I hate that, but it is. So if you haven't experienced it yet, then this will help you to be prepared and know right away that we're not gonna judge it.

Okay? When jealousy parts and when envy parts show up, that is the first thing that I want you to know. They are not bad parts. I really, really, really wanna normalize this experience of feeling jealousy and feeling envy.

When that comes up, it sometimes can feel like it comes out of nowhere. It can be confusing when these parts come up because on one hand, for many of you, you're like, I don't want that person back. Like, I don't wanna take 'em back. So why is this coming up? It doesn't make sense. And it can feel really confusing.

And then that is where sometimes we're like, what's wrong with me? That I'm feeling this when I really don't want anything, to do with this person?

If you are in that space, you're not crazy.

When your whole entire world is shaken, your nervous system is scanning for that threat. It's scanning for comparison way more intensely because of the betrayal. It might look like sitting alone at your child's ball game or event or whatever, and your ex shows up with the girlfriend or the new, wife, and suddenly you're flooded with all those emotions. Like of course you're going to be scanning for that replacement. It makes sense when you've experienced betrayal.

You didn't ask for this, you didn't want the betrayal, and your body is still oftentimes trying to make sense of it all. The other factor that we have to make space for here is that. Those of you who might have the divorce business side of it signed, the emotional divorce is the one that takes a very long time to heal from— a lot longer than I think any of us want.

But what jealousy really is, the fear of losing something or someone important. I think, growing up—I'll just speak for myself, if you can relate, great—but growing up, that word jealousy, being jealous, was associated with being like, you are wrong. If you're jealous, you are bad if you're jealous.

And so, of course, if I felt that, it was like, what's wrong with me? I absolutely turned against myself when I felt that part come up. But really it is a fear of losing something or someone that's important, and you lost so much already. You lost the person that you thought was faithful. You lost the family that you believed that you were building together.

You lost, the picture of your future. So when reminders or threats of loss show up, it makes sense why jealousy is going to also show up. It's also rooted in attachment wound, the fear of being replaced, the fear of not being enough, the fear of being left out. So after divorce, jealousy is gonna flare up when your partner starts dating or when you see other couples, before he started dating, it was just seeing other couples in the grocery store and I would be like.

I go change aisles. I'd be like, I don't need peanut butter anymore because the stupid, cute couples in the aisle, like I avoided it like the plague. It was that jealousy part was like reminding me, Hey, ha ha, guess what? You lost—really painful. When we can understand what's underneath, the, jealousy, when we can see, oh, what is this part validating right now, it's validating loss.

Loss of someone or something very important that I'm seeing this other person have that's reminding me of what I lost. If we can understand what just happened, why that part just showed up, what it's validating, you can access a little bit more self-compassion. Envy, same thing. Envy is a very painful awareness that someone else has something that you don't, points to all of those things that you're longing for.

Safety, security, love, companionship, ease. After divorce, envy might show up when you see friends with, intact families. I air quote, because that's all subjective, right? But like what you had, what you thought you had, what you thought you were going to have, of course you're gonna envy. I pushed a lot of friends away because it was too painful.

To hear about their intact family stories. And, and I'll be honest, I remember I had one friend that just kept, complaining to me like about her partner— I'm like, got up. At least you have one. I didn't even wanna hear it anymore, so I pulled away. It was too painful. Envy would just come right up and be sitting right there in that conversation.

So like, I wanna validate that, bring some normalcy to that. It makes sense when you see friends, family, when you see someone of financial stability, the life that you thought you'd have—all of you who listened to me enough know that I had a cleaning company. I cleaned houses, buildings, blah, blah, blah.

When I was single and. I would be in people's homes. I would be in homes with couples, like the husband would be home, he'd work from home, or he would whatever— doctors. So they would be home during the day. I see these cute little couples doing the home life together, eating lunch together, 📍 all things, right?

Seeing, hearing them talk about stuff going on in their life, I would go clean the upstairs bathroom to cry because it was so painful to watch. 'Cause envy was right there. I wanted to sit across the table for my husband in the middle of the day and have lunch.

I never got that. I want that. Never gonna get that. My brain at that point—envy's like, yeah, you're never gonna have that again. Lost that. So, man, when I went to clean houses, I put my Windex in the bucket, along with envy, along with jealousy. Those parts were with me quite often. If you feel like yours are with you quite often, it's okay.

It makes sense. What are they showing you? What are they telling you? You know, we've lost time with kids, especially those of you who are stay at home moms. Of course, envy’s gonna show up when someone new shows up in their life and gets time with them. Or when the ex who never wanted time with, kids suddenly wants time with kids.

That's a fun one. Maybe you never went on vacations and now he's going on all these vacations. Of course I'm gonna be envious of that. What the hell? Right? Like it makes so much sense. So we wanna get to the deeper message of these emotions that are coming up. They are not bad. They are signals. They are messages.

When we try to push them aside, push them away, force them away, wanna make them go away or judge ourself, they get louder. The key is to stay curious about what the message, the real message is behind them, or underneath the rug—whatever, where you wanna look at that. Jealousy says, I'm afraid of being left behind.

I mean, how many of you might be feeling that right now— and behind in life, I'm being left behind. Maybe by my children, I'm being left, just I'm afraid of being left behind, missing out. Envy might be saying, I want something that feels so out of reach, that feels like I'm never gonna have, I'm never gonna have companionship again.

I'm always gonna be alone.

Both of those messages are gonna point to unmet needs. They're gonna point often to a very shaky self sense of self-worth or self-esteem. And those are just needing some attention. So can we just validate that—

Many of you, if not all of you here, had massive unmet needs in that relationship? We didn't quite realize the full, scope of how unmet our needs were. When we listen to jealousy and envy come up, we hear their message, it will help you to see what those unmet needs were.

When we look at it—I know, I know, I know, I know it's painful. But when we look at it, that helps you to heal. We, we have to see what those were so that we can meet them for ourself, so that we can make sure that if we're moving forward, those don't ever get, okay? We don't wanna ignore these parts when they come up.

When you get to the deeper message and you listen to envy and jealousy, what's the message? What are they telling you? Now, we practice compassion. So we're not shaming, we're not blaming, we're not judging. Maybe ask, what part of me feels threatened right now? Because a lot of times they come up when there is that external threat that you're observing, usually over on the other side of the street.

What part is feeling threatened? The part of me that worries I'm never gonna find a companionship again. The part of me that thinks I'm never gonna get to have a vacation, that I'm gonna lose my kids. Just notice that. Have compassion. Remind yourself, like, of course you feel this way. You've been through so much.

It makes so much sense why your system is looking for safety right now. When you drop into compassion, it helps move through these emotions instead of getting stuck in them. So how do we move through it? You're asking, okay— these are the things that are gonna be in the worksheet. That'll be in the portal for you.

Okay. But you're gonna pause and name it. Give it a name. This is jealousy. This is envy. Naming it calms your nervous system. If you look at it like— this is how I'll describe it visually— like when it comes up, I feel like my nervous system gets this big and it's just really, really vibrating. It's really, really loud. When I stop and pause and go, whoa. Hello. What are you? Oh, you're jealousy. It goes like this. So it just brings that vibration that can feel really big— just brings it in a little bit. Then we notice the body, where is this landing? So I'm naming it and then I'm finding it.

This is your body awareness. We always wanna connect to the body. Always, always, always. So, if it's in my chest, it's in the pit of my stomach. My face is heating up. Find it in your body. Then number three, breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. If it feels safe to do, put your hand over where you found it in your body.

If it's in my throat, I'll just go like this. If it's in my chest, I'll go like this. If it's in my stomach, I'll just place my hands on my stomach. Sometimes I just do a little bit of a pat— just, hi. You're right there. Breathe in through your nose, and when you breathe out, you're gonna breathe out and direct your attention to the place in your body that you identified this being in.

Does that make sense? So I'm breathing in— say it's in my chest— I'm exhaling into my chest. That is giving it more attention. That is telling your body you're safe, and it's bringing that nervous system in even more. This is really, really important. Then we're going into more of that reframe. What does this show me about what I want or what I need?

For example, I'll go back to when I watch that couple sitting at the table enjoying lunch together, and they're talking—

Like that. I was desperate for just that. That was not a thing. I was just like, wow, that's— that can be a thing. That's a thing. A man will sit at a table in the middle of the day and talk. Yeah, that's a thing. What is this jealousy and envy showing me? It's showing me that I want that, that I'm gonna expect that, that that's gonna be on my list.

I want that. It's a good thing to know what you want. Then we're gonna take action— honor that need in just a small way. Journal about it, reach out to a safe friend, give voice to it. When we take a— even if it's just getting a drink of water and stating what you want or need, you are making it— you're creating that neural pathway and solidifying it when you get your body movements involved.

So I— and I know this sounds crazy, but I'm not even joking— like even if you just stand up and you like do a power pose, you just put your hands on your hips and you're just like, I want that. Like, right? You're getting your body involved in what you're saying and what you're putting out there. It matters— energetically, neurologically, it matters.

You wanna get the action part of it. Those are the steps of how to work through envy and jealousy. Those are two really big ones. Just remember when they come up, they are not proof that you're failing or that you're not healing. That's the other thing that I hear clients say, like, well, what's wrong with me?

Maybe I'm not healing enough. It's nothing to do with that. They are proof that you're still human, that you are desiring, that you're longing for connection. That's validating your loss. With compassion, these emotions can become a guide for you and help direct you, help you know what you really want, what you really deserve, and that's a beautiful thing.

📍 Thank you for joining me today, the next live Q and A will be held the first Thursday in October. I hope to see you there.

As always, remember that you are the chooser in your life and you get to create the life that you want because you can. Take care of everybody.