Jealousy and Low Self Esteem - How to Cope
I got the following email from a friend and am answering it here in this blog…with her permission of course.
“Hey Michael,
“I am in a sort of internship I believe. I still have some issues of my own. Most of the abuse I have sustained was of the psychological kind and was done at the time when I was most absorbent (childhood). So… I feel that I have forgiven but that my next step is to accept that I will know this same harmful intent in others.
“I think I am what is called a “sensitive”. I respond to the feelings of others…and yes, I have always said that I can feel the feelings of others. My problem is that I am not always able to determine that the feelings are not necessarily directed at me; therefore I ‘think’ they are. As a result I become angry or hurt.
“In a way, that is the same as saying I feel responsible and that is not healthy.
“I am NOW able to acknowledge when I feel extremely uncomfortable around others; when I sense their toxicity; their ambivalence.”
Munga, you made a very good observation here. First of all it does not matter if it was directed at you or not. What matters is do you really deserve the energy being projected? Do you know? Are you clear enough to know?
Most people “think” that the words and perceived attitude of others are directed at them. This is a very standard assumption we all make. I still catch this happening in myself when my wife becomes unhappy. ..
(Removed much of my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“I know that is weird but you must know that women truly have different issues than men. With women, it is often about outward appearances; there is a vanity there in addition to everything else. This co-worker was morbidly obese, but then again, the three other employees (including boss) are also obese”
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“Living in this world with other hurt people is not easy. There are no quick or fool proof solutions. I would love to be able to rise above the sickness in others, but I have a feeling that none of us is ever really healed, we just get better.”
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“When I realized that the co worker literally was directing HATE towards me, I tried talking to her in a tactful and gentle way. I told her I wanted us to get along and even enjoy working together. I felt good about what I said to her and felt I had done so in a loving and heartfelt way.
Obviously, I should not have spoken about it to her because she merely became more resentful.”
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“I am not an overt, exciting person. I can’t walk in a room and uplift others by giving them extreme praise or making them feel wonderful. My personality is very calm and low key… but I smile and am friendly. This is the part I felt I had failed at. This is when, for a moment, I wished I were a different sort of person… one who could “win friends and influence people”.
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“I think that I am a help to many of my friends… that they sense they are safe with me (and I with them) and we are able to help each other. But, that is not necessarily true of all relationships.”
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“I wanted to be a help to my ex husband (while we were still married). (At first of course, I was very angry and showed my anger towards him). But after learning more, reading more, I tried to be loving and tolerant; knowing he suffered from alcoholism. But, to be honest, this change in me seemed to make things worse… now perhaps that is natural progression of alcoholism and nothing to do with me, but I was the one who had to eventually flee. Not for my life, but for my sanity. My already bruised ego hung perilously on the edge of a breakdown.”
(Removed my advice due to the reasons stated below.)
“I still question why my love wasn’t enough to help my ex. I still wonder why I have to “feel” the feelings of others. They only hurt for the most part.”
Your love has helped, you just don’t see all the ways it has helped him…
(There WAS much more to this blog but it has been removed…
see details below)
Click here to read the comments left by those that read the full blog. You will see that MANY people found a lot of help in the content of my blogs. Unfortunately I had to remove the content of most of my blogs for the reason stated further below.You can continue reading my blogs by joining my relationship healing group, the details of which you can find at http://RelationshipAdviceSite.com 
By joining my healing group you will get…
- The Ultimate Guide to Relationship Healing a four hour Audio Program.
- All of my blogs.
- MANY hours of additional Audio programs.
- Live Tele-Classes given by me where you will have the opportunity to ask your own specific questions.
- Access to my coaching via email just like you have seen in my blogs on MySpace.
Why did I Remove my Blog Content from MySpace & gr8Wisdom.com?
I spent more than a year doing free spiritual and relationship counseling on MySpace. If you review the comments on my blogs (which I have left intact for you to review) you can see that I have spent a great deal of time, covered a lot of topics, AND A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE HELPED BY MY ADVICE. I have really enjoyed it and thank all of you who have participated. Many of my friends have touched my heart very deeply. I love you all!
Unfortunately doing it for free has resulted in me not being able to write new blogs or serve as many people as I would like too. Doing it for free has caused me to maintain a fulltime job with not enough time to coach those people who want and need the help I have to offer. By charging for my services I will eventually be able to quit my job and do my spiritual counseling work full time.
My blogs really do contain all you need to know in order to live a healthy and happy life and the live coaching I offer in the healing group fills in the gaps. Please consider joining this group today. http://RelationshipAdviceSite.com
Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story
Popularity: 18% [?]
February 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
My 35 -year old daughter is very insecure. There is reason for that - she has spent the last 20 years in treatment for manic depression and as a corollary has a massive weight problem She is married and has the most wonderful daughter (18 mos ). I have spent most of my life helping, supporting, doing for, and guiding her to lead her own life, but she is supersensitive to the words and actions of others and constantly looks to me for approval of her actions. I know that I must withdraw more to allow her to stand on her own, but need some coping mechanisms so I don’t get sucked back in. I feel trapped and she is not maturing as she should.
Lorna
February 24th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Thank you very much for considering this request
March 9th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I´m learning english now as second language, but I try to understand your writes.
Bye
Angel’s last blog post..ASOCIACION-association
April 4th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
[…] Jealousy and Low Self-Esteem Seem to Ruin Our Lives is a blog about how our attempts to grow and do our best can trigger jealousy and other strong negative emotions in other people and how to deal with that. […]
April 12th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I love your blog so much… is it ok to add you to my link list? I hope you don’t mind. thanks so much.
earthlingorgeous’s last blog post..Kind Words
December 10th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I would really like to congratulate the author of this blog because the owner really knows the intricacies and complexities of the relationship problems in details. I am also writing about a very complex relationship issue and that is How To Get Ex Husband Back if you are just breakup with him. This will be really a useful read for wives who have recently gone through the painful process of breakup with their husband and hopefully I think that they will get the effective solution to get over breakup issues.
(Ann Morris - aka - http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-get-ex-husband-back)
December 28th, 2008 at 1:14 am
I think Jealousy is on of the by products of low self esteem.
I know someone who has very low self esteem who is not only jealous, but also very paranoid.
Thank you for this post, it’s a very good read and I’ll refer it to some of my friends.
How to catch a cheating husband’s last blog post..Signs of a cheating husband
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 am
Thank you Michael. Your writing on the above topic has made me see. It has always been a struggle for me. I sense people’s intentions towards me and I wonder why they are so mean (and ofcourse their mean intentions is often manifested through mean, nasty words and actions). I even blame myself because I have felt that I needed to change, kind of like mirroring their nastiness for everything to be okay. I have often asked why these people I know were this way. I keep on saying to myself ‘ I am a kind person”, and will continue to be so. You have made me realise that it has nothing to do with me. Unkind words and hateful natures seems to be the rule of the day. I just do my own things and continue to focus on myself. I have often considered myself to be a work in progress. Always evaluationg myself and looking for ways to better myself. I have come a long way but it seems that doesn’t sit well with some people I know. It has been hard lately because It seems to be happening more and more. Nobody wants you to shine. It is much better for them for you to be underfoot and without prospects. I have left some of them behind in the past but they always come back. A kind word is all I ask. I will take heed of what you say about being loving within myself and learning to know who I am. Anyhow, thank you for having a fantastic website. I will be checking out your book on Amazon.