15: This O.N.E. Thing Can Shift Your Jealous Mindset

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Thebestbrainpossible.com shares the elephant story that in India, when they train elephants, they start by chaining one of the elephant's legs to a tree. 

[00:00:11] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: And over time they decrease the size of the chain so small that eventually it's just this super delicate string that's holding the elephant to the tree. So it's not the string that restraints this huge animal. It's the elephant's mind. 

[00:00:29] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I'm Shanenn Bryant and welcome to Jealousy junkie; the podcast to help you go from jealous and anxious in your relationship to calm and confident. 

[00:00:38] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Today is just a quick dump episode. I wanted to share this tip with you to see if it helps with your jealous thinking habits. So I'm going to give you O.N.E simple thing that you can start to do to change your jealous thoughts. 

[00:00:54] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Your mindset, your thoughts, they can hold you back in so many areas; your relationship, your finances, your career. 

[00:01:01] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: And in a previous episode, I talked about how to tame your jealous actions. So, if you didn't catch that episode, it is episode 10 How to Tame Your Jealous Actions. Go back, take a quick listen to that one. 

[00:01:17] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: So when we're young, the brain soaks up new information and it learns it as a pattern and it maps it for future reference. As we get older, we have less of this plasticity in our brain. And it just wants to take the easy route and not work too hard. So your brain just recalls that mapping of information that it already knows. 

[00:01:37] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: And we remember negative experiences, more than positive ones, and that's pretty natural as humans. It's how we learn not to put our hand on a hot burner again. That negative experience stood out when we were a child. And it probably didn't take more than that one time to learn not to do it again. 

[00:01:57] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: When I was in the third grade, there was this girl whose grandparents lived by us and they had this old rundown barn. Her and I were told so many times not to play in the old barn by both my mom and her grandparents. And of course, then that's all we wanted to do is go play in that old barn. So one day we snuck in and we were playing this kind of combination of hide and seek and tag. 

[00:02:22] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I just remember she was chasing me and I jumped over one of the short wooden stalls and my left leg, the back of my thigh, got hooked on a rusty nail. So when I came down trying to jump off the other side, my left leg literally got stuck, kind of hooked up, suspended me and caught me in mid air. It was so painful. And you know, that feeling when you don't want to look at it because you don't want to see how bad it is. 

[00:02:53] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: That's what I did for three days. Um, by the third day I could hardly walk. My mom noticed and so of course she made me show it to her. And her reaction confirmed how bad it was. I had a big hole in the back of my thigh and it had green and yellowish pus coming out of it. Of course right away, we were off to the emergency room and I had to get a tetanus shot. 

[00:03:19] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I still have almost a perfect circle scar on the back of my thigh that to this day reminds me to check for nails in wood, and I stay super paranoid that I'm going to get poked or I'm going to step on a nail, even though every day since the third grade, I've never been poked by a nail since. 

[00:03:39] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: But unfortunately, these kinds of experiences, these thinking maps aren't just present to remind us to look for rusty nails or hot burners. We carry experiences of cheating partners into our future relationships. 

[00:03:55] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Some of us who felt abandoned as a child over protect ourselves with extreme jealousy and fear of being left or that we're not good enough. We carry that into our adult relationships. These experiences shaped the way that you think and the way that you view life. And sometimes you're totally unaware of the damage that our programmed thinking can have and the actions that we take in response to those everyday thoughts that we have.

[00:04:22] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: So change can only happen when we commit to sit down and get real with these negative stories that we're telling ourselves and really examine them. You know, where do they come from? What happened? What do they mean to me? How are they showing up in my life today? What emotions are competing for your control. 

[00:04:45] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Like really think about that question. What emotions are competing for your control?

[00:04:51] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: If you've been following the podcast, you know, that I've had a pretty rocky relationship with my dad. For years, I allowed my negative false story that my dad didn't love me, run and ruin my self image and my self worth. When I was analyzing my jealous emotions, I realized that these thoughts were keeping me stuck, keeping me anxious, fearful. I mean, I was a hot mess. 

[00:05:16] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: My past relationship sucked, my current relationship sucked. So I decided to write the thoughts that were going on, that I knew were playing in the background. My dad doesn't love me. My dad abandoned me. If my dad doesn't love me, then why would anyone else love me? 

[00:05:34] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Then I asked. Well, how do I know if that's true? What's another possibility. Is there another explanation? I had to open myself up to the possibility of a new explanation. 

[00:05:50] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: And , I reached out to my dad. It was super tough in the beginning. I wanted an apology and he didn't want to talk about it. I was pressuring him and he was avoiding and we were both super apprehensive. 

[00:06:05] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: But as we started to get to know each other again, over these past few years, and through a ton of tough conversations, I realized it wasn't that my dad didn't love me or that I wasn't worthy of love. He was an alcoholic. It wasn't that he didn't care how I felt about what he put us through. He was embarrassed and ashamed. The story I had spent decades telling myself and believing was just not true. 

[00:06:37] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I was worthy of love. I did have things to offer someone. And I don't need to be afraid of being left. I'm a grown woman and I can stand on my own two feet and be okay. 

[00:06:49] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: So I wanted to offer this tip and I want you to consider the word one; O N E. And think of it as open to a new... fill in the blank with an E word. So use this as a quick go-to when you have those types of stories that maybe you're telling yourself, or those untruths in your mind. Open to a new explanation, open to new evidence, open to new example, O N E. 

[00:07:19] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: The story you're telling yourself that you think your partner's cheating. When you tell yourself that they're not attracted to you. That they're going to leave you, et cetera. Be open to a new... Fill in the blank. Switch that E word out for whatever fits the situation. Open to a new example, open to new evidence. What are other possibilities that aren't negative. That actually might be true. 

[00:07:46] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: When you think your partner had better sex with her ex what's another possibility? Open to a new exercise. Does that mean that you need to start journaling your feelings? Is it trying meditation? If you are uncomfortable with something that your partner is doing, think open to new expectations. Maybe you do need to set some new boundaries in your relationship. Another one that you can use as expression. 

[00:08:13] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: When you think your partner checked out the server and you'd typically give them a shitty look. Be open to a new expression. What can you do instead? Lean across the table. Hold your partner's hand. Maybe. If you've snooped and snooped, and you haven't found any wrongdoing by your partner. Be open to new evidence. 

[00:08:33] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: Maybe the evidence is that nothing's wrong. They're not doing what you're afraid they're doing. 

[00:08:38] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: The idea is to be open that those habitual habits may be holding you back from seeing the truth. That thought is your reality today, but reality might quite possibly be different. So be open to other thoughts and leave those negative ones wherever they came from, because most of them don't serve you anymore. 

[00:09:02] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I hope this quick exercise of using O.N.E helps you to start examining what you're telling yourself and what may be at the root of your jealousy. 

[00:09:12] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: For further support, opportunities for free group coaching, and so much more join me inside the Jealousy Junkie Facebook Group. And let me know what you're going to be open to. Is it new evidence? Is it a new explanation? Are you setting new expectations for your relationship? Open to exploring other options?

[00:09:32] Shanenn Bryant - Jealousy Junkie: I can't wait to further support you inside the Facebook group. The link to join is in the show notes. Until next time, take care and remember, you're not alone.