Hi, Tazo. Hey to Zura and I'm Jermaine and welcome back to another episode of Clarity, Hush Man. You guys loved this previous episode so much about unrequited love and bread crumbing. Y'all like ate it like bread crumbs that we had to bring her back on the show. Please. Welcome. Yet again. It's no, Adam. Thank you so
much. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Oh my God, today's topic. I can't believe we've never spoken about it. I am sweating. I am the president of today's topic. So I'm really looking forward to. But what have you been up to since we last saw you? Wow.
I think I've just been busy with like client work, organizing workshops, events. It's something that I'm very passionate about. But yeah, I'm going strong, you know, in the area of like trauma recovery work, people who are heartbroken, people who feel abandoned. I'm like, that's where I come in. I help you out in your journey.
I love that. Yeah. Make sure you follow her at the good life underscore therapy. Now, today's topic, it is about jealousy. OK. Would you say that you girls are jealous when it comes to being in a relationship. Are you jealous? Girls? I feel like we need a skill for this 1 to 1010 being the most jealous. I think. I'm like, at a five. Like, I am confident in myself. I wouldn't call myself like an over jealous partner but sometimes certain things, you know,
still be jealous. I just for the young, you know, ok, we'll get into that. Like, what makes hazel, you know, like, triggered when it comes to jealousy. What about you? No, I guess so.
Like, you know, in my past relationships I've had had experiences where I did feel jealousy but I think at that point in time I didn't know it was like jealousy but I just felt like it just felt off when, you know, something happened. Yeah. So I think the more I, I deep dive into this work, you know, being a therapist and just discover a bit more. I'm like, oh, that was me being jealous. I didn't know that.
What about you? Now? Then on a scale of 1 to 10
I think, because I've not been in a relationship in a while as well. So I would not know in the context of, like, romantic relationships. But if you want to talk about, like, I think I'm like a two or three, I'm sure.
Yeah. Ok. Yes. I used to think I was like a minus two or like a zero. Yeah. Recently I think I've discovered that I might be like a two or three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'm a bit. So. Yeah. Yeah. I do think that there's nothing to be jealous about when, when the emotions are not as strong. I think emotions really exacerbate the feeling of jealousy. So, I think for me I would put myself as a 10. Let's just, let's just go straight there for the honesty. Yeah. Yeah.
Let's just go straight there. Right. I'm working on it though. I'm working on it maybe now some days I'm an eight year old, but today we're specifically talking about not just jealousy in a relationship, not just like, oh, you know, your boyfriend, like the girl's photo on Instagram, stupid things like that. But we're talking about retroactive jealousy. What does that mean? No,
I think retroactive jealousy, it is something is very fascinating because it's a specific type of jealousy that deals with you focusing on your partner's past specifically, they are, you know, past romantic relationships, right? So when we're talking about general jealousy, it's got to do with like prison related circumstances. So for example, you're at a party with a boyfriend and a girl comes along, she starts flirting with their boyfriend. So you start to feel
like I just wish right? And
jealous that's present jealousy, right? So you start feeling something on the inside unease and yeah, you feel jealous. So that's you responding to current behaviors, current actions. But retroactive jealousy is a complete opposite of that. It's you feeling that sense of jealousy, but it is in response to something that is in the past, it is not happening in the here and now it's not based on current,
current behavior. And it's very interesting because this often puts a lot of people in this state of confusion of like what is going on. And you know, if I could give an example, an analogy, right? It's like you stumbling upon your partner's old photo album, right? And in this photo album, it shows his history. So it's way before he met you, it shows snapshots of like memories, moments, experience of the people he's been with in his past life
before he met you, right? So you take a look at this photo album and instead of looking at those snapshots as, oh, you know, these are past chapters in his life, he's been through that and it has shaped who he is today instead of looking at it that way you go zoom in to specific chapters and it's specific of my life. Am I talking about
TV, of my life? But yeah, you zoom into specific romantic chapters, you know that he has been involved in and your mind goes into this very interesting spiral, right? You look at those chapters and you start wondering like is he really over her? Does he still think about her? You know what's going on there? And again, it is very exhausting, dealing with these sort of feelings, especially if you don't know what's going on in terms of.
Yeah, I do think like this retroactive jealousy is a beast of its own because it's not something that's happening right now. So you're like, is it real, like, why am I feeling these things if it's not happening right now? This is in the past and everyone will say, but it's in the past. What do you bring up the past? And that's the challenge of it. And I think it's very confusing because you don't really know what's going on. You don't know why you feel that way. I'm just
trying to speak for you. Thank you. I feel hurt and I think you don't really know what to do with it either because if you voice it or you throw a tantrum, it's unfair. Correct. Correct. And you understand that you also have a past but like you're being unfair but you can't help it. Correct? Ok. Interesting because I've never come across this term, retroactive jealousy and just don't want to read it myself. Five, I would think the bulk of it is this retroactive, retroactive jealousy.
So let's say I'm in a relationship. I would like to, it's a bad habit. I'll ask my partner, what are your past relationships? Like then after he shares with me because he views it as an open, honest communication. Now, I get a bit upset. That's true. So, so when I first got together with my partner, we were like, ok, you know, we've both had past, let's be 1000% honest with each other about every single detail of my past. That idea. And then now we're seeing a therapist for good reason and the
therapist is like, that's such a shitty idea. Why would you guys do that? Why would you all do that? We're like, it's too late. We already know everything. Yeah, it's too late. And I think retroactive jealousy focuses on this very unhealthy preoccupation with your partner's past, who they dated, who they slept with, who they hung out with, who they texted, you know, whatever it is. I remember I was at his mom's
home and she loves keeping photos everywhere, photo frames. And I'm like, looking, looking and I feel like I knew what I was looking for, but I wasn't, I was just like, oh, so nice. Oh, your brother's wedding? I was like, oh, who's this girl? I was like, how is this girl? He's like, oh, that's my ex. I was like, oh, a photo of your ex in your mom's home? Ok. And I walk away and I heard my own feelings for what, but what do you do about the photo? I it's in his mom's home. Of course, it's just
that photo frame is to celebrate his brother's wedding. That's the point of the photo frame. But yes, back to retroactive jealousy where does it come from? Does it come from a feeling of like I'm not enough because that's what people say, oh, your self worth is not enough.
And that's one of them, right? When we're talking about retroactive jealousy, it often stems from a place of unfinished, unprocessed emotions, you know, in the past and now it's being replayed in the present moment in an attempt to reconcile something that has got to do with, you know, old, hurt, old wounds. And I feel that it is important for us to get to the root cause and the origin of what is causing retroactive jealousy to be there. And I feel that you can get curious about two key
stages here. One is the childhood experience, right? And the other one is the later developmental years. So for the first part, the childhood experience get curious about, you know, what do you go through as a child? What was your family dynamics? Like? Were there certain things that you were struggling with as a child that you didn't really
have the opportunity to talk about it? Maybe as a child, you grew up in an environment where your parents were there physically but emotionally they were checked out, maybe they were constantly busy with work, maybe they themselves were struggling emotionally mentally. And because of that they couldn't have the capacity to be with you in the way that you want them to.
How does that manifest? Like how does that link to, you know, retroactive jealousy?
Because what you've been exposed to as a child, it becomes your very programming, it becomes your belief system on what you know about the world, about what you know about love, what you know about relationships, what you know about how to cope with difficult emotions, let's say you were in an environment where your parents were constantly not there, right? There. Is there elements of emotional neglect. So you learned on how to have to deal with your emotions on your own, right?
Because you feel like, you know, if I cannot depend on my parents to be there for me and I'm struggling on my own, something needs to be done. So in a way, you've learned these adaptation sort of strategies in order to cope with the inner conflicts and in the pain that you're dealing. Like let's say if you grew up in an environment where there's a lot of chaos, a lot of fighting going on between your parents, maybe you witness a separate
of your your parents divorce. So what happens is that you learn as a kid that it is not safe to be there in the environment, it's not safe to express your own emotions and your needs because other people's needs mattered more. You need to make sure that you need to know exactly what other people needed in order for them to give you peace, right? So you learn to take on the role of the peacemaker, the mediator, the emotional caretaker, you know, the adult in the family and these
are enormous roles for any kid to carry. It basically denies you the opportunity to experience childhood. Right? If you had to take on these roles early on as a child, you basically didn't have time to be a child, to be the carefree kid, to be curious to have fun to play because you had to do other serious stuff and you didn't
form secure attachment. Exactly. She's talking to me. Yeah. Sorry, sorry you OK. I'm ok. Yeah, that's very true. I think, you know, all these things as Children shape us into what we are now. And I think the problem with retroactive jealousy is a lot of people think like, oh, it's that overly attached girlfriend, you know, it's a crazy girlfriend, right? It's the girlfriend who is like, so jealous. But I do think it afflicts guys as well.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Have you seen that?
Yes, absolutely. I feel like when we're talking about jealousy, retroactive or otherwise it is something that is often portrayed as, as a more female trait, right? And I feel it touches on a very profound cultural bias. You know, we see this in movies, TV, shows, we see this in pop songs, social media. There are these terms that have been tossed around, like for example, psycho ex-girlfriend, drama queen diva, possessive stalkerish and all of these labels are associated around
women experiencing jealousy. And the problem with that is that with these stereotypes, it causes a lot of issues for people experiencing it because for men, right, they have this cultural expectation where they need to be the strong one, the secure one, the put together the calm one. When there is this cultural expectation for them to live up to that, when they feel jealousy arise, it's natural for them to go. Oh, I should not say it because I don't want to
be labeled as insecure or petty or controlling. And then for the women because they know that is that stigma out there to feel jealousy again because they don't want to be judged. They don't want to be labeled, they keep it in, you know, when jealousy does arise.
On the contrary, I feel like women are more, we tend to express jealousy more because we know in a certain way we can,
it's ok.
It's ok. Yes. And I feel like it would be ok for women to approach their partners in the relationship to speak about this. But what are some signs of retroactive jealousy in the relationship?
I would say for the person who is experiencing retroactive jealousy. One of the things that you would notice is that you get caught in this obsessive loop, you tend to ruminate a lot. Your thoughts go wild. Basically, you want to go into that space of wanting to know every single detail of what happened in your partner's romantic past. And if you can't either, like you want to know, but you don't want to know. Yes. It's kind of
this weird tug of war, weird dilemma that's happening. You know, cognitively, like rationally if you go there, it's going to cause a lot of hurt for yourself. But you can't help but want to go there and to find out for yourself. Because again, is this adaptive strategy is this self soothing mechanism that you have developed from early on in order to soothe that discomfort that you're feeling on the inside. What we need to understand about retroactive jealousy is that
that is just a presenting problem, right? If I would have given an analogy of an iceberg, if you are the boat here above the water line, what you see is just above the water line and that's at the tip of the iceberg. So that's where retroactive jealousy lies. And what is beneath the water line is all the stuff, the narrative, our life scripts, our belief system, our hurts our pains, our insecurities, all
of that is below the water line. And that is what we need to get to the root cause we need to get there to heal those parts in order to heal this obsessive cycle that we keep going into. So, number one is this obsession. Number two, because you are so obsessed about the past, it pulls you away from being in the present
so true. It's like sometimes it's like, you know, there's so much good that's happening in the present. But you're like, so focused on, oh, this happened in the past and then you become so negative and like, resentful question for Jeremy. If you could turn time back, would you still have that discussion with your partner? Like understanding? Yeah. Correct. Each other's past. Every single relationship you've been in. Would you still want to know at this current point? I
haven't healed yet. So I would still want to know. But, but I'm hoping to get to a point where, like, I don't even need to know. And the interesting thing is that we talked about how it mostly, you know, they say like, oh, only women are jealous of their partner's past. But so when we first got into a relationship, actually, we were both experience very strong levels of retroactive jealousy and so much that
it really impacted our daily lives. Like, you know, hands were threatened to be thrown and stuff like that, which is very unhealthy. But for him, well, he's also got 12 years on me. Right. And he's been working on himself a much longer time. He actually managed to, I wouldn't say recover but cope with it a lot quicker than I have been. I'm still stuck there. But he's like he's dealt with it and now he's on the other side. So I'm looking to get there and if you're listening. You're like, I also
want to get there. We ask. No. OK. Don't worry, that's coming. That's coming. I have a question. So you were saying that, you know, everybody has baggage, right? And everybody has this like whole eyes but below the surface that can't be seen, you know, all this hurt trauma, whatever, but it's different for each person but everybody has it. So does that mean that it comes out in different shapes and form? And one of it is retroactive Jezzy.
Yes. Absolutely. Our pains, our unresolved pains, they will find its way on how to let itself be known. So, one of the ways it could be retroactive jealousy for some is because they're dealing with so much suppression, it comes in a form of depression, anxiety, mood disorders, you know, procrastination and this list could actually go on.
So, what you're saying is that retroactive jealousy doesn't necessarily mean that you're actually jealous of your partner's past. It could be a whole different underlying issue that is coming out as this.
It is that past your partner's past romantic relationships as triggering and revisiting old wounds inside of you, right? The the unresolved fears, insecurities, childhood wounds and what we know about unresolved wounds is that it resides in the unconscious mind and body. So the unconscious is this hidden storage system inside of you that holds the emotional blueprint of past events. So
it holds all the hurts, right? The emotions, the sensations, the memories of the times that you felt frightened, overwhelmed, abandoned, traumatized. So it's all inside there. And the work that we need to do is to be able to revisit safely these parts inside of us that's stored in that dark hidden storage and to be able to bring it up to that conscious layer. So that when it comes up, when we get triggered, we are aware that this is
happening right now. I feel that one of the things that's so important for us to know to reduce this crazy confusion and frustration we're feeling right now is whenever it comes up, it's for us to understand this trigger, this jealousy that we're feeling, is it coming from present circumstances
or is it coming from something in the past? Because when you don't know whether it's from the past or present, present past, it becomes mushed up, it becomes so confusing and you don't know even where to start in terms of your healing journey. But when you're able to take that step back to really reflect and see where is
it coming from? If you see that is majority of it is coming from the past, then you know, that's the work that you need to get into when you know that it's coming from a prison that can be communicated and worked out with your partner more effectively?
I believe I've seen research that says that a sign of retroactive jealousy when you find that you are unable to engage in sexual intercourse with your partner. Why does it get that
serious?
Does it get there?
Because at the end of the day, it deals with intimacy, right? If at the end of the day, you have so much of this unresolved wounds on the inside, the fear is insecurities. So what that means is that your own relationship with your self, it doesn't feel secure, it doesn't feel intimate, right? And we tend to project whatever is going on inside.
So if we ourselves find it hard to be intimate and vulnerable with ourselves, it makes sense that we are trying to be intimate and vulnerable with our partners, it's going to feel so hard, so unfamiliar and so awkward and foreign.
So this is not even like, you know, I don't trust my partner. It could even be, I don't trust myself. Exactly. Sounds like a very deep problem. Work out. And you know, what makes it so much worse these days is social media freaking social media. You know, it's such a great thing to exist, but it's also the bane of everyone's existence because it almost amplifies and it feeds into that retroactive jealousy on social media. If you want to find something,
you know what digital footprint is, right? If you want to find something, you will find something and for someone with retroactive jealousy, it's like a treasure trove of, you know, forget the photo albums. Let's look at Instagram. Oh, my goodness. How do you deal with that?
Yeah. I mean, it's not easy when we're talking about the internet. I mean, while it provides us with this beautiful tool for us to connect with people all over the world, it's so convenient. We can get so much information just with a couple of clicks. I would say that for someone who is struggling with retroactive jersey. Oh my God. It's the biggest nightmare ever because what it does is that it indulges
in this obsession. The obsession with comparing of yourself with your partner's exes, the obsession in wanting to dig up all the information possible in order for you to feel this sense of security on the inside. You know, in the past way before the internet existed, mail mail days, right? You don't, you don't have like Instagram, social media if you wanted to indulge in the obsession, probably like, you know, a snail mail physical stalking were probably your own options.
And you ask me, it's so much effort to do that. And if your partner's ex stayed somewhere like on the other side of the globe, you had to buy a plane ticket to fly all the way there to check out like what she's doing over there. So I think that the internet had really lowered the barrier to entry to indulge in this obsession. And I feel that yes,
the internet is beautiful. It comes with its convenience, but it also comes with a cost because what it does, it denies the opportunity to sit with what is really the one that's causing you the problem instead right now you have all these instant gratification tools.
The ironic thing is it's not even gratifying. Most times when you go down the rabbit hole, you come out feeling more shit.
But in that moment you feel that sense of reliever. I know
like a drug, it's like a drug is right? That you have to know you also. No, OK, you no scratching. I'm the only one I have a question. So when people go down this rabbit hole, right? For example, they're stalking, they're finding every information about the exes and all that are they actually trying to compare themselves and trying to find some value to themselves by, you know, trying to figure out their flaws.
Are they trying to, you know, just pick on that person and just make themselves feel better?
Absolutely. It is a tool to gain that external validation to kind of reinforce the belief that ok, you know, I am enough, I am enough as I am, right? Because it is coming from a wound that does not feel enough. So that wound has learned that in order for me to feel enough, I need this external validation in order to tell me
otherwise, when you treat your clients who have retroactive jealousy, what does that look like? What are your clients struggling with?
I think a lot of them, they do struggle with a lot of childhood trauma related matters. So I think, you know what I shared earlier, there are two key stages to it, which is the childhood experience and also the later developmental years. So the rule of thumb is the earlier and more frequent the event that is frightening and traumatic for you, the larger it leaves the imprint on you. And that in a way, it gets a bit harder to kind of navigate through the wound because
it's so deeply ingrained. Since childhood, you went through series and experiences that made you feel not good enough, right? That made you feel unlovable, abandoned and rejected. And then later on in life, you experience something similar, maybe you got cheated by your boyfriend, you got abandoned and ghosted by your close friend by a colleague. So all of these experiences, it adds on to the same layer of pain, right? It echoes the same familiar pain of I am not enough.
I'm unwanted. I'm unworthy of love this world that I'm in feels very unsafe. And because of that, I need to put, you know, my walls really high so that I can protect myself from not feeling hurt again.
Well, this sounds linked to a story that I'm about to share with all of you here. Maybe you can offer some insight into the mental perspective of this person experiencing retroactive jealousy. Ok. So interestingly, the title of her story is why can't she just get married? Ok. So this is written by a female online user. She says that her retroactive jealousy has been triggered around only one of her husband's exes his most significant relationship before ours. And this
is because of a few reasons. Number one, he was still so about the breakup when he started dating, which is in my honest opinion, the red flag. OK. Number two, his ex is six years younger than her and she believes that his ex is more attractive because she's younger. Right?
And number three, the ex shares more in common with her husband in terms of hobbies and last, but not least the husband and the ex have been broken up for more than three years and she is still with the guy she left him for, but they have not taken the next few steps in their relationship, meaning the ex and the new guy have not gotten the house together,
have not gotten married. So this user stalks the ex every time to see if she's getting married because she feels like only when the ex has gotten married, she would feel secure. Like, ok, now she's officially off the shelves. I can have the husband to myself and then you think nothing can happen just because she's married. That is true. Yeah. So I feel like the problem stems from the female user herself. Not so much of the act and this retroactive jealousy has eaten so much of her.
I think it echoes what we've been talking about that her sense of security, her sense of safety and self is dependent on what happens out there. So, in this case is dependent on whether that X gets married or not. Right to her. I think in this world where she believes in is like she gets married, then my security with my partner is, yeah, it's ok. It's cool. It's not
if you had a client like that, right? What would your remedy like, what would you tell her to do to like bring that safety back to herself? She even still be in this relationship because I feel like it's somehow talks.
Yeah. And I think that the only way for you to get clarity on whether to stay or to leave is to really work through what's going on. So one of the core things in terms of the things that I do with my clients is not just about rehashing, talking and revisiting what happened to you, right? Because I have a lot of clients coming in initially saying, you know, I know so much about retroactive jealousy. I know about attachment styles. I read about childhood trauma. But why is
it that I can't stop this obsessive loop? Why is it that I cannot stop assessing about what's happening with my partner's exes? And the reason to that when I hear this, it is because of the mind, body disconnect your mind is telling you, ok, you need to move on, you need to be a better version of yourself. You need to stop this obsession. However, what we know about the body is that it remembers and it stores memories from the past painful emotions, sensation,
stories from the past. If that part of the body, right? This part is not worked and looked into what you find is that there will be a greater disconnect between what the mind wants you to do and what the body remembers. So it's not just about talking about it. It's about asking yourself this very important question. So the clients that I work with would be very familiar with me asking this question. And it is this question of what are you feeling in your body right now?
What is that felt in a sensation that you're feeling in your body right now? And what this question does it forces the client to pause and be like, oh, am I supposed to feel something in my body? And then they start noticing that, oh, I'm actually feeling something in my body, right? Maybe your chest tightens, right? You're feeling something here. Maybe you feel that not in your stomach, your palms get sweaty, your fingers, you know, you feel that tingling sensation and your arms
feel very nump. So these are the things that you want to be able to take note of. What is your body trying to speak to you on noticing the sensation. And when you stay with that sensation, long enough, something will come to you. It will reveal to you the deeper layer of the emotion that you're still carrying. It will reveal to you the deeper layer of some memory that you're still holding on to. That is still very painful.
It takes a lot of work on an individual's part to really confront yourself. And I think for people that have not having an understanding partner will definitely make it a lot easier for you to do that. But in this next story, this is tough. It's a female. My boyfriend and I have been dating for three months we met on Bumble. He was previously engaged to someone that he met online as well and they were doing long distance for two years, right? And they had plans to marry.
She had plans to move and, you know, and all that, but they eventually called off the engagement because she had been holding on to a lot of relationship issues, but she didn't really share that with him. So he didn't have closure, right? And he kept trying to like win her back, kept trying to, you know, try to make the relationship work. He really loved her after they broke up. He dated like four different girls before finally dating the
poster who posted this. Now she has a bit of retroactive jealousy and she thinks, well, see, like that girl was his one true love. Who am I in his life? And he had to date so many people to get over her. What do I have to fit into his life? She says that she knows she needs therapy but she can't really afford it right now. And he understands that this is retroactive jealousy but it does make them feel a little bit more distant. It's hard to deal with. Right. Even as a partner, it's
hard to be supportive. Have you seen situations like that?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that this deals with the wound of not being true, chosen and being prioritized in the past. And that's why it's coming up today as why can't I be his one and only, right? Why am I not the chosen one? Am I not good enough for him?
And that's not true. Yeah. So what would you tell the clients?
I would love to be able to tell them in a sentence. But I think it's so hard because there are many layers to it. But what I would say to this person is to get curious about where this voice is coming from, this narrative that's coming to you of like, why can't I be his one and only allow yourself to look deeper and to see whether other past experiences that you've been through in your life, maybe in your childhood experiences that made you feel that way
where you felt as though you weren't chosen. You felt as though you weren't made priority number one. And I think the more you get curious about past stories that your body is still holding on to, it gets you to get a bit closer to what it is that you need to have that closure with.
So once you identify, right? OK. This is coming from this in the past. Yeah. What's the next step? Like what, how do you get to closure?
You work with your body? For example, when you understand the patterns that's coming up the question to ask yourself where when this trigger comes up, where am I feeling in my body? Let's say it's coming through your chest, right? When you stay with it long enough, sometimes what comes up is I'm feeling sadness that's coming up when you
stay with it long enough. Sometimes a memory comes to you and maybe you see a younger version of yourself, maybe 56 year old, you that's curled up in one corner of the room.
And then what you're also seeing is that you're hearing noises, your parents fighting outside the room, and you're also connecting to this experience of this younger version of you who feels really sad, very torn that your parents are constantly fighting, feeling very lonely that you know, you don't have anybody to talk to, to turn to in those times, right? So these are the parts of ourselves that we want to get curious on because these are important data and
insights that we want to collect about ourselves. So that the more we understand and parts of ourselves that are still frozen in the past, the more we are able to come in to help these younger wooden parts on the inside. So
after understanding all of those, is it possible for retroactive jealousy to completely go away?
I would say it is possible to
heal
from retroactive jealousy. And what I mean by healing is number one, you have a more transformed relationship with your triggers and your emotions, right? So instead of seeing those as like, oh my God, I need to fear my triggers and my emotions, you come from a place of oh there coming up right now. So what is the message you're trying to speak to me on? So you come in from the lens of curiosity and compassion to learn more.
Number two, what you'll notice is that there will be a reduced dependency and reliance on external factors and validation in order for you to feel secure and safe in your own body, in order for you to feel secure and safe in your relationship. And number three, you realize that there will be a greater degree of acceptance when it comes to the concept of healing, right? You no longer see it as you know, healing is something that is like an end destination, an end goal which I have
to rush to, to complete and that's it. It's not like a one off thing but healing. It is this continuous ongoing journey that you have to move through till
your very last breath. And I feel like when we reframe and have a healthier relationship on how we view doing the work, seeing the different emotional parts, it helps to create an inner world that feels actually ok to be in, you know, not a scary place that we have to constantly run away from or run to people in order to feel ok within our own selves.
Interesting. So last question, what if today I'm not the one experiencing retroactive jealousy, but my partner is, how can I better support my partner?
I would say one of the things it is being able to listen without judgment because for someone who is struggling with retroactive jealousy, there's already so much shame that they're dealing with on the inside, right? If a partner were to come in and try to shame the person label them, you know, you're like, you know,
dramatic diva, you know, crazy. It makes that part of them that's holding on to that pain of being abandoned, rejected, want to close off even more and that part wouldn't want to come out and share the story of what is really causing him or her to be in pain.
Number two, I would say it is important for the person who is supporting someone with retroactive jealousy to also be aware of boundaries because it can get exhausting to be able to navigate through the conversations, the discussions with someone who's struggling with that. So be aware of your internal capacity, have self care practices for yourself to make sure that you yourself, I think you care of yourself, you're filling up your own cup so that you can be in
a space to help your partner as well. And I think number three is to be able to encourage healthier coping mechanisms. So if you're noticing that the person is indulging in a lot of obsessive sort of tools and coping mechanisms to be able to gently let them know that this is happening and to encourage them to also seek professional support because, you know, on your own, it can be really, really hard to navigate all the deep dark
parts inside of yourself on your own. But having that someone that is neutral who is able to come in to compassionately listen to your story, hold space for your emotions and walk with you in that journey. My gosh, it will feel like a huge load of whatever it is that you're holding on the inside.
But it's not easy for a partner to be doing all that. You know, because I think when it's in regards to you, your partner is being jealous about your past, right? I think it's very easy for someone to feel attacked for something that they had no control over because it was just part of life and you're coming at me with something that I can't do anything about. I can't undo I can't change. So I think that's how things
escalate. Right. I would presume because, you know, it's very easy for the other person to feel affected by your emotions and they can't do anything about it.
I guess
this is what like no said, it's a constant work in progress up to your very last breath. Wow, this, this is an insane episode. We unpack so much trauma but before we go, no, any final pearls of wisdom for our audience.
Um I would say if this flavor of jealousy is something that speaks to you, I want you to know that, you know, you're not alone. You know, there's so many individuals who also struggling with this, both men and women just because we don't talk about it a lot and often does not mean that it does not exist, does not mean that it's not common, right? So that's one.
And I want you to know that, you know, whatever you're feeling right now, this sense of jealousy has nothing to be ashamed of because jealousy, it is a universal human experience. It is a natural emotional response to something inside of you that feels threatened outside. So our role is not to add more shame and judgment to it, but it is to be able to come in from that lens of understanding OK. Right now something
feels off. I feel threatened by something. How can I go in to understand a bit more on what is below the water line and to see it for what it is, which is a signal, a message, right? That's trying to speak to us on something and not to take it as a life sentence. And I think the more we're able to do this work, to form this relationship with ourselves, to get curious about our triggers our emotions, the more our inner world will feel like a safe place to
be in. And this can help to create a conducive environment to deepen our healing and to make sure that, you know, we are, are living life to the fullest.
I love that. Thank you so much. No. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today and yeah, take some time to reflect as always with any episode after Nora, we all have to sit and reflect on what she said. And I'm sure we can find more little tidbits on Nora's Instagram at the Good Life underscore therapy. Don't forget to follow them and also follow us as well at isla.co. That's right. You can listen to us and me listen, Spotify Apple podcast on
your notification. We're on youtube as well and who knows Nora might come back for a third time. No, but thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'll see you next time. Bye.