Jealousy

If you are a human on this planet , chances are you've experienced it . Sometimes , jealousy for people who are ahead of you have more than you , not just in money and cars , but also in confidence , looks , iman or intelligence . The dictionary definition of jealousy is feeling or showing envy of someone or their achievements and advantages .

You can be experiencing jealousy not only of someone's material possessions , but also their talents . Brain presents to us life as a competition . They have something you don't have . They won at something you didn't , meaning limited prices being given and only one person gets it . Root of jealousy is basically scarcity mentality .

It's easy for a stay-at-home mom to get a doctorate degree , but how can I do it while working and with kids ? This type of judgment also counts as jealousy . Others are moving on with their careers . Everyone but me is skinny . Everyone is improving . In their tajweed of the Quran , any of these sentences can make you feel jealous .

Hasid or envy is destructive jealousy . You want the merit , talent , bounty to be stripped away from the other but , like I said more subtly , you might be judging them for it . Good jealousy , on the other hand , prompts you to do something about the situation to gain it for yourself , rather than stripping the other person of the blessing .

I would say overall , 10% jealousy is needed , like , let's say , if you're jealous of someone else's social decorum , you wish you had it for yourself and you strive to improve your social interactions because of that jealousy . That's the right purpose of it . But if you wish they didn't have it , that's hasad or envy .

Good news is that we are always creating jealousy . It's not happening to you . All emotions are created . The person makes me jealous . If you believe the person makes you jealous , you've given all of your power away . The person has nothing to do with how you feel .

Your feelings of jealousy are created by your brain and you will have to answer for the actions taken out of jealousy on the day of judgment . So in the Quran , chapter 4 , verse 54 , it says or do they envy other people because of what Allah has given them , of his bounty ? So it's a commonly experienced emotion . Even little children get jealous .

The problem arises when the judgment and the jealousy does not feel good and we want to do something about it . Growing up , my biggest challenge to overcome was that I was jealous of people who were socially well adapted . I was very thin and awkward . I was 5'9 . At 15 years of age I was the tallest in my class by a foot .

Very commonly I got bullied in school for my height and that left me with a lot of insecurities about my body . But now I look back and I know that that was my journey , alhamdulillah . Now notice I said that it was my journey . Prior to this work .

I was under the impression that my past is to be blamed for how I'm showing up now and I want you guys to borrow this thought , because this is an extremely helpful thought . Nothing that has happened to you in the past was ever wrong or a mistake . It wasn't bad or good . The past is a circumstance and circumstances are neutral . The past just was .

It helps me to think about it in a way that it was just my journey to take . So my insecurities about social interactions made me jealous of others with good social skills . That was one of the reasons why I came to this work and I would not have it any other way . Now I don't sit there wishing for the past to change , because I cannot change it .

It will be wasted energy and effort if I continue to dwell on the past and to try to circumvent my insecurities . I enrolled in debate club , I attempted to participate in a lot of public speaking events at the school . All of that just ended up leaving me feeling more nervous , because I was just trying to fix my action without fixing my underlying belief .

And my belief was that some people are better and more accomplished than me , and I can't be that way . All of this directly or indirectly resulted in jealousy , where I thought they had it better than me .

And the biggest smokescreen the brain creates is that the other person is happier than you just because they have what you don't have , or because they got it sooner than you , or because you think they have it better than you .

And again , it is an illusion Because no matter what possessions or talents the other person has , their happiness is created by their mind and everyone's life is 50-50 . No matter what situation anyone is in , they will always have 50% struggle in their life .

The funny thing is all you know is maybe the other person is sitting in an upward comparison with others and being jealous of others , or you even , and knowing such is the human condition . That probably is the case . But today , in this podcast , we're going to be dismantling the cycle of jealousy . A lot of times , jealousy masks itself under competitiveness .

You're going to say I'm'm a competitive person so I always get better results , otherwise I wouldn't be as successful . You will say my competitive nature is why my kids are always well groomed , my meetings always start on time , my business is successful . All of this is a result because I'm competitive .

But this competitiveness , if it leads to direct upward comparison , can be a source of jealousy . Because when you're competing , you're thinking there's competitive . But this competitiveness , if it leads to direct upward comparison , can be a source of jealousy , because when you're competing , you're thinking there's only that much to go around .

My house is cleaner , my meals are healthier , my driveway is bigger . That means you're in subtle judgment of others . I will say the only place where competition is beneficial is when you're competing with yourself to be better . A book named Gap and Gain . The authors describe how you should always be competing to be the next level of yourself .

But you should only compare yourself to the success of your effort . If you're upward , comparing or measuring yourself against how much the other person has or has accomplished , then you will fall into jealousy . And again , the evil of jealousy is when you judge others for what they have . You want them stripped off of their advantage .

Also , notice when you're a competitive person and you're up leveling your growth just so other people can compare themselves to you . Then just sitting there thinking about how many other people will be jealous of you is a massive waste of brain energy , because their jealousy is created by their brain . Your accomplishments have nothing to do with it .

If you don't take anything else out of this podcast , just understand that the concept of jealousy only hurts you .

Jealousy of a person who has more money , more modern lifestyle , healthier children , or a person who got their associate's degree sooner than you because you had a child , or your husband got laid off and you had to get a job to support the family you being jealous of them for getting their achievements faster does not hurt them at all . Jealousy only hurts you .

All of these negative emotions have a tendency to self-perpetuate with your subconscious mind . You will be unknowingly propagating them if you don't identify them and you will continue to indulge in them and continue to believe that it is happening to you . And all of this does not affect the other person one bit .

If you think your envy or jealousy is somehow going to hurt them , it's not . It's only going to keep you low . They have their own mind to manage to create their own emotions and results out of you . Engaging in fierce jealousy , hatred , anger or keeping grudges only hurts you .

So I ask you to rise above these lowly emotions , pierce through the limitations of these low vibrations , because they are like massive ankle weights . They only weigh you down and I've mentioned this before where the sciences of epigenetics is revealing more and more how our internal neurochemical state , which are our emotions , directly impact our genetic expression .

So , like I say , roughly engaging in jealousy about 10% of the time is you actually making good use of this design , but only if you're not secretly judging them or hoping that they didn't have it .

If you're jealous of somebody else's healthy relationship , how they're endearing to their spouse or how their spouse reciprocates their love , then chances are that something inside of you needs to heal about your own relationships and you hold that kind of connection valuable . This connection might have broken as a result of relationship rupture or previous trauma .

If you're jealous of somebody else's accomplishments or money , chances are you hold that as a value and it's showing up now to grab your attention . These circumstances of others' relationships and financial success are just circumstances . They just are . They are not good or bad . They are not good or bad .

If we're experiencing jealousy about them , it tells us that somewhere along the line it is valuable to us and we've buried those thoughts so that we cannot recognize these values on the surface . So it becomes our responsibility to dig up why all of this jealousy is showing up for us . And what is it that we have forgotten about ourselves ?

That type of recognition is all that these emotions are designed for . So just as a reminder , jealousy in the name of competitiveness is completely fake news In a competition . What you're making it mean is that somehow the other person's success is depleting you . Our internal shaitan will present it as we are hyper achievers .

We are go-getters and jealousy is benign in this case . But again , this is a big trick and completely fake news . You are only diminishing yourself by believing that there are limited resources . You are only limiting your own mindset at a subconscious level when you're believing that there's only that much money to go around , only that much success .

Under this weight of subconscious thought , you will always show up bound by something that is out of your control , and that is how you will continue to create limiting results for yourself .

So , while jealousy in the name of competitiveness will seem very important , especially in this modern era , and it will seem that success without this type of jealousy is impossible but actually quite the opposite is true Success with any kind of envy is impossible .

What you really want to do is learn lessons from other people's success , all the while simultaneously believing that everyone , including you , has enough . There is enough resources , money , time , strength , beauty , spirituality to go around . You can accomplish your goals and win while the other person is doing the same . It does not have to be them versus you .

So jealousy in any form , no matter how pure it seems , is always optional . If you're using it to beat yourself up , justifying it with competitiveness , or using it to rationalize limited resources of the world , or using it to judge the other person's morality , you are only sabotaging yourself .

You have the option at looking at somebody else's success and letting it inspire you to see what is possible for you . You can then use it to look inward and see how to show up with different thoughts and feelings to create success for yourself . There is enough of Allah's bounty for everyone .

So now , going back to the formula CTFAR circumstances , thoughts , feelings , actions , results all feelings are created by thoughts . So if at any point you're feeling jealous , you're thinking to yourself she has it better than me , she got there faster than me , she has more talents than me , more confidence than me . You can always trace it back to one sentence .

Ask yourself what is that sentence and what value does it hold for you ? This confidence bit that I explained used to be my mountain to climb . I always thought that everyone else in the world had more confidence than me and it just seemed factual . But because you're thinking these thoughts so many times , that's the only reason they will seem factual .

So start to question what are facts and what are optional thoughts in your brain and see from feelings of jealousy what actions you're actually taking . It's not going to be anything productive , mind you . You're not going to be showing up in your creative potential in an abundant way .

Thinking of new ways to succeed within your life , you will not be excelling , making more money or providing more value . You can never do that just from a place of jealousy . You might be doing that by suppressing jealousy , but , like I explained , jealousy is a low vibration emotion .

If you create a clean model of CTFAR , jealousy will only create more negative feelings . Grudge , greed , judgment , more negative thought spirals From this feeling . You will only attempt to bring your object of jealousy down , which would mean you're going to remain low yourself .

Now , instead of doing all of that , when you recognize jealousy , imagine what else is possible . It's possible that you have enough time , you can make enough money , you can finish your studies , even with children .

If somebody seems to have accomplished all of that before you , in spite of your hard work , that just means that there is more success in the world to go around . Success begets further success If the other person seems ahead of you . Nothing has gone wrong here . Nothing ever goes wrong . It is all by Allah's design .

So also notice when these fleeting thoughts of jealousy come to your mind . They have it better than me . They have the latest smartphone , the newest technology , better groomed , well-behaved children . Your qalb , your thought-feeling pair , will immediately constrict .

You will think that it's happening because of these circumstances , which are neutral , but your qalb is being constricted because of your thoughts about them . You also have the option to think everyone deserves the best .

If you're finding yourself in a place where you cannot break the cycle of immediately defaulting to jealousy while thinking of somebody else , then it's only because it is a path well traveled . For your brain , it's just what's familiar . Every time you think thoughts of jealousy , it becomes easier for you to think it the next time .

All you have to do is , when you notice it , you gently redirect your brain to believing something abundant , no matter how small it is , to believing something abundant , no matter how small it is . This gentle , non-judgmental redirection of your thought is the work that needs to be done , which will elevate your whole experience and lifestyle .

Inshallah , imam Al Ghazali said in his book Al Ihriya any doubt that envy is lethal for a person's worldly life as well as his religion , and that there is no danger from it to the envied person regarding his life or his religion . On the contrary , the envied person will actually benefit from it .

The fact is that envy is actually dangerous for the envier's religion , because it is through this envy that he hated Allah's predestination and the blessings that he divided among his servants . He also hated his justice that he established in this world due to his wisdom . Therefore , the envier contested that and objected to it .

This is contrary to the belief in the oneness of Allah . Additionally , the envier would share with shaitan and the rest of the disbelievers a love for crisis to befall the believers and for blessings to leave them . These are evils in the heart that devour good deeds and erase them like the night erases the day .

The person who suffers from envy in his life is tortured by it and will always be in sorrow every time he sees the blessings of Allah upon the envied person . Now , that is probably the longest quote I've ever cited in my podcast , but how true is that ? Go back and listen again if you need to .

But the most remarkable idea here was that there is no danger from your envy to the envied person . On the contrary , the envied person will actually benefit from it , and imagine how incredibly true that is . So it becomes very important for us to do this work to expanding our mind into a more abundant mindset .

Take small incremental steps and think deliberate thoughts until your qalb expands and you feel abundant within your body , believing in the true bounty of Allah . With that , I pray that Allah protects us from the sin of jealousy .

I pray that every time we fall victim of these thoughts , we are able to separate ourselves from it , and that we recognize that this is the trap of shaitan , because he wants to keep us small . I believe that Allah , subhanahu wa ta'ala , has limitless bounties in store for all of us .

I pray that the belief in the oneness of Allah and His infinite mercy expand our minds so we can become an ever obedient servant to Allah SWT only without any burden of envy . O Allah , please remove any traces of jealousy from the hearts of this ummah and please keep me in your Daraaz . I will talk to you guys next time .