Daily Reflection

“People tend to get jealous of those they love when they get afraid someone else will make their loved one happier than they do.” (Andrew Arthur Dawson)

I’m amazed at how animals often duplicate some of our worst traits. Since adopting our two new female Calico cats, who we affectionately named Grace and Frankie, I’ve seen a negative behavior in Grace that I myself have demonstrated before.

While Grace most definitely has established herself as the alpha, deep down it’s overly obvious how deeply insecure she is, as she tends to get jealous quite easily. Showing any sort of attention to Frankie, Grace most assuredly will push her way into it and do her best to force Frankie out. When Frankie tries to have fun and do those things cats normally do to get attention, Grace usually attempts to butt her way in to distract my attention onto her. On some level, I guess you could say she seeks attention more than not and giving any of it to Frankie most definitely bothers her. She will even lay across both Chris and I’s laps at the same time, almost as if to say to Frankie our laps are for her only. So, to make sure I don’t leave Frankie out, I sometimes have to go into a separate room with just her and close the door for several hours to provide her my undivided attention that she deserves too. What Grace can’t seem to grasp is that I have enough love for the both of them to go around, but the more she demands my total attention due to her jealousy, and the more she tries to take it away from Frankie, the more I find myself avoiding her.

What’s ironic about all this, is how many friends, partners, family, and other loved ones throughout my life I’ve done the same thing to. One of the biggest was with my ex-partner Jerry. When I began to see him place more love to his friend Perry or to the bed and breakfast we owned together back then, the more I got jealous and acted out because of it. I’d say things or do things to keep him and Perry apart or to make him despise the B&B, but never to any success. All it led to was constant fights and our eventual break-up. Why? Because jealousy isn’t a healthy quality whatsoever.

It may seem attractive at first when someone expresses jealousy over something you’re doing, as it initially can show how much they care about you and your life. But the more their jealousy gets expressed towards you, the more it becomes unattractive, usually leading the person in the exact opposite direction that the jealous person wants.

Deep down a jealous individual does not accept themselves and is extremely insecure. They don’t feel their value is worth much so they tend to believe they’ll always lose those they love because others will seem a better option than them. Jealousy then ends up being the outer expression of the inner imbalance leading them to be alone over and over again. It’s a self-defeating trait. The solution to change all this is to foster more self-love, something I’m still working on. I’m just glad that the Universe provides simple reminders of things we can still work on in our lives, like through the eyes of my precious jealous cat Grace…

There is plenty of love in this world to go around, but I must first love myself enough to fully embrace what love others have to give. I pray my Higher Power will continue to help me love and accept myself just as I am, so that in turn I can appreciate the love I’m given and not feel the need to demand more through unhealthy behaviors like jealousy.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Author: Andrew Arthur Dawson

A teacher of meditation, a motivational speaker, a reader of numerology, and a writer by trade, Andrew Arthur Dawson is a spiritual man devoted to serving his Higher Power and bringing a lot more light and love into this world. This blog, www.thetwelfthstep.com is just one of those ways...

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