Sarah’s Thoughts: Jealous of Someone? Here’s What It’s Really Telling You

Sarah Grynberg (0:02)

Today, I want to say something that I think might annoy a few people. Stop bagging out beautiful, successful people because you're jealous. As you know, I'm a mindset coach and I honestly see that this is costing you so much more than it's costing them.

And you know the thing that I mean, someone walks in or they show up on your feed and they've got it. The looks, the career, the life that just seems to work and almost straight away something in you goes, yeah, but she's probably vain. He's probably not that bright. They're fake. They have it so easy.

But there's something really going on underneath. And it feels like you're seeing straight through them. But I can tell you, you're not. You're just protecting yourself. Here's what's actually going on. When someone has a thing you quietly wish you had, your brain does this little thing to keep you comfortable. It decides that it must be lacking somewhere else. Beautiful, so they must be empty. Or successful, so they must be lucky. Confident, so they must be up themselves. There's a name for it and it's called compensation. And it feels like insight, but I can tell you it's really just jealousy with better PR. It's your mind balancing the book so you don't have to sit in the discomfort of wanting something you don't feel that you have. And look, I get it. It's the most socially acceptable jealousy there is. We've all quietly agreed that pulling apart a beautiful, successful person is completely fine, like we're exposing something. And we do it at a dinner, in the group chat, under the post, and nobody ever calls it what it is. So I'm going to call it what it is. It's not commentary. It's a defence mechanism you've been running so long that it feels like a personality.

But here's the part that I really want you to hear. The person you're tearing down, they don't pay for this. You do. Because every single time you decide beauty means empty or success means lucky or confidence means fake, you're teaching your own brain that the things you want come with a catch, that they make you feel less, that they'd make you less, that they'd cost you your depth, your realness, your substance, and a brain that believes that will quietly keep you small. It'll hold you back from your own ambition or your own success or your own confidence. Because on some level, you've trained it to believe those things are shallow, or a bit shameful, or not for someone like you. The cuddiness isn't a judgment on them, it's a cage you built for yourself. So here's what I gently challenge you to try and it's uncomfortable. So stay with me.

Next time you catch yourself reaching for the takedown, just stop and get honest about the feeling underneath it. Not, she's fake. Try, I wish I felt that good in my own skin. Not, he got lucky. Try, I really want that for myself and I don't know if I believe I can have it. That's it. That's the whole shift. You take the jealousy and instead of throwing it at them, you let it tell you what you actually want. Because the truth is, the things we criticize hardest in other people are usually just the things we haven't let ourselves have yet. So, let people be beautiful, let them be successful, let them shine out loud without needing them to be secretly broken for it to feel okay.

It genuinely doesn't take anything from you. And the day you stop needing everyone else to be less, that's the day that you finally let yourself be more.

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