Dr Emily - You, Me & Jealousy

To be jealous is to be human. It is what you do with that feeling that counts. 💌Join 8,300+ people getting our takeaways and favourite moments from this episode in our weekly newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy Our resident psychologist Dr Emily Musgrove is in the studio to talk about THAT podcast moment: the one where Ryan admitted he was jealous of Hugh and Hamish Blake’s relationship. The one that lives in Imperfects history. According to Dr Em, we develop the emotion of jealousy at just 9 months old, and it shows up everywhere; family, work, school, friends. Feelings around jealousy can be extremely painful, especially if it is accompanied by shame. In this episode, Dr Emily explores why jealousy can be so dangerous when not listened to, and why our jealous behaviour can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. See you on the other side. If you want to watch this full video on YouTube, follow this link - https://youtu.be/dlufNQ7iXCc 00:00 - The Day Has Arrived 02:48 - When Ryan Revealed He Was Jealous of Hugh & Hamish 7:45 - Shame Tells You Not To Speak It 10:02 - Harry Styles Walks Into a Super Market 15:54 - You’re Making My Dog Jealous 22:31 - Feeling Jealous vs Being Jealous 43:49 - Hugh, Ryan & Hamish: 4 Years Later 47:50 - How To Have The Conversation (And Build Trust) 59:32 - You Can Feel Jealous AND Still Trust 🫖 Episodes mentioned in this episode Hamish Blake - Let’s Talk About Self Doubt - https://bit.ly/3QG8MXo 💻Things to check out Uncertainty vs inevitable pain study - https://bit.ly/43NWFKQ 🎵Songs to listen to Jealous Guy by John Lennon - https://bit.ly/43NWzCY 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuWz 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuW 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - http://bit.ly/4mqunxu 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts too, here - http://apple.co/theimperfects

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Jealousy.

• 0:01Speaker 01

  Almost all of us feel it, yet almost none of us want to admit it.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  It's an experience that arises when there is a perceived threat to a valued relationship.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  In my mind, at the time, I was like, how could you not realise that this would be a weird thing?

• 0:15Speaker 02

  The thought that I was doing sounded was upsetting. Do you listen? Awful.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Hearing you say that, like, I haven't gotten jealous in a long time. It's like, how?

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Jealousy is a normal human emotion that, like any emotion, is information and a signal that we can tune into wisely if we're willing.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Jam, I saw was talking to someone in the fruit and veg section. Turns out it's Harry bloody Styles. No.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Yes. I wasn't jealous though, because it's just Harry Styles.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  How do I show up when this feeling is here? What am I willing to stand for in the face of this feeling of jealousy? Quick, is anyone here a doctor?

• 0:58Speaker 03

  Yes, her name is Dr Emily and she's a psychologist. Please welcome to The Imperfects, our very own psychologist.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  Dr Em.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Hello. Oh, she's back.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  She is.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  She is back. It's good to see you.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  I'm here.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  I feel I didn't do this last time, but just to remind everyone, Dr Emily, our resident psychologist, everyone knows this by now. I mean, you're bigger than the podcast at this point, I think. It's like you're your own planet and then we're orbiting planet Dr Em at this point. It's true.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  We are butt moons.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  It's true. We are butt moons. And you've been coming on this podcast for years. Every time you come on, you bring on, like, you want to, like, focus in a clinical sense on a previous episode and a topic that we talked about and go into it on a deeper level. And I'm assuming you're doing that again today, not breaking format.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  You're not going to do your top 10 plays of the week from the NBA?

• 2:03Speaker 00

  There's so many to choose from.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, we'll be, yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  It's finals time, there's so much.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's big.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  But anyway.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Em.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Well, today I would like to talk about jealousy.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Oh, it's here. The day has arrived.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  Yep. And you might remember that I have done an episode previously on envy.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  And I've made them very distinct because they are very distinct experiences and emotions.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  It's weird that you would wear green today and not then.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  What are the chances?

• 2:39Speaker 02

  What are the chances?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Green with jealousy.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  Yes, and to really kind of introduce this topic, I'm actually going to go back to, I think a very well-known episode that you did with Hamish and Hugh. And you were there, of course, Josh, as well.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  I was, but I know what you're referring to.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Where you were expressing your experience of jealousy.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yes, I was, I'm sure.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  In a friendship context.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, luckily I'm completely over it now.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  You are, eh?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Pretty much.

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Pretty much.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. All good, all good, I'm fine, I'm actually fine, I'm actually fine. Stop asking me, I'm actually fine.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Yes, so I thought we'd go back and listen to that to give a bit of context and then I'll spend.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Just trigger warning to future Ryan when you're listening to this.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Ah, great, yes.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  So let me get, I'll get that out for you guys.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  And I thought, well, here's a problem. I was sitting in the green room going, oh, we're going to issue here because probably everyone's favourite story is about when I met Hamish. And part of us going, oh, I love Hamish, but incredible, blah, blah, blah. And then I'm like, oh, I can't have Ryan hear me say that. And so I had this huge panic before going on stage going, do I tell this story now? Or like, is it going to confirm all Ryan's fears?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 02

  So it's been a, like, I'm happy to have this discussion, I have to say.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  This is great to clear the air. To be honest.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  I don't have much to add, by the way, you guys.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  This is where I go, the main reason I want to be friends with Hugh was for Josh.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  I still do have, and I wasn't sure whether I'd talk about this, but I do have a weird, I mean, we joked about me being a possessive friend, but there is a weird possessiveness that I do have with, well, with both of you in certain ways. And it's like, you know, there's a Seinfeld episode about don't let your worlds collide, you know? And there is, there is part of me that like, the thought of you two becoming friends, it, it, it does, it, it worries me.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  I would say that's a common feeling there, right? I would say you're probably not as alone as you think in that feeling. I can, I can understand that feeling. I reckon adult friendships, you're like, oh, I feel, you know, we get less of them as we go through life and, well, they become more and more special and we know how valuable they are. Like, we know at the kind of the end of the day, like your friends and family and your interpersonal relationships are really all you've got. And I think if you've got a special friendship, it's hard, in terms of self doubt, it's hard to, if you feel like that they see something in someone else that they don't see in you.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  It's exactly that.

• 5:13Speaker 05

  It's hard to swallow that because it challenges that feeling of specialness because you start to get worried and.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  And it reinforces that self doubt of like.

• 5:22Speaker 05

  Mm, it helps that voice go, see? Maybe not that great.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Like, I get, I get stuck in my head about things like, oh, well, you guys both like cricket, you guys both like exercise, you're going to form this special bond and then I'll be cut out because I can't provide you guys with enough of the stuff that you want in a friend. Yeah, that was me.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  But no, I was joking, I was joking before. It's interesting listening to that back, actually, because I can hear in my voice how like nervous I was. Cause a bit of context for that clip in that episode, like Hamish was on as the guest, obviously, and we, the, the intention of the episode was not to talk about that. It was nothing, and that just sort of came up organically. So I sort of found myself suddenly talking about this feeling of jealousy that I had. So I can, I can hear my voice really, a really nervous voice.

• 6:14Speaker 00

  How does that feel like that has changed for you?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Well, there's something that Hames said in that episode. I forget the exact wording, but it was something like no, no one can, no one can take away my wry love or something like that. There was something to that effect.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  He used the analogy of his kid saying when he had his second child, he didn't take love away from his first child.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  It was a new love he had for this.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it doesn't, it, it really, no, I don't, I don't have that jealousy. I mean, that ship has sailed anyway, but I don't have, I don't have that, that jealousy really at all. Like maybe like little, if I'm in like a, and it would have nothing to do with, with them. But if I'm like in like a bad place, or if I'm like in a place of like feeling a bit low or my self-worth is down, that might mean that I feel a bit more jealous if I hear that they've hung out or spoken or whatever. Um, but no, I mean, but hearing it now, it's, it feels like a long time ago, it was a long time ago, but yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think there's, there's a lot in your response even. Um, and before I kind of get into a whole lot of the theory and, and things about jealousy, I really appreciate the shaky voice part. Um, you know, to me, it's approaching a fear. What will people think? How will this be taken? But also an exposure to the feeling of shame that we have for feeling jealous.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Um, because I think when what I'll talk about today is that jealousy in cultural terms is often painted as an ugly emotion. And that in fact, it's almost shameful to have it or to experience it.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  But interestingly, what we know about shame is that shame tells you not to speak it. It tells you not to tell Hamish that you feel you have an experience of jealousy because it might somehow expose your flawed nature.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now that I think about it, it's, it's also.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  It's like being caught caring.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Which is, which is so silly because it's like, obviously we care about our friends. But maybe this is more of a, of a male thing. I don't know. But there's something about like, to be jealous means that you obviously care a lot.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  And as a guy, it kind of feels like we spend a lot of time pretending we don't really give a shit. So yeah, catch you whenever. But inside you're like, God love to see you tomorrow.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  You don't want to say that.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  You want to play a call and act like, oh, I've got heaps of friends.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  That I'm unaffected.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I think you actually hit there really kind of on the definition of jealousy. And that is, or the understanding of what jealousy is. And that is that it's an experience that arises when there is a perceived threat to a valued relationship.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  And what that says is two things is that I really care about this person, this relationship, and I'm fearful of losing it.

• 9:26Speaker 00

  And that's why it's also different from envy. So envy is wanting something that someone else has. Jealousy is feeling fearful of losing what I already have.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  But you can have, you can be not jealous and have a, like a relationship that you truly value.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  You can also not get jealous.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I know. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking the same thing. It's kind of like, it's like, just because you're not jealous doesn't mean that you don't care.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. If Harry Styles was in love with Penny.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Well, let me, let me give you, let me give you an actual example. When Jam and I were in Italy.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  It's in Europe. We're in Italy and we're in this little supermarket, this tiny town. And I checked out first, was standing up at the front near the checkout thing. And Jam, I saw, was talking to someone in the fruit and veg section in the supermarket. And, and I looked and I was like, who's she talking, who's this guy? Is he like a, is he work there or whatever? Turns out that's Harry bloody Styles.

• 10:38Speaker 04

  Yes. Anyway, we spent a long time that night trying to figure out where he was staying and try to get invited to a party we assumed he was having. So anyway, I wasn't jealous, so because it's just Harry style.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  So, look, I will get into why we might be more prone to feel jealous and why we may not be in those circumstances. But I do really want to emphasise that jealousy is arising because we fear losing this relationship. Or it changing. So it's not that, you know, if I don't have this feeling, it doesn't mean that I don't value it. But equally, I will say that we want to have, in some ways, like,

• 11:19Speaker 00

  for example, if you found out that your partner was having an affair. If you didn't feel jealous.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Is that a problem?

• 11:27Speaker 04

  It's almost a red flag, isn't it?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  Yes, it's a red flag that I don't care enough.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  So it's actually really informative that it's, and this is the thing, is that jealousy is a normal human emotion that like any emotion is information and a signal that we can tune into wisely if we're willing.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  It's interesting when you said that, the, I'm assuming I would feel jealous, but my immediate thought was like betrayal and anger.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I mean, you'd have all of those. You'd have all those things too.

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, but.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Anyway, it's like jealous wasn't the first one in that scenario that popped into my head.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  No, you'd have, you'd have the big ones.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  Of course, of course. And equally, if, you know, you saw that, I don't know, your partner was becoming really close with someone and maybe you were feeling excluded, for example, then yes, this is a really natural thing to arise. And so from an evolutionary point of view, if we look at what's the function, what's the adaptive function of jealousy?

• 12:29Speaker 00

  There, you know, there are theories that suggest that there are gender-based responses. So for example, that in cave person times, a, a male might become possessive of the female or attuned to threats from other males to protect the progeny. And also to be certain that their offspring was his.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Okay, so it's protecting his gene pool there. Does that make sense?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. So there was, when that feeling would arise, it would prompt behaviour to protect the bond that's already here. Equally, if, and this is to do with parental investment theory, and you know, there are some, there are some flaws to this, obviously, but I think it's kind of an interesting take on evolutionary history here, that for women in cave person times, the arrival of a feeling of jealousy would prompt a desire to create greater closeness with their male counterpart or their male partner, because if their male partner was becoming emotionally close with

• 13:37Speaker 00

  other females, that could threaten the woman and their children's capacity to gain care and nurture from the partner. So basically, it's a protective function. I want to maintain this bond because it ensures our survival.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  Jealousy is the, just thinking about it, I haven't felt jealous in a very, very, very long time. It's the worst feeling, though. It's awful.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Awful.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  It, it is. It's, it's deeply painful, and because at its heart, it's representing almost an anticipatory grief and loss.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  So if we think about it, that if I'm, if this feeling of jealousy is arriving, it's telling me that I'm worried that I'm going to lose this relationship, or it would change in some way. And if that fear was to come true, it would mean, it would mean loss.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Hmm. What's, what's the feeling when, is it still jealousy? Because I, I know, I get what you mean by jealousy is the threat of losing something that you already have. But can you, is it still jealousy if it's like you're, if you've broken up with someone? And then you see them with someone else?

• 14:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  So then technically you've already lost them. Is it still jealousy?

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. So I get what you're saying there, but that, yes, that is a very valid experience to have. It's a yearning for what I did have.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  In some ways. We can also experience what's called like a retrospective jealousy. So I might experience in almost like sometimes invasive thoughts about my partner with their ex. For example. And that's eliciting like a jealousy in some way.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  So there's that experience of feeling this in response to imagined previous experiences. We can also then most obviously experience current or even imagined future threats as well. So it's a pretty broad ranging kind of experience. Yeah. How is that going so far?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Chicks.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, makes sense. All right. So if we think about jealousy, often I think we kind of put it in the context of our romantic partners. But I really want to emphasize that jealousy is an emotion that we experience both across the lifespan and across different kinds of relationships.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  We also know that animals experience jealousy too. So dogs tend to be the most jealous species.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Like of their owners, like with other dogs?

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes, or other people.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Ah, oh.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Yep. So if basically like the dog, for example, is, you know, when someone else arrives is feeling a threat to my attachment.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  With my carer.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  How did they work that out, do you know?

• 16:35Speaker 00

  I've no idea.

• 16:37Speaker 00

  Not my wheelhouse.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Are you feeling jealous?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  A little bit, yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  I mean, I guess they're looking at kind of, I don't actually know, I'm not even gonna do that. Um, but we also know that jealousy is a, an emotion that we can measure even in like, I think the, the period is around nine months old of an infant, that we can see that infants even are expressing an experience of jealousy because this primary attachment here is being threatened. So it might be that a baby might cry if they see their parent with another child, for example, is like here represents a, a threat to this valued attachment. Okay.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  So that's one, one example of this is like a normal human response that is being elicited to hopefully regain and protect the relationship.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 17:30Speaker 00

  We also know that we can experience jealousy within family systems. So particularly if there's a favourite child.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  That's really, that's a really tricky one.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  How do you know if you're the favourite child or not?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Great question.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Like, how did you guys figure it out?

• 17:51Speaker 00

  I actually remember someone saying to me, like an, an early supervisor saying, you only ask that question if you actually are the favourite.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Oh, of course. Yeah, definitely.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, because the person that's not the favourite knows.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, anyway, favouritism, family dynamics are, are, you know, rife for experiences of jealousy. Um, so, you know, one person is closer. It can also work in relationships where there are children too. So it could be that a partner is, is jealous of their, their partner's attachment to the child.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 00

  So the arrival of a child can sometimes threaten this primary attachment that was between two partners.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Hmm, yep.

• 18:31Speaker 00

  So that's an, that's another experience that can happen. I mean, obviously we can experience jealousy in the classroom.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  At work.

• 18:39Speaker 00

  Yep, at work.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Absolutely in friendships. You know, adolescence is a, is a really kind of volatile time to experiencing lots of jealousy. And then, of course, we can bring in envy too into this equation. So you're actually then experiencing both. Like, for example, I might be jealous of this person who's threatening my attachment with my best friend. And to layer on, I also want her hair.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Or, you know, like, she's better than me. So we start to move into that comparing mode. So now I've got a threat to my attachment. And I also feel really envious of the things that they have.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  I could be wrong here, but the, in fact, I almost certainly am. But I have a hunch that if you were to like, track occasions of jealousy, of jealous feeling in general across the population. It feels like if it was like a, it would be like a bell curve of distribution. Where the peak of that bell curve would be like, about the evolutionary time of when people are ready to reproduce. So like late, mid teens, late teens. I'm not saying that they should, but I'm just saying like from a reproductive point of view.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  God, the clarifying statement we have to make.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. But I know for me, I feel like I, my jealousy went up then, and then it's kind of just like dissipated as I get older and I'm less.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 04

  As similar to Hugh, I'm struggling to remember when I was jealous. I feel envious a lot.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  All the time, but jealousy is not one that's that present for me. I thought, I wonder if there's anything to that.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think, well, actually, there's some research that suggests that people in their twenties and early thirties are more, more likely to experience more jealousy in that era. And that, that people over 50 experience less jealousy.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  So my bell curve is wrong.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Well, no, it's not that. It's kind of, it's actually kind of consistent. Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not wrong, it's unright.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  So if you look at developmentally, what is happening during that period? Even if we include adolescence into that too. Developmentally, what, what are the main tasks of that era? Well, that, that season.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Of the late twenties, thirties.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Or even like late adolescence into, into your twenties.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Maybe late twenties. Yep.

• 21:01Speaker 04

  Romantic relationships.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Sort of independence.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Generally.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Career.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Career.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  Nightclubbing. Children at the end. A bit of chicane at the start.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Clubbing.

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So developmentally, it makes sense that we're going to be experiencing this more. When we're, you know, in, in some ways, trying to establish long-term, stable, trustworthy patterns of relationships.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  Um, and that that is in more fluctuation during that period of time.

• 21:30Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's not to say, though, that we can't experience it across the lifespan and also have acute periods of it as well.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Um, I can imagine that there'll be a point where I reckon, I'm predicting, the next time I feel jealous is when my kids have friendship, like when they become teenagers and want to become friends, like don't want to spend time with them anymore and want to spend time with their friends.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  I reckon I'll be jealous then.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, quite possibly.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  You know, or it might be even things like if they develop a friendship with a mentor. Um, and they're wanting to spend time with that mentor and not you.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 00

  You know, it's really kind of any circumstance where we're starting to feel like I'm losing them.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 22:11Speaker 00

  And it is, it is deeply painful. It's deeply painful and it feels desperate. There's something, um, there's an immense amount of suffering that comes from the place of feeling this. Um, yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Well, and how to, like in, in a, in a parental parent child situation, like you're just, you're talking about, how do the, how do parents often react to that jealousy or how do they deal with that jealousy?

• 22:38Speaker 00

  Well, I think this is the really important point that we want to perhaps explore because this is the part that either has the capacity to create better communication and boundaries or has the capacity and potential to be extremely destructive and harmful. And so this is where we want to differentiate our experiences of feeling jealous and our behaviours of jealousy or jealous behaviours. So if you imagine that, um, you, you know, you're witnessing a relationship being formed, let's just say in friendships for us done. You're witnessing someone getting close and you feel jealous.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  The question is, what happens next? What do you do in response to this feeling?

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  Now, you know, not surprisingly, there tends to be, you know, a few different pathways that we go. And one of them can be we become really internalising. And again, it can start to feel very lonely and very isolating. So it might sound something like, they're gonna leave me, I'm not as good as them. We start to hear some shame showing up, quite a lot of shame accompanies jealousy. So we become, we turn inwards. We might withdraw, we might start withdrawing from the relationship to protect against overt experiences of rejection. Or we might just put our head in the sand and just keep on doing what we're doing. I don't wanna feel this, I don't wanna know about it, we're just, it's not happening.

• 24:10Speaker 00

  It's kind of like this avoidant response. Or we can move into much more of a hypervigilant state that brings with it sometimes urges for surveillance. So what I mean by that is, we start reassurance seeking, we start checking, we start being really attuned to what is happening in that relationship, potential relationship over there.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Now, as you can imagine, the pathway that this leads in some circumstances is where it turns from like a benign, normal experience of jealousy into what we could call a pathological jealousy, which is an experience that often results in violence. And if we look at the research around domestic violence, there was a report that came out that not that long ago that suggested that in something like seventy four percent of DV reported cases, jealousy was listed as an element.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  So jealousy has the capacity to be extremely dangerous.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  And I'll explain, you know, what tends to happen here is that when it moves into kind of a pathological jealousy.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  In the experience for an individual in that space, it becomes resistant to evidence. So it might look like checking in on the partner and being convinced that they're not telling the truth, being convinced that they didn't say that they were where they were. They become intensely preoccupied with suspicion and possessiveness. And it's driven by basically this fear of loss. And that is a very, very difficult place to be in because it's so resistant to actual factual evidence. So I just want to acknowledge upfront that, you know, like any emotion, it's a, there's a spectrum

• 26:12Speaker 00

  of responses to the painful experience of it. And so I really want to highlight that jealousy, when it's not listened to wisely, has an immense capacity to be very, very dangerous and very harmful.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  But if we reel it back and kind of come back into what I would say is like kind of normal ways of relating with this experience, I think it would be useful to have a look at the people that might be more prone to experiencing jealousy. Does anyone have a sense as to, you know, what might make you more feeling more jealous?

• 26:47Speaker 04

  Well, I imagine a lack of, like if you have low self-worth and a belief that you're this like that you're unlovable or that you're some way flawed and not deserving of love.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  I can imagine that that would be a very clear case.

• 27:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 27:04Speaker 02

  Or maybe past experience where that has like, something has happened where maybe you, with a romantic partner, they left you for someone else. Or they had an affair or whatever. The next time you're in a relationship, if you, it could be irrational, but the fear of it happening again could lead to jealousy.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  There are of course some risk factors or points of vulnerability that might increase the likelihood of experiencing jealousy more frequently or more intensely. And so, yes, early experiences, early harmful experiences of, you know, things like mistrust and abuse, experiences of abandonment, experiences where, you know, most genuinely people have left, people have died too, that's a rupture of attachment there as well. And people who have, who tend to have an anxious attachment style. So an anxious attachment style tends to be quite associated with experiences of jealousy. And if we dig underneath that, of course, that makes sense.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  I'm anxious and I'm worried and I feel unsettled about losing something that I so dearly value.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  So of course, that's going to make sense.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  And it's, and it's, you've been, you've seen evidence that either people leave in the past or you have been abandoned and it's like, it's not, it's not, it's not an impossibility that it could happen again.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yes, this is a real possibility for all of us, whether we feel super jealous or we don't, is that no relationship is ever certain. Whenever we enter any kind of relationship, there is always a possibility that it could end. I think the question that we have to sit with is, am I willing to show up with it, with this possibility that it could end and do it anyway? And so that's this kind of great challenge in there with, with jealousy is letting it be information, letting it be some wisdom. But can I continue to show up knowing that this is something that I value? That's a tricky thing which I, which I will come to.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  But I do really want to perhaps offer some, I guess, some understanding and perspective that this jealousy feeling that is arising is perfectly okay. It's perfectly like a very normal human response. It's then what we do with it that really, I think, really matters.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  The other, this is in the context often of um romantic relationships, but it certainly shows up in other relationships also. And that is that the research has demonstrated that people who hold quite perfectionistic rules or expectations about the nature of their relationships are more likely to experience more jealousy.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Oh, of course.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  So it might be something like, my partner should never find anyone else attractive. My partner should never look at anybody else. My partner should um not keep any secrets from me. I should know what my partner's thinking. So we have this kind of set of almost like uh an idealized love. That I'm the one and only, and when you met me, that meant that you would never ever see another person again and ever notice that they were attractive. Does that make sense?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, so people who tend to hold tightly on to these kind of expectations are much more prone to experience jealousy because if, for example, you notice your partner, I don't know, talking to uh another person, a stranger at a bar, immediately, bang, violation of the rule. The rule was I'd, she shouldn't be interested in somebody else or having a conversation with someone else. And so immediately this feeling arises. Okay.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  And what, and what should you do next?

• 30:51Speaker 00

  All right, so this is, this is, this is the really tricky part. The first thing is that

• 30:58Speaker 00

  as always, we need to tune into what this feeling is telling me. So the first thing is, yes, it tells me that I really value this relationship. Um, this is really important information. I don't want to lose it.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Okay. The second and, and really challenging piece in this is how I bring this up with my partner. Or my friend, or my sibling, or someone else. Okay.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  So that's a necessary step, do you think, to bring it up?

• 31:25Speaker 00

  It, it doesn't have to be, but I think it can be, it can be useful if I really value um having an open, honest, healthy relationship with that person.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  So it's not worth just keep trying to deal with it on your own, keep it to yourself and like manage it alone?

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Well, if you think about when we talked about shame.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  You've got this feeling that you don't want and you don't like and it shouldn't be here. What's happening then?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  I'm gonna leave this one to you.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, sorry.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Let's just say if I start to feel jealous that my friend is forming a closer relationship with someone else. When that feeling arises, I might say something like, oh, you cannot let them know you feel this. You can't let them know because like what a terrible, like that's a really bad, ugly emotion that you've got there. That's going to be really unattractive. Like imagine if they knew that you were feeling jealous. Okay, so do you notice? Yep. Do you notice in that how we've got, so we've got two experiences happening? The first is the feeling of jealousy and the pang, like the wounding feeling that you get when you see a fear, losing this connection with someone. That's the first feeling. The second feeling is a judgment of that feeling not being okay.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also, well, in my situation, I think, you know, if I'm thinking about the original example with Hugh and Ham, it's like, if I bring it up, then I'm like, that's so unfair on them because it's like they're not doing anything wrong. I know that objectively. But so for me to like, go, hey, guys, just let you know, heads up, what you're doing is making me insanely jealous. But carry on if you're happy to do that. It kind of feels like a little bit, I don't know. But I know there's a better way to do it than that, obviously, but that's, that's what comes up. That's what I think about.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, but can I ask you, if you hadn't have shared that, what would the cost have been, do you think?

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Well, exactly. I mean, I don't even know if I would have shared it if it didn't come up. If it wasn't for a podcast. It wasn't for a podcast, but, but even then, like, you know, if I had have heard, if I had have not been on this show and heard that, hopefully it might have been the thing that did encourage me to talk, to say something about it. Because now having gone through it. To state the obvious, it's made a huge difference because otherwise I'm just like carrying this thing which probably turns into resentment and.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  That's the key point in there is that holding on to this feeling, whether it's that I'm not willing to share it, I'm pushing it away, pushing it down, is that it makes it bigger. There's a saying in acceptance and commitment therapy is that if you don't want it, you've got it.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  If you don't.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  If you don't want the feeling, you've got the feeling.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  So it's like saying, don't think of a pink elephant. Boom, we've got pink elephant.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Don't feel jealous. Boom, you've got it.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the, the challenge in there is to hold a sense of kindness and compassion and curiosity as to why this feeling is here. Because if you don't work with the feeling, it makes it bigger, the suffering becomes bigger and the cost to your friendship becomes much, much bigger. So potentially if you hadn't said anything and you moved into resentment, how would that impact your relationship with him?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Well, probably with both of them.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  It would, it would, um, I'd probably just retreat. I reckon a little bit in certain things. I'd probably kind of like inexplicably punish.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  Like with for no reason and probably, you know, if I was feeling like really annoyed and resentful of Hugh because of the friendship with Hamish and I hadn't spoken about it, but like years later, I'd just be like giving him the silent treatment for a reason he has no idea. It's like, what's going on with a shelt dog?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  And I, and I, and it would be, yeah, that I imagine it would get to that point where I would, he would be wondering, why is he acting weird around me?

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and if we were to go one step further, I'm not saying that this would have, wouldn't have happened, but in a lot of circumstances, it's our reaction to that feeling that becomes like a self fulfilling prophecy. So now, now our behaviours of jealousy are actually creating distance or creating hostility or creating damage to the existing relationship.

• 36:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  So then we've lost the wisdom of the jealousy at that point.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's making it worse.

• 36:18Speaker 00

  Exactly. And we can also see this in terms of what happens when we step into like non pathological, but nonetheless unhelpful behaviours, like checking phones, looking for information, reassurance seeking, texting, also the advent of social media and being able to see where people are, when people are online, what they're doing. All of this information is actually deeply unhelpful to us.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'm so shocked when I find out that like groups of like, this is probably more young people, but groups of friends, very common now, groups of friends all know where they all are, on like the find my friends thing. So you always know where your friends are. I feel like the the jealousy economy must be booming because of that sort of stuff.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  So the more information that you have about that attachment relationships, whereabouts for example, or what they have been doing, et cetera, the more vulnerable you are to experiencing more jealousy. Because if you look for it, you will find it.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Even if it's not right, you're making it up.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. And so then if we take the checking or reassurance seeking behaviour that can show up when we feel jealous, is that paradoxically, that behaviour can cause the other person to genuinely move away.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Because that reassurance seeking becomes, it can start to feel clingy and possessive. And what it will trigger often for the other person is to go, nah, this is really annoying. I'm, this is almost like a, there is a feeling here that my freedom and autonomy is being violated. And so then the feared thing happens. They do leave.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  But it wasn't because of the original jealousy, it was because of the behaviours.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  But it also confirms your.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  Your predilection for jealousy, it's like a confirmation that I was right.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, and if we go a little bit deeper than that, it will confirm very painfully, you know, a belief, for example, that people leave me.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and that I'm not worthy of them.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  But, but, but to just to, you're probably gonna say this anyway at some point, but I, I can only imagine how hard it is for someone to sort of, sort of loosen the grip on whatever surveillance or checking or whatever. If they have gone through a really horrible, if they have been cheated on and they have been left or abandoned or something, they've gone through an actual real thing. To then be in a new relationship where they've got no actual reason to be jealous, hard to loosen the grip on that.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  It's really hard. Often the analogy is, is used that, you know, we all have an alarm system, an internal alarm system that alerts us to threats to our relationships or like the loss of our relationships. And that for some people with a certain kind of history, that alarm system is just simply much more sensitive than someone else's alarm system. So they're gonna be, you know, their alarm is gonna go off much more frequently to alert them to this danger, but the alarm is not always accurate.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  It definitely makes you act in a way that, um, I just had a memory of, like I was seeing someone for maybe like a couple of weeks and I went to the bathroom and came back and they were checking my phone. And I didn't know them that, like, like been a couple of weeks, it'd been really good in the first couple of weeks. And I was like, what the? No, I don't know, just, I just, and it turned out that had been cheated on previously. And they're like, no, no, it's just like, I was just sort of defended for a bit and then told that story. I was like, oh, that's really awful. But then in the same breath, I was like, I'm out. This is not hanging around. This is, but then that was, I almost felt like it was unfair, not unfair to her, but she was just doing it because she'd had this history of being mistreated or poorly treated.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that's the tricky part is, you know, how do we hold this with a real, genuine compassion and care that this person must have been really deeply hurt, you know, whether recently or a long time ago. Um, and so, yes, it makes sense that this feeling is alerting you and, and prompting you to take certain actions.

• 40:30Speaker 00

  In terms of how we work with this, um, of course, this is the biggest question. And I do wanna perhaps suggest that, Ryan, you bringing it up with Hamish was possibly the most powerful thing that you did. But importantly too, that, um, Hugh, both you and Hamish responded to it not with ridicule.

• 40:51Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  And not with shutting down.

• 40:54Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Because what tends to happen most often is that if we express jealousy, or even our behaviour implies it, is that someone else can, can actually exacerbate it unintentionally. So it might be something like, um, oh, you're jealous about that? That's ridiculous.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Of course I'm not doing that. Or like, there's a response of like, oh, my God, no, don't be silly. Like, you're being so silly.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Um, so when someone, when a partner, a friend, a sibling, whatever, comes to you and says, I'm just like really struggling with these jealous feelings, or I felt really jealous when you went and spent time with so and so, and you're like, oh, God, really? Like, you don't have to worry about that.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Like, they're just blah, blah, blah. What do you think happens for the person that's expressed the jealous feelings?

• 41:47Speaker 02

  I feel stupid.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Hmm, hmm.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Is it like gaslighting almost, in a way?

• 41:53Speaker 04

  There's also an element, I reckon, that, like, well, I don't believe you.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, that can absolutely happen.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  It, it could potentially also sound too defensive.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  So that the person who's feeling jealous, there's, that's coming from a real place, that they truly believe that. So if the person is really defend, not even defensive, but just like flippant, they could come across as, as a bit guilty or something.

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Even though they're not guilty.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all of those things.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Um, so often.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  But who was the most right?

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Everyone's just as right.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Yep, um.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Who's your favourite child? Out of the three of us?

• 42:36Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  You know, most often what can happen is that when we do bring it up, we can feel shamed for having it. And then what we know is that the shame then becomes really corrosive. Uh, it might make us hide, it might make us um wanna search more, reassure and seek more. It might make us hide and withdraw. Um, and so there are two parts to this. It's what we do when we experience jealousy and then what we do when someone expresses it to us. And how we can hold that a bit differently. Okay, so if we just start with, you know, what happens if someone says to you that they're feeling jealous in some, in some way or another? What do you think? What do you think you would do? Someone said they're feeling jealous of you spending time with so and so.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Well, I can maybe respond from the example of actually what?

• 43:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  That, that was. It um so first of all, Hamish, what he said was just amazing from what you were saying, like he said, straight. He said, I think that makes sense, Ryan, and I think that's quite normal. So that was like an amazing response.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  But then for me, the view was like feeling jealous more specifically of me, I think, than the friendship. I think that's why we've discussed it since.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Well, it wasn't like you weren't fearful of losing my friendship. I think you were fearful of losing Hamish's friendship.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  I, I, I don't, I wasn't really. No, it was honestly in different ways because I've known Hamish for a lot longer. It maybe was a bit of a, a more, a significant loss because we've known each other since we were fifteen or whatever.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  So it feels more like a, oh, God, my lifelong best friend.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Right, okay.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Is under threat, but that's not to say that it was one or the other. It was just to different degrees.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Maybe that's why I interpreted it at the time, but regardless, for me, it was amazing information for me, like incredible. Because I like honestly feel like your friendship is like maybe the most important friendship I've ever had in my life. And to when I like hearing that I was doing something that.

• 44:45Speaker 02

  Was making you feel uncomfortable was just, I was, because I think prior to that, I had just made the assumption you'd be so excited. I hadn't thought about it properly. I just thought you'd be so excited to know that Hamish and I had catching up blah blah. And so I would have like, talked about it very gleefully and like not knowing how it was making you feel.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  It just made me change my behaviour. Cause the last thing I want to do was make like this new, most important friendship I've ever had to, I just don't want to make you feel.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Um, and uncomfortable at all, regardless of whether it was, you know, um, rational or like, I just, so I changed my behaviour in a way that was so easy to do.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  A bit more sneaking around.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Um, no, I was just able to, just the way I, yeah, I just, I changed my behaviour in a way that was very easy to do. And I just, it was just so good to know. Cause the thought that I was doing something that was upsetting to you was awful. But so I was so happy to get information.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's really interesting hearing you say before, I don't think I've ever known anyone, like the fact that you can't remember the last time you felt, we haven't felt jealous of anyone in a long time. It's so helpful because in my mind at the time I was like, how could you not realise that this would be a weird thing, you know, that it would affect me. But like, as some, if you don't get jealous, then you just don't think it's something that anyone would feel. Hmm. So it's like, it, it makes so much more sense to me hearing you say that like, I haven't gotten jealous in a long time. It's like, how? Like, it's so weird for me. Like, I feel like I thought everyone just gets jealous of people and things all the time.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Not in friendships, I've just in romantic relationships in my early twenties, I did, that was better.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Cause that's what, like five years ago, 10 years?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Um, but that, that, that is helpful information to me. Cause it's like, oh, well, of course, cause you don't, you've got, you wouldn't have thought it would be weird at all. Or not wrong, but you wouldn't have thought it would affected me at all. Because you wouldn't have, you wouldn't get affected by it. Like if I became really close friends with one of your really close friends, I know that you wouldn't care.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Well, I was like the excitement of introducing you to Josh. It was like, oh my God. And whenever I heard you guys were catching up or hanging out, I was like, this is so exciting. I can't believe this is happening. This is so good.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I believe that is so, it's true. So it's, yeah, it's just, I guess it's just the difference between our jealousy meters.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  Well, I think that's kind of like a good point, though, and that is that we, again, that there are individual differences in our experiences of this emotion. And based upon any experiences we have had in the past, we're going to be more or less primed to experience them. And so if there was any kind of blip on the radar, so to speak, where you have felt rejected, abandoned, excluded, et cetera, then you may be more primed to notice this experience or to notice the threat. Or simply, sometimes it can just be that that relationship was so deeply and is so deeply held. And that that's okay, that this feeling was arising. It's, as I said, it's just information to say, I really value this relationship.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  In the bringing it up, I think it often veers into accusation.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:55Speaker 04

  And I think that's a dangerous area that a lot of people True. find themselves getting into. And they're like, and once those, once, like, once you've started going down that track, I feel like it's very hard to back, rewind, because people get very hurt and defensive there.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  You're absolutely right, because what it actually can sound like or start out like is accusations that you're spending too much time with them, or, you know, why did you do that, et cetera, et cetera, rather than, I am really struggling with these feelings of jealousy when you go and do that.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  Because when you're hit with an accusation, you're getting too close with them, or something like that. That will, of course, immediately elicit a defensive response from the other person. A defensive response, which might involve denying that there is anything to be concerned about, or it might involve even things like, why do you always do this? That kind of response. Like, what, like, we've talked about this a million times. You don't need to worry about this.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  So it's eliciting then a really shameful response.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  How do you, if like, let's say, for example, if like, Jam had formed a friendship with a guy, like a guy and

• 49:12Speaker 02

  And he kissed her on the head at a concert.

• 49:13Speaker 04

  Something you did do. But now that I know he never feels jealous, doesn't really again.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  On the top of the head.

• 49:20Speaker 04

  I can see why he would have done that. But only now can I see why.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  But if, yeah, so if Jam was talking to a guy and they started forming a friendship and I started feeling jealous and I could see, and I, I trust Jam, like absolutely trust Jam. And I'm not actually worried, but if I'm still feeling the jealous feelings, how do I bring it up? How do I say to her, um, how do I say to her, hey, just so you know, I'm feeling jealous when you spend time with that guy? How do I say that without getting in the way of what could be a great friendship?

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  And then there's a second question, how's she supposed to respond?

• 49:58Speaker 01

  How's she supposed to respond? So like if she's like, oh, okay, good to know, I'm catching up with him at seven.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, how's, how do you do that?

• 50:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it really depends upon the nature of your relationship. And your feelings of trust and security in those relationships. So, um, you know, yes, it's understandable that you might experience jealousy in that moment. You know, it might be, you know, something that I talk to clients about is this idea of naming the struggle that's here with your partner or with your friend. So rather than going into accusation mode or accusatory mode, it might be something like, Jam, I gotta tell you, I'm struggling a little bit with that, with these jealousy feelings. Like, am I on, am I off track here? So we can kind of bring, you can bring some playfulness to it. You can be curious about it. So, you know, that can be an invitation to discuss our boundaries.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's helpful. It doesn't have to be like a heavy sit down conversation.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  Not at all.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  And in fact, what we know is so it's healthy to have this response, healthy, really healthy. It's then this invitation, we could have a conversation now about our, our relationship expectations, what our boundaries are.

• 51:12Speaker 00

  And that the fact that yes, it's perfectly fine for you to go and have a conversation or to develop a friendship, as long as I'm also kept in mind too. So this is kind of this respectful, you know, I really deeply care for you. I want you to feel comfortable and I want you to feel safe. And that conversation by itself is, is, is very trust eliciting.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  So we can name, basically name that I'm struggling with this feeling and we can use that as a platform to talk about how do we navigate this as a couple? We can talk about it in the friendship context too. So, you know, when you had that conversation with Hamish, it sounds like it just kind of realigned you, like it just, it sounded like it anchored you again back into the safety of this attachment still being here.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  Does that?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 00

  Fit? Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it did. Yeah, it was so helpful.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. So, yeah, two parts is how do we respond when someone's acting in a jealous way or is bringing up jealousy? As best we can, and this is really tricky, is to respond with curious compassion. So rather than denying that it's happening or that they're going crazy or you're losing your mind or any of that sort of stuff is like, yeah, I get it. That must feel, that must feel hard to watch. So we validate and then open up to a discussion about what's happening there.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  So it's, it doesn't come naturally. It will not come naturally at all. This is hard to do. Yeah, okay. So that's the person that is hearing it. And then for the person that is struggling with the feeling, it's not just or even exclusive to talking about it with your other attachment. Okay. It's also how you manage and regulate this feeling for yourself too. Yep. If we think about the neurobiology of jealousy, again, like many other unpleasant emotions, it's triggering the threat center and it's felt very viscerally often in the body. So it makes sense therefore that we really want to create a sense of safety in the body.

• 53:20Speaker 00

  And so, you know, for a lot of clients, for example, we would talk about how do you, how do you soothe the body in this present moment with the knowledge that there is uncertainty out there about the security of this relationship? Okay. What I do have is this moment and in this moment, right now, I am safe. I don't know what's going to happen over there. I don't know what's happened in the past, but right now what I can do is ground and soothe myself in the presence of this moment. Yeah. So we wanted to kind of do that as a really kind of a regulation skill is to um is to really kind of bring ourselves back into regulation.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  Because once we're back in regulation, then we can look at kind of problem solving. Then we can look at probably having a conversation. Um, or really kind of kind of returning to the safety of this relationship that is currently here. How is that sitting?

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Now, I do want to acknowledge that um jealousy often can be accurate. And this is why it becomes really difficult um to decipher. Because sometimes those feelings may indicate that yes, this relationship is changing.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  And that's really hard.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  And so we can see that there is great utility in the feeling. Um, that it is again like a detection centre. It's it's detecting a change in this attachment or a threat to it. Um, and that, yes, sometimes that is true. Um, the hardest part is the not knowing. The hardest part in that feeling is fearing that it's about to end. And not knowing if it will.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  Being in the dark, basically.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, so uncertainty.

• 55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  So if we look at like, it's one of the most aversive human experiences to sit in uncertainty. We would, have I spoken to you guys about the experiment with the snakes under the rocks?

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I wouldn't remember.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  Oh, I like it. I'll tell you, I like it a lot. Um, it's an example of how intolerant we are to uncertainty. Um, and so there was this research that was conducted. Um, I'm sorry, I can't remember the authors, but I think it was in two thousand and sixteen. And they had participants um view a computer screen. And on the computer screen, there were pictures of rocks. And under some of the rocks were snakes. And the task was that they had to turn the rock over. Um, and if a snake was under the rock, they would get um, they would be administered a very mild electric shock. Um. So what they did and what was the key variable in this study was that the probability

• 56:11Speaker 00

  of receiving a shock changed or varied. So what that meant was that in some circumstances, participants were told that there was one hundred percent certainty that they were going to get an electric shock. They didn't have a choice about it. It was going to happen. In other conditions, participants were told that there was no chance they wouldn't get a shock. There were no snakes. And then in another condition, participants were told that there was a fifty percent chance that when they turn the rock over, they'll get a shock.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  And see a snake?

• 56:43Speaker 00

  And see a snake. Yep. So the snake just represented that you'd get a shock, basically. So there were these three to four different conditions where the probability of being shocked changed. The results showed that the participants that experienced the most anxiety, as measured by their physiological stress response, were not the participants that knew they were going to get shocked with one hundred percent certainty. The participants that had a fifty percent chance of receiving an electric shock were the ones that experienced the most stress. So it's like, I can sit here and I know that I'm about to get shocked with pain. The

• 57:26Speaker 00

  pain is coming. Or there's a possibility I'm about to get shocked with pain.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  The possibility, in other words, the uncertainty of what's going to happen is far more stressful. Um. And in the terms of, in terms of fearing losing this relationship, that state is often far worse than knowing for certain it's ended.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  I mean, that opens up to a whole nother pathway, a pathway of grieving and of loss. But the anticipation is deeply distressing.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, God. I can only imagine. Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:02Speaker 02

  I feel like you might know this from just like people you've chatted to in your clinic, but like, would, if like, the absolute jealousy ninja would be people who are in ethical, non-monogamous relationships? They must possess insane levels of not jealousy.

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, like, I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but I am aware that, uh, that.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Monogamous relationships tend to be more vulnerable towards jealousy than non-monogamous relationships. And often it's because there's been very clear discussions around boundaries and expectations.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  So I think that that kind of speaks in of itself to bringing to light what our implicit rules and expectations are about our relationships. Because they will have come from somewhere.

• 58:49Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  You know, they will have come from, you know, our early childhood experiences, the way in which our caregivers have modeled attachment, security, exhibition of jealous behaviours, for example.

• 59:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  So those rules and expectations often are implicit and unspoken. And there's an invitation here to, well, let's explore what this actually looks like.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  And really, ultimately, you know, when it comes to this particular feeling, if I feel safe enough, can I have this feeling and be okay with it?

• 59:26Speaker 00

  So can I have this feeling of jealousy here and still act in a trusting way?

• 59:32Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 59:33Speaker 00

  So it's this idea that I can have both. I can have both a feeling of jealousy and trust at the same time.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 59:40Speaker 00

  That sounds, it sounds contradictory, but it's not an either or, it's a both and.

• 59:44Speaker 04

  Yep. No, I, I, I've said this before, so I don't want to spend too much time on the story, but very early on in my relationship with Sophie, I was driving to her house, I started feeling jealous. And I either, I can't remember if it came on the radio or I put the song on, but Jealous Guy by John Lennon was on in the speaker on the car. And I remember thinking, like, I have a choice here to lean into the jealousy and act in a way. And I wanted to ask you about values, because the lyrics to that song, if people don't know, it was like, it describes a feeling of jealousy, but then the chorus is like, I didn't mean to hurt you, I didn't mean to make you cry.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:27Speaker 04

  I'm just a jealous guy.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  And I remember thinking, I don't want to be that person.

• 1:00:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  I don't want to be the person that hurts Sophie.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  Or makes her cry, or acts in a way that's, that's not the person I want to be.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  And my knowledge of John Lennon, because I'm a fan of his music, is that he was a pretty. I mean, not a great person to be in a relationship with, and I think abusive and not necessarily very great guy in relationships with women. And so I'm like, well, I don't want to be that. And here's an example of what that looks like. So I have a choice here to either go down that path, or I can not change any of the reality of the facts of the world of the way Sophie's moved, like the fact that she's got male friends and stuff like that. But I can choose how I behave and how I react and just find out, like, don't, don't change my behaviour, act like, act in the

• 1:01:20Speaker 04

  way I want to behave in the world to my values. And then just, oh, the truth will reveal itself over time.

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  That's, if there was one message, that is it. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Josh is the favourite.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Jealous and trust.

• 1:01:38Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:01:39Speaker 02

  Jealous and trust.

• 1:01:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I genuinely, this is just a me thing, but I always believed that the truth will inevitably come out, whether it comes out now, whether it comes out later, what's the suffering in between?

• 1:01:51Speaker 00

  And so, yes, in any given moment, we have a choice about how we respond to this feeling. And if we look at it in terms of the kind of person I want to be, what values are important to me is I get a choice in this moment to act in accordance with what I value, or I can get really hooked into this feeling, and that will choose my behaviours for me.

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  It's a hard task. It's not, doesn't come simply, but it requires a pausing. It really requires us to slow down, to notice, and then to ask myself, how do I show up when this feeling is here? What am I willing to stand for in the face of this feeling of jealousy?

• 1:02:39Speaker 04

  I also feel like, potentially as well, like in, when we're talking earlier about how difficult it is to have that conversation of I'm feeling jealous. I feel like, once you've made the decision to To decide to act in accordance with your values and the sort of truth revealing itself. Then you get to have that conversation from a place of your own values.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  Which means you're reestablishing in the relationship that this is the person I am.

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  And the person who I want to be. So it's like a great way to, to, just to solidify the relationship further over the kind of person you want to be in the world.

• 1:03:16Speaker 00

  Um, I think that's wonderful. Yeah.

• 1:03:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Um, it's, again, I want to emphasize it is a very normal, perfectly okay feeling to have. The more we can accept that it's here and be open to feeling it, to experiencing it, to holding it carefully. The more we can use its wisdom to have, you know, a much healthier, um, relationship.

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  Hmm. Brilliant.

• 1:03:39Speaker 02

  Amazing, Em.

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  Thank you. I'd like, I found it was a difficult one because I always want to insert examples in my life and having not experienced it for such a long time. But it did, I did absolutely think back to what an intense and uncomfortable feeling it is. And again, it's gone back a long way, but it was awful. And I just feel like for anyone who's experiencing that now or knows or is having issues in relationships with that. Everything you've covered then is so, so helpful.

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Well, I definitely encourage people to, um, you know, to give a practice at really naming it for themselves even to start with. Um, to just really kind of sit with this and sometimes even things like journaling, that feeling and that experience can be very, very helpful. Um, as a way of processing.

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  Helps me a lot. Yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Particularly if it doesn't feel safe enough to express it with someone else. I think that that is absolutely a great place to start.

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  Brilliant.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:30Speaker 02

  Amazing, Em.

• 1:04:30Speaker 04

  Thanks, Em.

• 1:04:32Speaker 00

  Thank you. Thanks for having me.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  See you back here soon.

• 1:04:37Speaker 04

  If you enjoyed this episode and want a little more, you might enjoy our subscriber only apps available on Patreon and Apple Podcasts. If you want a little more but don't want to pay anymore, then you can join our newsletter at theimperfects.com.au. And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who help make this show. A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri Wurundjeri people and we pay our respects to elders past and present. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.