A little jealousy is a good sign, right? It shows that you care. At least if you ask the internet what they think. But is it really healthy that you or your partner feel jealousy in the relationship? Let’s break it down and see if we can come up with a solid answer to this frequently asked question.

Jealousy is normally associated with caring, loving your partner, and not wanting them to be with anyone else. It’s kind of described in a protective manner. Your partner is yours and yours only. But this is the meaning our society and our human brains have assigned to the emotion we call jealousy. None of this is objectively true.

So in order to understand if the feeling of jealousy is good for relationships or not, we need to remove the meaning we have assigned to it and look at it more objectively.

What is jealousy?

Jealousy is an emotion.

But what are emotions? They consist of vibrations in our bodies created by sentences in our minds. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. So when we think a thought, that activates a vibration in our bodies. We call these energetic vibrations “emotions” or “feelings”.

So jealousy just consists of certain reactions in your body. The sensation of jealousy differs from person to person. It might be an increased heart rate, sweating, a lump in your stomach or a knot in your solar plexus. All of this is being activated by a sentence in your mind.

What is the purpose of jealousy?

The purpose of any emotion is to get us to act or react. You might have heard of the fight or flight response. This is how our primitive brains react to a threat or intense stress. It’s a great example of how our bodies feel a certain way and then act on it by fighting, fleeing, freezing, or fawning.

But this happens in all situations, not just in ones interpreted as a threat.

You think a thought, that activates a vibration in your body consisting of energy, and that energy is designed to make you do something. Or avoid doing something, for that matter. And what you do or don’t do is simply determined by what your brain believes will keep you safe and sound.

So when you feel jealous, your brain has interpreted something as a threat to your or your relationship. The physical sensation of jealousy in your body is urging you to take action to prevent or avoid something bad happening.

The only problem is that your primitive brain

1. Can very often misinterpret completely normal things as a threat to the relationship.
2. Struggles to see the long-term effects of these “survival behaviors” it’s urging you to engage in.

What does jealousy make you do?

So, if the sole purpose of emotions is to make us act or react in certain ways in certain situations, that will help us determine if jealousy is good for the relationship or not. It’s quite simple, actually. Put jealousy in your body and observe what you do when you feel jealous. Then ask yourself “is this good for the relationship or not?”

I was of course curious about what jealousy makes girlfriends want to do. So I asked my followers on Instagram what they usually want to do when they feel jealousy in their bodies.

Let’s take a look at their answers. 🙂

• Cry
• Rage
• Scream
• Fight
• Disappear
• Protect myself
• Vomit
• Run away
• Control my partner
• Shut down
• Hold my breath until I faint
• Stop doing everything
• Burn everything
• Break something
• Do everything I can to make it go away
• Blame my partner
• Say horrible things
• Stop existing
• Lash out
• Explode
• Implode
• Be destructive and impulsive
• Make my pain visible
• Murder
• Kill everyone
• Pick myself apart
• Tear myself down
• Get defensive
• Put a wall up
• Scratch myself out of my skin

Now go ahead and tell me that a little bit of killing everyone and rage is good for a relationship.

No. I do not believe that a little bit of jealousy is ever good for anything. It stems from insecurity, fear, and panic. It makes you feel awful. And it makes you act in a very destructive way. There is literally nothing good or healthy about that.

However, the thing that most people refer to when they say that a little bit of jealousy is good can be achieved anyway. Without jealousy. Because I think what people are actually referring to is attraction, passion, gratitude, protectiveness, and love. We can feel all of these feelings and take healthy actions with them in our bodies, without having to feel the murderous, painful emotion of jealousy.

Control is not love. Wanting to lash out is not love. Wanting to scratch yourself out of your skin is not love. You can love without jealousy and I can show you how.

If you want to heal your jealousy and set yourself free, click here to read about my coaching program. I have helped countless girlfriends set themselves free from the prison that jealousy has become in their relationships. You can do it with my help, too!