Managing Jealousy and Insecurity
Security
Security is merely a sensation – a feeling.
There is no such thing as security outside of keeping your head above water.
e.g. How much “security” do you need if you’re on a plane crashing down into the earth at 600mph?
How much “security” do you need if you are one of the richest persons in the world and you have pancreatic cancer? This was the dilemma of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple.
Neither has security – because security is just a feeling.
How much security do you imagine you have that the door of your home provides? Of the 10-100 individuals that pass by the vicinity of the door to your home, how many of them do you imagine if they wanted could break into your home? The answer is anyone who wants to break into your home will be able to. It’s just a matter of how much desire to pursue it they actually have.
Because security is just a feeling, how then do you get to feel more secure?
You get security from your ability to maintain your survival and influence others for help if you need it.
This is all of security. Based on your desires and your wanting for a style of life will determine what personal development you require to maintain that life and the skills you need to master to be able influence others.
Insecurity From A Non-Exclusive Relationship
Insecurity is the uncertainty (and anxiety) about oneself or a vulnerability to the threat of danger.
In the standard model of relationships, people overcome their insecurity of a relationship by playing the social games which they’ve inherited without consideration and “locking down” a partner through a contractual agreement of exclusivity – through a social contract upheld by force or a legal contract upheld by law (i.e. a marriage contract).
We maintain this as a “social game” as it’s full of unwitting (ignorance, i.e. lack of information) and emotional manipulation, and often physical violence. This isn’t a morally judgmental remark but a systemic, natural occurrence which is a behavior in all species. What makes us so special is our ability to facilitate morality (determine what’s good and what’s bad).
In the OLNE model, we insist that security is just a sensation one is solely responsible for. Therefore, you may get security – this feeling – by ensuring arrangements are well-managed.
We don’t make presumptions at the outset of OLNE. In fact, it’s having no presumptions that make OLNE so wonderful. Arrangements are created as you format your relationship. With those arrangements come commitments. It’s up to each participating parties within that arrangement to ensure its upkeep so that it’s well-managed and well-maintained. The only security you’ll get from your relationship (how you interact and interface) are the securities you maintain with those arrangements.
Personal Insecurities
Virtually everyone will have their own personal insecurities and afford their own compensations. It’s key to your satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness to recognize that each person in a relationship mostly will mean well even when they behave badly.
Virtually always, these behaviors are not malicious but compensations for insecurities. Maintaining the OLNE pillar, ‘Nonjudgmental Acceptance,’ as a foundation, makes it so we accept our partners with their insecurities and compensations without needing to react to bad behaviors negatively but constructively. You have the choice of whether to engage in the capacity you’d like or to disengage whilst affording each other personal responsibility through…
Authority Equals Responsibility
Authority and responsibility are strictly conjoined and can never be severed apart.
There is no such thing as authority without responsibility, or responsibility without authority.
One is responsible for which they have authority and cannot be responsible for things which they’ve no control over.
This is particularly important in relationships where partners constantly insist, and unwittingly, try to take authority over the other and assuming responsibility over things they have no authority.
Authority without responsibility and responsibility without authority is a cause of the majority of the pain people feel in relationships.
i.e. You can’t make anyone feel any way about you since only they have authority over their feelings. The only thing we can do is influence others the best we can to inspire them to feel a certain way about us.
You can’t make them love you or hate you. Vice versa, they can’t make you love them, hate them, or feel happy. These are all strictly your own authority, and therefore, your responsibility.
Wife of former President, Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked, “No one can make you feel any way without your permission.”
Accountability and Personal Growth
Authority = Responsibility = Accountability = Autonomy
Once you take accountability (you account for) over what you have authority (things you have control – i.e. your own actions, thoughts and behaviors), you can have autonomy.
To be an ‘Independent’ requires this equation become fulfilled. When you recognize what you have control over (no more, no less), you can have freedom and control over your life.
Once you take accountability over what you have authority, and take responsibility, you can have autonomy.
Our thoughts and feelings are our own responsibilities and no one else’s. Recognizing those things about us whether by introspection or circumspection, is critical in the ‘Accounting’ process on the road to having more control over our lives and feelings.
While we can’t control our thoughts (since they generate on their own via our unconscious brain processes and environmental cues), we can choose which thoughts we focus on and from that, manage our behaviors and perspectives.
Many therapeutic methods will help you develop skills in managing and developing yourself, some of which we do in this book, some of which I can facilitate through personal coaching, and many other licensed professionals can help you with. These are all great and important ways of personal development. After all, the most important investment of time and resource are those you make towards yourself.
Managing Jealousy
Jealousy is a compound emotion of 2:
- Fear of loss
- Rage from fear of loss
It’s not a primary emotion. This is the reason you can look at a wide variety of people in relationships and see what different circumstances create jealousy for each individual, all of which are different. Jealousy is always dependent of the level which they feel fear of loss at which point they begin to feel rage from that fear of loss.
This fear of loss is a developmental process and can be grown out of. Everyone has a different experience and capacity for it based on an innumerable variety of reasons of which they’ve no control (neuro-psycho-biology, environment, upbringing etc).
Hence, why taking accountability of which you have authority (your personal processes and thinking) can help you take better control of your life and, ultimately, your relationships.
Jealousy Is Not A Virtue
A virtue is an action conducted to for a moral (good) outcome (as opposed to a ‘vice’ resulting in an immoral, i.e. bad outcome).
Many people imagine jealousy is a necessity in a relationship (a virtuous behavior) as they believe it’s a demonstration of love. They make the logical equivocation: love = jealousy = good.
As we maintain in OLNE, jealousy is antithetical to love. It’s a demonstration of lack of love – because love is your desire and wanting genuinely for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization (getting what they’d like) regardless of your involvement; even if it’s with another person and in another bed.
The rage from the fear of loss (jealousy) when their beloved interfaces with another person cause them behaviors that inhibit or prohibit them from pursuing what they’d like. Hence, this is their demonstrating their fear of loss subverts their getting what they’d like… and this is why we refer to this as a demonstration of lack of love.
Take accountability of the following:
Go back to the first principles of happy, loving and successful relationships and recognize it’s about the love you have for one another – love as we defined as: your genuine desire for your beloved’s happiness, well-being and actualization [regardless of your involvement].
Since you want for their happiness regardless of your involvement, things (and people) that make them happy, you genuinely would desire to provide support and encouragement even, and especially, when you’re not involved and the relationship is romantic. The level which you’re comfortable and at ease with this is how you examine whether your ‘fear of loss’ subverts your love for your beloved. Be strictly honest with yourself since no one else will examine you but yourself.
When you’ve reached sublime (blissful and happy) comfort with your beloved’s interfacing with others, especially sexually, is when you recognize (and demonstrate) your love for them is non-conditional – i.e. you simply love them for being them and their happiness is intrinsically conjoined with your happiness.