It all began the day I visited my friends beautiful pristine apartment some years ago.
As I felt the quiet of her space and breathed deeply and looked around at her neat kitchen with the delicate ceramic bowls of Maldon salt and crushed black pepper placed carefully next to the stove, and the glass vase of fresh cut flowers, probably from some organic market, and her clean furniture with neatly positioned throw pillows ... it felt so beautiful and delicate and thoughtful. It really soothed my senses.
Then I saw her bathroom and my calm suddenly deserted me.
I think it must’ve been building up in me, all this beauty and peace and pretty things.
I went into the bathroom that smelled fresh and floral and had little crystal bottles and all manner of delicate breakable things in it, and jealousy suddenly hit me like a steam engine making me want to fall to my knees like a dramatic Victorian heroine clawing at my upturned face wailing, "Whyyyyy can’t I also have this?!"
Okay, I’d better give you some context.
At the time I had two young boys and everything in my house was grubby. Oily handprints from little hands were everywhere. We had to quickly rescue the beautiful white sofa from certain death by selling it and replacing it with a dark brown leather number that we could wipe all manner of shmutz off. It's other selling point was that it was sturdy enough to not fall over when my boys threw themselves over the back of it and balanced on it like a jungle gym.
Any beautiful, breakable item in my house had long shuffled off its mortal coil. All things whose sole purpose was peace and prettiness had been sacrificed in the name of efficiency and grime defence.
And until that gut-punch moment in my friend's pristine, delicate, pretty bathroom (which didn't even smell like urine - if you have boys you'll understand), I hadn’t realised how much I missed those things in my life.
But oh boy, I did.
I was so jealous.
But that's when the magical realisation happened.
Instead of feeling ashamed or guilty about being jealous I realised that my inner self was using this feeling of sharp jealousy to let me know what was important to me.
"Oh. Is this what I would like more of in my home?" I said to myself kindly.
So I gave myself permission to put pretty things in my home again if I wanted. With fencing around it but still...
And I felt very suave when I went out and bought some ridiculously expensive Maldon salt...
Which was a disaster.
I really just couldn’t get the hang of those little flakes and I couldn't taste any difference from our regular salt.
But I was happier in my life.
I had been able to express my deep need for beauty and it had been heard and taken seriously.
Now, any time I feel jealousy of any kind, I look with curiosity to see what my inner being is telling me I want or need.
Then I take action to meet that need as best I can.
What are you jealous of in your life at this moment?
This feeling is a gift from you to you.
If you loved yourself, how would you meet the needs it's showing you that you have?
