Working on jealousy involves creating a shared language that allows you to support yourself and each other. This means understanding your own jealousy and exploring the emotions behind it, as well as gaining insight into your partner’s. Together, you’ll need to develop and experiment with strategies to address and prevent jealousy when it arises. Additionally, embracing the opposite of jealousy—compersion—can help you to prevent jealousy.
We have three exercises you can try with your partner(s) - this is the third one:
Practicing Compersion
The more you practice compersion - the joy of celebrating someone else’s happiness - the more naturally it will arise in your relationships. Like any skill, compersion improves with practicing it. We become good at what we practice. When we repeatedly focus on certain emotions or behaviors, we strengthen our ability to experience and embody them. If you regularly dwell on difficult emotions like jealousy, you may inadvertently become more adept at staying in those feelings. However, by actively practicing compersion, even if it feels challenging at first, you train yourself to shift toward positive and empathetic responses over time.
Research shows that compersion is situational and influenced by factors like your state of mind and the people involved. Think of compersion as existing on a scale: How much compersion do I feel in this situation? With practice, you’ll find it easier to move up that scale, fostering greater joy and connection in your relationships.
Step 1: Sharing Experiences with Empathy
Divide into speaker and listener roles.
