Polish the pearly sheen of my jealousy, please.

I’ve been leaning into my jealousy as of late, spiraling inward like an intricately-polished mother of pearl tiger nautilus shell. This hypnotic, highly prized, rose-like iridescent sheen actually starts out as simple matte white and brown stripes. It is only after careful patience and persistence, gently sanding through the upper layers, that craftsmen reveal the smooth sparkling splendor that lies beneath. Many people refer to deep diving into the soul as peeling back the layers of an onion. But this picture conjures no image of sensual beauty for me, and personally I feel like delving inward can be tremendously sexy. It is not without sincere effort, though, and a fearless yet gentle willingness to be completely vulnerable with yourself. 

I don’t get jealous that often; usually my go-to emotion shifts right into despairing sadness. This pattern was particularly salient over the holiday season when I was spending a lot of time with my family. The holidays are difficult for so many of us, and when things get hard I often like to take it personally. The story I like to tell myself repeatedly is that “I am unlovable” in an almost sadistic self-flagellating and deprecating sort of way. I’ve realized that I actually have a bit of a love affair with this story and that in thinking these words and sentiments it allows me the freedom not to strive to be the fullest or most radiant version of myself. 

I have grown a bit tired of this fantasy tale, though, and so I have been getting intimate with my narrative and the words I choose to continue telling myself. I have been working hard to change my perception of the way I see my life, and also how I see the “characters” playing the parts in my family story. Much of this journey has been inspired by the wisdom of the tantricas (Buddhist spiritualists) delighting in getting off in their shame. However, more recently I have also been greatly influenced by the work of Carolyn Elliott and her book Existential Kink.

This book is largely about how we can unknowingly act as the creators of our own erotically pleasurable self-delusions and all the demons that come with them. It is also about how we are the ones who help construct the confines of our own restrictive toxic environments and patterns, even when on the outside we express revulsion towards them. However, if we lean into what’s bothering us we can scratch our nails into the dirt and keep on asking the universe what’s really there beneath it all? What’s at the heart of our fear, what’s at the heart of our jealousy, at the root of our self-loathing—and can we reunite the memories from our past with our present life decisions? And ironically, this book was actually what instigated my jealousy and thus allowed me to get a little dark and kinky. 

Yes, I got jealous, but not from my lover having sex with someone else. No, that is not the sort of thing that triggers my fire, judgment and rage. Instead, it was actually from this book being recommended by another lover of his, and specifically that he then recommended it to me—when I was the one who had told him about it to begin with! It was the sharing of this intellectual property and these incredible ideas that invoked my most primal reactions. I knew that the feeling of being unlovable was starting to surface again, even though I was actually happy that he was reading the book and was being inspired. It was more than just hurt, though, and I needed to figure out what was fanning the flames of my jealousy and what was the message underneath.  

So, I decided to get off on my hurt and my jealousy and self-pleasure, to dive in more deeply so I could really feel. I wanted to unearth the sensations that were at the core of my pain and masturbation can be an absolutely divine form of meditation and transformation if we are truly taking the time to get more intimate with ourselves and connect to our bodies. And that’s what I did, I touched myself and first began really feeling the pain and hurt that had recently been coming up from my family with the unloveable-ness and then started to shift it and imagine every time I could ever recall sensations that landed in my body like jealousy.

There have been times in my life where I got jealous of women that didn’t even exist and there was more of just an idea that I was somehow being excluded that incited my discontent and envy. There were times when conversations were being had between lovers and someone they admired that fueled a heat in my heart that felt covetous yet completely irrational. Finally there was this book that I had recommended, but my lover never heard my suggestion and instead it was someone else that he listened to and was actively engaging his mind. And when I got to this thought the fire inside me came alive and a very clear voice spoke to me and said, “you’re not good enough” and I knew that it was right.

That was the message I was telling myself every time I got jealous. That was part of the judgment that was coming back to me from a long, long history of sadness with my family of origin. It was part of feeling unlovable. It was part of feeling unworthy. It was part of my past that was no longer serving me and so as I focused on the voice telling me “you’re not good enough,” I used the vibrant sensations to climax and get off on this overwhelming manifestation of my shame. I did this with tears. I did this with love and I did this knowing full fucking well that I am in truth absolutely perfect! I focused on this NEW messaging as the orgasmic energy and bliss continued to roll through my body. I shook and I shaked with my face and eyes wet with salt and I lay in my bed and licked my wounds, stroking myself lovingly and said, “you are good enough, you are good enough” over and over repeatedly. 

After that, the jealousy lost its charge and some of my fear about being in a relationship dissipated too. I believe this was because your thoughts can no longer control you once you have seen the unseen from the darkest depths of your soul. When you make the unconscious conscious, it loses its power over you. So, I invite you to go there with me and journey into your shadow spaces when they are gnawing at your heart. I invite you to lean into what is stopping you from deep intimacy and love with both yourself and other human beings and move through the memories segmented within your psyche like they are the most perfect parts of a polished and pure mother of pearl chambered nautilus shell. 

image by @gestalt415