Overcoming Jealousy with NLP: The Missing Peace

There are a number of ways that jealousy can affect our lives.  The most serious of them being how we relate to romantic relationships.  If we could raise an issue for each time we had a misgiving about another person’s behaviour towards our relationship loyalty status, we would never see the end of it. Trusting a person totally to be loyal and faithful is a testimony to your own values and therefore if you are betrayed by another for whatever reason, you will feel disenchanted and disappointed at their lack of commitment.

Jealousy is a learned response

The jealous person has learned how to mistrust another by not feeling confident in their ability to commit fully to the relationship. Therefore their understanding of what the relationship has to offer will be relatively shaky compared to a person who is fully confident their relationship is solid. So what constitutes betrayal and how can we deal with the issues that arise as a result of that happening?

A betrayal is something that happens when two people decide to enter into a contract and unite for a specific purpose.  In the case of romantic relationships it is the union of two hearts that will share a common value of love.  Once a decision to unite has been made, they gather the resources required in order to focus on the commitment they have set out to engage in. Sometimes this represents a long-term commitment and other times it means that the other person is willing to make sacrifices as long as it can be usefully maintained.  Either way, the two are now representing a unit that will function as a couple and all that, that entails. In a word, they have reached an ‘understanding’.

Further to the acquisition of getting an agreement, either spoken as in a marriage ceremony or non-verbally, they forge a pathway that defines their relationship as one of committed equals for all intents and purposes of being in that relationship until something happens that challenges the status  and context of the agreement.

The ‘Ex’ Factor

In many relationships which can often be the result of a previous relationship breakdown, the ex-partners of the couple may still feel a connection through being left for another person. In this case, feelings of jealousy come from knowing they [ex -partnered] are no longer number one in that person’s [ex’s] life.  But if the ex – partner were to maintain contact with their ex-partner, the new partner may become jealous by knowing they [former relationship unit] had a past together and could feel left out and undermined by the history they shared particularly if the previous relationship yielded children. So depending on the dynamics of the relationship, it will either survive or be destroyed by the feelings of jealousy experienced in either of the two situations. So how do we deal with feelings of jealousy when the other person has done the dirty and challenged our status as a solid unit?

It’s Not Complicated

As an On-line NLP treatment specialist, I am in a fantastic position to be able to help those suffering from this debilitating condition in a way that least maximises the chances of getting found out they are seeking help in the first place.  This has many advantages in that it can prevent the condition from getting to the point of being destructive and can help the person suffering from the condition to be more in control of their emotions.  Not only do they not need to travel away from the home, they can also feel comforted that help is at hand with just a touch of a button. It is often in these moments when jealousy strikes that having the ability to tap into your ‘therapist’ at a reasonable moments notice is a godsend, due to the episode being as raw and as freshly experienced as perhaps just an hour ago.  The clearer the person is about how their experience of jealousy is affecting them, the better the outcome in the long-run.

Case Study Scenario and General Structured Intervention Sequence

My client was suffering from intense feelings of jealousy which she believed her partner was giving her cause to experience. Female visitors to the house who were colleagues and/or associates of her husband, were blatantly flirting even to the point of being allowed sit on his knee.  My client wanted to feel in control of her emotions as she was afraid of what she might do if she didn’t get help soon. In order to assess the situation and ensure that the right path of action was taken for the safety and happiness of all concerned the following steps provided a structure of coaching her to a place that was more beneficial.

1. Gather background information to establish the context in which the feelings of jealousy get triggered.

2. Establish what evidence she believed validated her feelings of jealousy by eliciting sensory based information.

3. Confirm and agree the desired direction and on-going commitment to the existing relationship.

4. Ecologically design and install a strategy that aligns with her outcome objectives.

5. Test via hypothetical and (later follow up) real life responses as to how she is progressing with newly developed skills, abilities and awareness.

Obviously this was a very emotional situation whereby she would explode with the desire to lash out at the visiting ladies who were flirting and not being discouraged to stop by her husband. So in order to help her respond more usefully, I used a technique taught to me by Eric Robbie, to enable her to stop the emotional chatter, change her point focus from head to her heart and produce a different response in-line with her commitment intentions.  She was an extremely intelligent person, so I did not need to teach her how to suck eggs.  All she needed was the missing piece that enabled her to function more usefully in a relationship she had fully committed to, without jeopardising her status as a couple. In just two sessions, she now had a way to focus on her thoughts, train her mind to stop the chatter and gain the missing peace of mind that comes from knowing that she had now taken back control of her emotions, her marriage and, more importantly, her life.

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Gina Pickersgill is the International Online NLP Specialist at www.justbewell.com

To read the jealousy page on the main site please click here – Stop Being Jealous