Jealousy is trying to tell you something. Five tips for handling it with grace

Editor’s note: The podcast Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores the medical science behind some of life’s mysteries big and small. You can listen to episodes here.

(CNN) — Who hasn’t felt the lonely, heart-stopping sensation of jealousy?

Whether it’s a sudden ache in the pit of your stomach, the buckling of your knees, a cold chill in your chest, a racing heart — or something else entirely — chances are you have experienced jealousy at some point in your life. Maybe even as recently as Valentine’s Day, a holiday seemingly custom-built to inspire insecurity in the age of social media.

And then there is a tinge of shame for feeling it because it’s viewed as a petty, base emotion. But is jealousy really all bad?

If you go to the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology, “jealousy is listed as a negative emotion, right there at the start of the definition,” psychologist and jealousy expert Dr. Joli Hamilton told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently on his podcast Chasing Life.

“But they don’t say that for anger or sadness — we just talk about them being an emotion, an emotion that’s informational,” she said. “But there is a bias against jealousy that says, ‘Let’s put jealousy completely into the bad box.’ Except when we actually dig into it, jealousy is there to protect us.”

Hamilton, who is an author and a relationship coach, has been studying jealousy for years. She points to research showing that the emotion is present in infants as young as 6 months old.

Human development expert “Sybil Hart’s research on this is beautiful, talking about how jealousy can show up in infancy and therefore we could see it as protective,” she said. “It’s trying to keep us connected to our valued others. When we’re infants, that’s life or death. And then when we’re adults, it can feel like life or death. So of course, it’s easy to put jealousy into that category of, ‘Can I just never have to feel it? It’s just bad. It’s yucky.’

“But if we get closer to it, it can actually be incredibly helpful and can even build intimacy with ourselves and between us and our partners.”

You can listen to the podcast’s full episode here.

Hamilton is no stranger to the emotion. In fact, when it comes to jealousy, you could say she jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

“I made every mistake possible when I shifted my own relational paradigm from monogamy to polyamory 15 years ago,” she said. “I made this switch for a reason; I knew it called to me … but it hurt so much. Jealousy was a big part of why it hurts so much. And my way of getting out of problems is to study. So, I thought I have to learn my way out of this.”

Part of what Hamilton found supports the idea that jealousy is about protecting the mother-child bond and later guarding your mate from rivals. The emotion can lead you to figure out what is important to you and help you set boundaries. Ideally, it pushes you to have conversations with loved ones about what you expect and what is acceptable.

“Jealousy, far from being the unevolved emotion that people often think it is, it’s actually exactly an evolved emotion. It’s there because it served a purpose at some point,” she said, noting that a situation can easily turn sideways. “It often causes a lot more problems than people would like it to. … Sometimes jealousy is helpful; sometimes it’s extraordinarily damaging.”

So, what can you do when the green-eyed monster comes knocking on your door? Hamilton has five tips on what you shouldn’t to do — and what you could do instead.

Don’t jump to conclusions and don’t panic

If you see something that stirs jealousy, do some investigating before acting.

“Right off the bat, don’t jump to conclusions,” Hamilton said. “Instead, I would advise that you learn to notice how your jealousy feels when it’s just first starting to come on. Notice the sensations in your body.”

And rather than jumping to conclusions and taking actions that could derail your relationship, Hamilton suggested to “get curious (about) what’s actually going on.”

If you are jumping to conclusions, Hamilton said it’s important not to panic.

“Don’t panic just because you do see something,” she said. “Don’t freak out … when the tiniest little bit of jealousy happens.”

Instead, she said, “Slow down.”

“I need you to pay attention to the story that you’re starting to spin up, because the story could have elements of truth that need action but also likely has all the data you’ve collected over your whole life — from childhood on — about how people are untrustworthy or you’re not safe in relationships,” she said. “I need you to slow down and really pay attention to the story that you’re telling and start separating it out from what you’re actually seeing.”

Don’t flip into damage mode

“Don’t key your partner’s car. Don’t smash any headlights. Do not go all Carrie Underwood on them,” Hamilton said, referring to the singer’s ode to taking revenge on an unfaithful partner, “Before He Cheats.”

“When you’re in that elevated state and you see something, even if it’s true, don’t take an action that’s going to cost you your actual, say, freedom or your ability to come back and actually make a new relationship,” she advised.

Instead, learn to regulate your emotions and your body. “This feels simple to say, but it’s hard to do,” she said. “Learn some self-regulation skills, learn how to regulate your nervous system.”

She recommends allowing yourself to pause, take three slow breaths and let off some of your energy by snapping your fingers or shaking your hands out.

By doing so, you can avoid jumping to the wrong conclusion or starting a bar fight, according to Hamilton.

“We also don’t want to get that super high-elevated state where now we look like the crazy one … the one who’s out of control,” she added.

From there, she said, you can move into decision-making mode: “What am I going to do? What happens next?”

Don’t go into a shame spiral

You are not a horrible person for feeling jealous, Hamilton said.

“Don’t shame spiral about it,” she said. “Instead, let’s normalize it. Jealousy is a feeling; it’s an emotion. It’s there to serve a purpose. And when it comes up, we need to listen to it.

“But don’t demonize it and don’t demonize it when you see it in other people either. Don’t say, ‘That’s jealousy— it’s so gross!’ Instead, say, ‘You’re struggling with jealousy.’”

Don’t romanticize jealousy

In movies, music and classic literature (I’m looking at you, “Othello”), jealousy is often romanticized, Hamilton pointed out. “And in fact, a lot of us do enjoy (it) just a little bit. We want to know that our partner is a little bit jealous — and if they’re not, we even get a little defensive, like they don’t care,” she said.

Glamorizing jealousy, she explained, may also potentially glorify violence and other outcomes we might not want. “We are romanticizing … implicit expectations and just having our partner read our mind about where our boundaries and edges are.”

“Instead, I would have you romanticize sharing your expectations explicitly. It doesn’t sound sexy, but I promise once you start doing it regularly, it really is,” she said.

“There’s a lot of (behavior) that induces our jealousy that is way more subtle than ‘I see you kissing someone,’” she noted.

“There are subtler things like, what does it mean to you when your partner is clicking like on someone else’s Instagram posts?” she asked. “Do you just have an implicit expectation that they should never do that? Have you actually talked about it, and have you talked about what it means for you?”

Don’t try to make your partner jealous

Don’t intentionally bait your partner.

“Jealousy can feel like proof of love. And we’ve been sold that,” Hamilton said. “We’ve been sort of taught that jealousy is supposed to be part of really deep romantic love. And so, some people get a little bit compulsive about the idea that … they want to feel someone being jealous about them because it feels like care.”

But Hamilton said, “If you’re feeling uncared for, I want you to instead inspire your partner to express their desire in other ways. Get creative with a new date. Get out of the rut. Maybe it’s time to engage in some new practices, some new patterns. Or maybe it’s even time to work with a sex therapist or sex coach if you’re really feeling a lack of expressed desire. Maybe it’s time to really branch out.

“Trying to make your partner jealous in order to prove something is going to backfire on you,” she warned, saying it becomes a game or a power trip.

We hope these five tips help you handle jealousy more productively. Listen to the full episode here. And join us next week on the Chasing Life podcast when we explore why ultraprocessed foods are so bad for us.

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