Jealous No More: How I’m Learning To Love and Honour My Work.
Yesterday, I had a moment. One of the YouTubers whose work I admire published a short video of her on a frozen lake. I was instantly overcome by the beauty and sincerity of the video.
Her name is Jonna Jinton and she is different from anyone I’ve ever seen on Youtube. There is never a call to subscribe, like the video, or comment in her videos. She doesn’t even need it. There is a purity and innocence in her work that clearly attracts like-hearted soul. I get the sense that she is geniunely not tainted by the Western drive to “succeed”, to accumulate bigger numbers and amass more fame. A breath of fresh Swedish forest air.
My soul zings when I watch her work on Youtube. Her presence and existence in this world where it feels like everyone is trying to “succeed” is precious to me. I need people like her in my life.
Of course, I don't know her personally and I may never know her personally, but I don’t need to. I see her. The light she shares in her YouTube videos is already like going to a drink at the well.
As I watch her latest video, a short montage of her laying, skating, dancing and prancing on a frozen lake in Sweden, a wave of simultaneous jealousy, sadness, and love washed over me.
I am jealous because she has a life that I wanted, that I have tasted. She lives in the woods somewhere in Northern Sweden, deliberately living a simpler life. She makes videos that are clearly fuelled by her wealth of nature and her freedom to express her artistic visions. She doesn't work a job for someone else. (At least not as far as I know.)
While I don't envy the part about living permanently in the woods, I long for the days when I got to spend all of my hours creating the art that I loved. I'm actually tearing up writing this - the part of me that knows how fulfilling it is to be alive and creating the stuff from deep in your heart is awake and yearning.
For the last two years, I think I have been suppressing it, partly out of necessity and partly because there's a lot of noise and night City Life. It takes substantial effort to create pockets of quiet for myself, to let my art birth forth naturally instead of pulling it out.
I have to tame my creative spark in order to function here, in order to show up at an office and get the work done. Many days at the office, there is a part of me inside that is begging to get out and create other things. My creative spark has never forgotten what it's like to be on my computer bringing forth the art I envision at 9 a.m. Monday to Friday - and it refuses to be forgotten. The sadness bubbles up and I mourn my loss. I still get to create here, but in fits and starts and sometimes it's frustrating to do I have to put it on hold for days at a time while I complete other work.
Processing The Hurt
After watching Jonna’s short video, I turn right to God. Whenever there's something that's really bothering me and life, I bring it to God. It's like a mental and heart conversation where I asked God, “Why? Why? Why?”
Why am I here? Why can't I be stationed in the woods, somewhere tropical and close to Nature? When do I get to make videos that are seen by hundreds of thousands and deeply inspire people? When do I get to be free? When do I get to dance through fields? Don’t you see the visions in my heart?
How I Moved Beyond Jealousy - and Found Contentment For My Journey
After asking my questions and pouring out most of my frustration to God, I slow down. The answers come from somewhere deep in my heart.
I know I’m focusing on the wrong thing.
“Anita, what is the truth here?” I ask myself. Inhale. Exhale.
You are not in the woods. You are in the city. (And at this moment, I’m actually swimming in a pool as I ponder all of this.) You are never going to be Jonna Jinton. You can only be you, Anita. So, what?
Slowly, it dawns on me. I can never be her, and she can never be. She will create things that I never could, that I may never get to in this lifetime. And I will create things that she never could. It’s not that we physically can’t, its that we have different assignments, different callings. We are two distinct beings with different visions and different gifts, and that is the way it’s supposed to be.
In the pause, God brings up these lines from a book by OSHO,
“To me, each individual is superb, unique; comparison is not my way because comparison is ugly and violent. I will not say you are superior to others, I will not say you are inferior to anybody. you are just yourself, and you are needed as you are. and you are incomparable -- as everybody is.” - OSHO, Meditation for Busy People.
Comparison is not my way. Comparison is ugly and violent. It sure is. It is beating me up right now and I would like it to stop.
The Word We Need
Then I am reminded of a word I can't remember. There's a word for the opposite of jealousy. Western society is largely unaware of it and ignores its possibility. It is the emotion when we feel when we are happy for someone else's happiness. I had to look it up because, gosh, we as a society need it! Here it is:
Compersion is when you experience positive emotions from seeing or knowing something good happen to someone else. You feel happy for them and with them, and you wish for them to have it more and longer.
In fact, a quick google search revealed that compersion does not officially exist in the English dictionary! (!?!) No wonder we are such a jealous society and do not effective ways of dealing with and processing the emotion of jealousy!
I have a few options for how I will process this jealousy. I can:
Keep wallowing in my inferiority and frustration, choosing to believe that her art, videos and Creations are “better” than mine.
Accept that her work deeply inspires me, received the inspiration and be compelled by the beauty of her work to create with greater excellence.
Accept that there are things I can create that she may never create. I am unique and she is unique. We are not comparable.
Be happy for her. I can choose to experience compersion for her beautiful life. Her work is created from a very deep well of joy, gratitude and wonder, a well that I am also tapping into. She is genuinely full of life. The truth is that we are connected. I don't need to be there in the woods in Sweden; I can receive her spirit and the inspiration she's giving me.
Choose to admire and value my own work in the same way that I admire and value her.
Over the course of my morning, I moved from option one down to option five. At pption 5, I'm free. I honour and value my work. I honour the calling but I feel in my soul. Even though I'm not able to create at the pace that I want, my truth is that I am proud of myself. I am creating the greatest amount I could the greatest quality that I can right now. Of course, it's going to improve. I know it's going to improve because I'm actually creating. There is no need to actually be jealous because I'm on the same path as her. We are all at different locations with different assignments but we walk the same creative path. She is a friend and a guide and I honour her.
Living Our Best Lives
In the comments section of her video somebody wrote, “she is living her best life!” When I drop into my center, I know that I'm living my best life, right now, too. Yes, I am not at an eco Lodge in South America (yet), but right here, right now in this city, I am learning crucial lessons, building skills and gathering strength in a way that I have never done before.
I have momentum so tangible I can taste it every morning. I have grown exponentially since I first landed here in August 2017. I did not run away. I stayed here and stuck with it. I persevered and now am thriving.
Wherever you find yourself in life right now, and especially if my work ever brings up a tinge of jealousy in you, I pray that remember that you are superb, unique. You are needed as you are.
Grow. Become. Yearn. Start. Move. Create. Dance your dance. Maybe you’ll even find a frozen lake.
