As you evolve, you learn things about yourself. It’s important to me to always be evolving, to always have goals, dreams, and to keep achieving. One of the most crucial things I learned, many years ago, was to eliminate jealousy completely.

I’m a Scorpio, and we’re known for being jealous individuals when it comes to our relationships. A great deal of this is mythology. Let me be clear when I say we’re not all like that, but for a few years, I was. I eliminated it by being in a toxic relationship, sadly enough. I’ve written about this relationship and how important it was to get out of it. To this day, I am still grateful that someone else came along (for him) and interrupted my cycle of suffering. On occasion, I still pray for her because she ended up forever tied to the jackass. I cut all ties and I don’t look back.

When a person is supposed to love you, they shouldn’t turn around and use other women to make you jealous, uncomfortable, or angry. The same is true if a woman is doing it with other men. It’s not acceptable to try to harm the person/people you’re in a relationship with by using others to get a rise out of them or emotionally harm them. That’s not the behavior of someone you can have any kind of healthy relationship with. A truly loyal person would never do that to you, or disrespect others by involving them.

I no longer feel jealousy when something of that nature arises. In fact, I feel indifferent. I immediately shut down and it’s amazing how quickly love shuts off. I have a built-in mechanism which shuts down so quickly, it should scare me, but it doesn’t. It helps me eliminate being embarrassed publicly by someone. It’s a complete and total shut down in terms of respect, love, and caring about the other person. It may seem harsh and it may seem cold, but it is necessary. All of us have a mechanism we may or may not be aware of which shields us from the deepest levels of emotional harm. Especially if, like me, you have lived through so much trauma, you often question your own survival.

A reaction very similar to what I’ve described happened to me this past week. Instead of investigating more deeply or reacting in an emotional manner, I immediately shut down. My exact reaction was, “Fuck this. I don’t need the drama. I can do better, and I will.” When you love someone and they hurt you in a way you know you can’t forgive, that’s probably the correct response to have. It’s a response that takes toxicity out of the equation and moves you straight into the healing process. There’s nothing to grieve.

I am not sitting and listening to sad songs. I am not dwelling. I’m not feeling anything, actually. I’m in an erasure method. I never realized how quickly I can delete someone from my life when they hurt me. Anyone with a trauma history likely has similar coping mechanisms, or different ones. Done truly means DONE for me.

Sadly, I give certain friendships more chances than I am giving this particular issue. I won’t even refer to it as a relationship because it’s done. Acknowledging it as more means I have hope. I don’t.

And so, I’m taking some time to heal and move forward. I’ve got much bigger fish to fry. Sometimes I need to burn the past, however little or much, and journey on. For me, this is the core of real strength.

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