Not long ago I did a reading for a woman who wanted help in understanding how she wedged herself into the stuck places of her life. She desperately wanted to get out of debt, have more friends and fun, attract a soul mate, leave a dead-end job and start a new career.

But she couldn’t seem to make headway in any of those areas.

She made good money but was always covered up in debt. She hadn’t had a romantic relationship in 20 years and had never been able to maintain a romantic relationship for any length of time.

In terms of her career, she was talented, but when she pondered her new career of choice she only entertained, ‘get rich easy’ plans instead of committing to her dream.

During our reading I looked into why she made the limiting choices she did, and though several life long themes and dynamics presented themselves, one pattern stood out among the rest.

Patti loved being the center of attention and she loved being successful, but when she found herself on the outside of both of those places, she would console herself with the thought that at the very least, she felt she was the smartest in the room.

Patti’s lifelong pattern of envy and deep insecurity had finally caught up with her. Historically when the angry jealousy she felt became too painful, she would channel that emotion into her socially accepted competitiveness.

But inevitably, friends were not immune from her competitiveness and as a result her friendships suffered and some disappeared altogether.

Eventually Patti was no longer able to use her enviousness to motivate herself, now it ran her life in ways she didn’t understand. Rather than it motivating her to reach to a new level of accomplishment, it simply hurt.

Because Patti was intelligent and accomplished, she scoffed at the idea that jealousy could ever be such a part of her life.

Jealousy is a powerful emotion and in Patti’s case it was even more powerful since it ran beneath her awareness.

Jealousy isn’t necessarily a reaction to be embarrassed about. Spiritually speaking, it is a calling from within to pay attention to what you really want out of life and to take responsibility for those things.

Beneath every emotion is a thought and a belief. These thoughts and beliefs actually give birth to your emotions. The thought or belief beneath jealousness is ‘I can’t’. In Patti’s case, her beliefs of ‘I can’t’ led her into debt and loneliness and a fear of moving ahead.

When you deny what you really want to achieve, or just aren’t fully aware of those deeper desires, jealousy has a way of bringing your attention to them. That’s the purpose of jealousy.

There’s never any comfort in the I can’t’s or I shouldn’t’s. All that results from clinging to them is misery and a pattern of the it’s not fair’s.

The next time you feel jealous or envious of someone else, something they do or something they have, try the following to heal and empower your life.

First, be honest about where you are and what’s going on in your life and, if you can, how to get to where you want to be.

If you feel jealous or angry and feel you can’t have what you want, set goals and intentions for yourself. No matter how far reaching they may seem at the time, write them down. You have to throw your seeds of faith and belief forward all the time, every day.

You may be an intelligent person, with a long list of accomplishments. But unless you’re really being honest about where you are and taking responsibility for where you want to go, then you’re not using that intelligence effectively.

Second, if you feel jealous often (and many people do), realize your thoughts may be stuck in a pattern of I can’t, and that needs to be healed and changed. Chances are that pattern comes down to a past life memory or deeply-held belief that can be healed and shifted into one based more in truth and empowerment.

Third, everything you’ve learned up until this point was enough to get you where you are today. But it isn’t going to be enough to get you where you want to be for tomorrow. You’re going to have to continue to learn new things, grow in understanding of your self, heal old wounds, and build new skills.

While you’re learning to lean into your dreams, wear citrine as much as you can. It helps to clear negativity and insecurities as it strengthens your personal power, and gives you comfort and balance.

Reaching for new places in your life is scary for most people. There’s the threat of failure, and also the threat of success.

Honor your desires and dreams as the call from Heaven that they are. And realize that any jealousy you feel is an alarm letting that you’ve hit the proverbial snooze button on your dreams one too many times.