Jealousy

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.

- Kahlil Gibran

As far back as I can remember, jealousy had its claws in me. Not the cute kind of jealousy that flares and fades, but a constant hum under the surface — a scanning mechanism that never turned off. I’d walk into a room, and before my mind even knew it, my eyes were searching for her: the most beautiful woman there. The one who’d outscore me. Outshine me. Out-everything me.

It was exhausting. An obsession disguised as protection.

Years of therapy taught me what that vigilance really was — a part of me doing her best to protect the little girl underneath, the one who believed she’d never be beautiful enough, never be chosen, never be worthy of belonging. That young part equated beauty with safety, and competition with survival.

And she had good reason to. We grow up swimming in patriarchal waters that tell us there’s only room for one woman at the top — one body type, one face, one version of “desirable.” The rest of us, it seems, are left scrambling for scraps of worth.

Even after years of healing, that old voice still visits. Last year, a photo of a woman crossed my screen — tall, blonde, radiant — and instantly the familiar script began: You’re not skinny. You’re not that blonde. You don’t get Botox. You don’t have breasts like that.

But this time, something sacred interrupted the pattern. I felt space between me and the voice. I turned inward, toward the small, scared girl I used to abandon and said, softly:

“Oh, sweetheart. She is beautiful, yes. But we were never meant to compete. She can be beautiful — and we can be beautiful too. There’s enough room for all of us to shine.”

Then I did something I’d never done before: I stood up, put on music, and danced. I danced in honor of this woman’s beauty — in celebration rather than comparison. I showed that little part inside me what it feels like to expand instead of contract, to bless rather than battle.

And as I moved, something ancient and holy clicked back into place: There has always been enough beauty for all of us.

We were never meant to compete. We were meant to remember