Written by Aleen

The Evil Eye.

I can trust the timing of my life. I can trust my decisions. 

This sentence came to me as I journaled around fears I have about making a mistake. How I had used things not working out as a weapon against myself, believing that it must be based on something I had done wrong, instead of trusting that I am exactly where I should be. It reminded me that grace and gratitude is within this very moment, not an outcome I thought my future held. 

It was lack mentality, an old belief that to receive more we need to do more.

I am not immune to the hustle culture that society glorifies. That being busy is a sign of success. Having a lot to do, whether that be in your work or life equates to “making it”. A belief that if I don’t have enough in an aspect of my life, it is based on me not doing enough. I must be doing something wrong. 

I have been exploring lack mentality and its link to self obsession. When we are hyper focused on what we don’t have and use that as fuel, it creates a self obsession within us that disconnects us from the world around us.

Connections become dangerous because we can’t feel happy for someone else without us thinking it means something about us. Making it about ourselves and what we are doing wrong. We stuff down those feeling and become hellbent on proving ourselves, when really we may be avoiding the normal feeling of envy or jealousy. 

For many of us jealousy (and envy) are a layered emotion. My personal experience with jealousy is connected to superstitions of the evil eye and religious conditioning.

Superstition of the evil eye is this belief that an energy, specifically from someone else, will undo your good fortune. This sounds the same as scarcity mindset (or even victim mindset). That someone else holds the power to take something away from us. And if we are constantly worried about someone taking something away from us, isn’t that quite self obsessive, thinking that everyone must be thinking about us? 

If we avoid inciting jealousy in others from a fear of bad luck then the opposite is true too. 

We avoid feeling it towards others and if we are self aware enough to know when it does come up, we shame ourselves. The loop of superstition and religion both creating guilt and this idea of doing something wrong. 

I don’t say this from a place of never feeling these feelings. I can hold both elements within me, a trust in the timing of life and also a fear of good things being taken away. A fear of jealousy and also a knowing that it is an inevitable experience, both one I will feel and one I may incite. 

Where I see jealousy come up is when we compare ourselves. When we compare ourselves to another person, we are acting as if we know everything about them and that there is this force, an energy bigger then us, somehow judging us by laying both our lives next to each other, except we don’t match up. Something we have done is not good enough, or we would have what they have. 

Comparison discounts our own experiences. It is a limited lens of using something someone else has to mean something about what we don’t have, something about us. We use someone else’s experience against us, taking away from our own life, the same energy as the evil eye.

In the same way lack mentality can have us play small, make decisions from a place of fear, the superstition or fear of the evil eye can have us doing the same. It has you avoid access to your own interests or deny yourself the things you want, shaming yourself that you shouldn’t want those “things” or telling yourself “what would people say”. We then layer it with religious shame of not wanting things, or always having to think of others before yourself, which only exasperates feelings of envy and jealousy because now this idea of good and bad are at play. Now, when someone has something you want, this thinking will have you assume they have done something “bad” for it, or they themselves are “bad” (because you are good and don’t have it).

Another layer of jealousy, or the fear of it, can be an experience of people around you trying to keep you small from a place of protection. That being seen as doing better then people will create problems, which again places the blame on us, that we are doing something wrong. Jealousy and the evil eye become a dangerous experience. We can’t feel it or provoke it in others, especially if you have seen this idea of “jealousy” breaking up families and relationships. 

I have been exploring my own idea of the evil eye representing this sentence of I see you, you see me. There is nothing to fear. I am not afraid to see or to be seen.

I’ll explain it through the symbolism of the talisman of the evil eye, the different versions of an eye people use (and have used) as protection. When researching this, I was led to Ancient Egypt and the eye of Horus, an Egyptian myth and symbol. The eye of Horus has been used as a protection image in the same way as the blue evil eye.

Horus is the son of Osiris (and Isis), who had to battle his uncle Seth, who had killed his father Osiris. If you have seen the movie The Lion King, its the original myth from that story. 

The evil uncle (Scar - Seth) killed the king (Musafa - Osiris), who was also his brother. His uncle was jealous of his brother and the power he had, the fact he was king. When the kings son is of age (Simba - Horus), he has to reclaim the crown by fighting his evil uncle.

Mythically, the story is about facing your shadow. It is a story about stepping up to the plate, seeing yourself for who you are and claiming your seat. If Seth represented jealousy and anger then Horus fighting him was overcoming those emotions. The eye can then be seen as a symbol of accomplishment and courage. 

I see you, you see me. There is nothing to fear. I am not afraid to see or to be seen. 

We don’t need to protect something we don’t fear losing. And if we fear losing it, we may be attached to what we think it says about us.

Through this we can understand the fear as a normal human experience, not one where you have done something wrong. We can use this idea when we feel things go wrong, knowing the ability to face the shadow part of you that fears the loss of something is a chance to uncover your power, rather then blame this idea that something (or someone) is out to get you. 

And if jealousy brings up shame or guilt when you feel it, you can use it as a navigation piece. That maybe something someone has, or how they do what they do, exists within you too and that is all the jealousy is trying to show you. If they can have something, so can you.

The evil eye or the fear of jealousy can then be understood as a symbol of acceptance of the duality of life, its shadow and light. It also allows us to accept the duality of people without taking it personally, without us thinking we have done something wrong. I see you, you see me.

We can accept the totality of us as both light and dark and in turn not be afraid of it in others when we see it come up. We can stop being afraid of our own authenticity being rejected because you have faced yourself, you know where your strength comes from. We can’t lose something that exists within us. It allows us to take the power back from this idea of it being in something else’s control and we can ask ourselves, how we may be limiting ourselves? 

When we remove the fear and face what it is trying to tell us, Horus facing Seth, Simba facing Scar, we see all it is trying to do is have us reclaim our power. I see you, you see me. There is nothing to fear. I am not afraid to see or to be seen.

Love, Aleen

27 September 2023