He hasn't called in hours. You call and get the roommate: "Oh, sorry ....he got in really late last night and is still asleep!"

Your mind starts racing: "What did he do last night?" Your heart starts to pound. You feel sick to your stomach.. Uh, oh... you're jealous. You feel like you can't live with yourself one more minute until you find out what is going on ... suddenly, the potential threat to the relationship becomes the most important thing in the world ... more important than eating, working or concentrating on tasks at hand. More important than ... living life itself.

According to Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Irving Walkoff, "Nobody escapes jealousy. It is a natural human reaction that finds its basis in evolutionary biology. The roots of this are ancient and Darwinian ---part of "the survival of the fittest." You see the other woman as being somehow better than you -- the assumption is that they are better at adaptation, better at seduction, a better parent ... in short are more fit to continue the species than you ... this triggers a fight or flight response in many people. Jealousy is there to protect you and your DNA -- the desire to pass on your DNA is your portal into the future."

It might be perfectly natural to experience jealousy, but in most religions, this emotion is still considered to be ugly and morally repugnant -- a feeling to be stifled with either copious amounts of prayer (Christian) or by practicing zen detachment from object attachment (Buddhism). In the 13th century the Italian writer St. Cyrus wrote that "he who becomes jealous imitates the Devil." .

Canadian psychiatrist Dr. William Pennell Rock affirms that jealousy is a spiritual crisis. "Most people make the mistake of thinking they own another person ...your problem is not with your partner, but with a God so cruel and perverse that he would actually consider manifesting a threat that might take your partner away from you. It also doesn't help that most of us see the one we love, as our direct connection, a way of having love channeled to us from God. Unfortunately, people are fallible so that is a connection that ultimately cannot be trusted. So, is there any way of slaying The Green Eyed Monster before it rears it's ugly head and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody wants to stick around a green-eyed monster for long. According to Rock, one must learn the difference between attachment and love. "The truth of love is that it is unconditional. Attachment is quite different... Attachment is not care for the other; it's care for oneself. This distinction has to be understood: Are you loving? Or are you attached? If you are attached you are going to experience the pain of jealousy. It follows that jealousy becomes the opportunity to see within yourself the truth of attachment. Not theoretically understanding, but existential awareness of attachment at its very roots. Only through this awareness can jealousy really be transcended."

Marion Woodman, authour of "Addicted To Perfection" says some of us choose to be jealous, simply because we are addicted to creating drama. "We will create a crisis, whether the partner is in the picture or not." That's why so many people still create scenarios about the departed partner or imagine what they might be up to months after they have been abandoned. That .It is better to be attached to a negative memory, or even torture yourself with a negative thought that links you to the partner, rather than face the abyss of being alone.

The bottom line is that a healthy person is able to choose the way they perceive any situation. Both psychiatrists and moralists describe jealousy as being crisis of faith. You are not so threatened by the fact that your partner might leave you, but more by the idea that God won't take care of you if he or she does...perhaps the best way to slay the Green Eyed Monster is to slay the ego, have faith and learn how to take care of the self.

Dr Robert Maloney