“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will
kill your enemies.” – Nelson Mandela
You’ve been
wronged before, most likely many times, and now you spend a great deal of time
and energy replaying and reliving what happened to you. You find yourself irrationally
angry at people for small reasons, or at least reasons that shouldn’t invoke
that much anger. But you suppress it, and try to forgive and forget. Sometimes
you’re angry for bigger reasons. Still, you pretend everything is alright and
that the anger and hurt you’re experiencing will go away if you put it aside
long enough. But that’s not how resentment works.
Mark
Sichel, a psychotherapist, says resentment is when we re-experience and relive feelings
and events that angered us, which leads to emotional, physiological and spiritual
destruction. He adds, “The inability to overcome resentment probably
constitutes the single most devastating impediment to repairing a
disintegrating intimate connection, family rift, or severed friendship.” This
is due to the nature of resentments.
When you
have a conflict with someone, the conflict can be resolved, and anyone involved
can move on afterward. But resentments are “probably ignited by a long history
of neglect, exasperation, and frustration.” This includes problems you haven’t
dealt with properly, bad memories you haven’t let go of, and even situations
where you thought you already forgave the person.
“Resentments
embody a basic choice to refuse to forgive,” says Sichel. A more in depth explanation:
“We do so because we believe the
illusion that by belaboring our resentment, we will somehow achieve the justice
we believe we are due. We cling to a futile need to be "right," which
overrides the capacity to heal and be at peace with ourselves. We hang on to
perceived offences because we don't know any other way of coming to grips with
painful feelings of hurt, rejection, and abandonment.”
Interestingly
enough, recognizing resentment can be triggered by small things, such as
someone forgetting your birthday, or your co-worker ditching you for your lunch
date. When this small thing happens (or perhaps continually happens), you find
yourself very angry, so much so that you may not understand why. Sichel
explains, “The strong reaction of resentment almost never appears to be
warranted by what sets it off. It's always the product of a long history of
backed-up unhappiness.” Also, the anger you feel toward someone who has “wronged”
you recently, most likely isn’t even about that person, but instead it’s about
someone who’s hurt you in the past.
To understand
resentment, Tori Rodriguez, writer for Woman's Day, says, “First, recognize
that the closer the connection you have with someone, the higher your
sensitivity level and expectations are.” Thus, your anger and hurt will be
greater towards those you are closest to. Next, it’s crucial to understand that
the resentment hurts you more than the other person. You may think they need to
apologize, or they need to face justice, but really it’s you who’s unhappy and
angry. So the problem is with you and not the other person.
In Jessica
Ruane’s article, “How to Really Let Go of a Resentment,” she says when you have
a resentment, you shouldn’t, “ignore them, fight through them, lock them in a
closet, pretend you don’t feel them, [or] try and forget them.” You should, “Face
them, feel them, deal with them, [and] heal from them.” It’s easy to push
painful feelings aside thinking they will go away. But the longer you do that,
the more time the pain has to invade more aspects of your life to the point where
you’re not even aware of how it affects you. It’s difficult to allow yourself
to face and feel the anger and/or pain, but there is a process that can help
you.
Sichel
provides ten steps that can be found in the first link below, but here are a few
highlights:
- “Approach resentment as the addictive state of mind it is.”
- “Realize that you are using resentment to replicate old dramas and acknowledge that you cannot change the past”
- “Examine how your resentment may come from mentally confusing people in your present life with people in your past”
- “Acknowledge that you cannot control those who have rejected you”
- Stop yourself from ruminating in the pain by thinking of something else
- “Forgive when you can”
Ruane believes
that the 12 step program for addicts can be incredibly beneficial when applied
properly, but she condenses it into four steps. It is not an easy process and
one that takes time, but it is proven to help people move on and let go.
- Step One: “Make a list of all the people you have resentments towards… Include ANYTHING that gives you an automatic negative feeling… nothing is too trivial or too small.”
- Step Two: “Next to the person’s name; write what they did to cause you to resent them. The reason for the resentment doesn’t have to “make sense”—it just has to be honest.”
- Step Three: “Now you write what part of your life each resentment affects… [such as] your self-esteem or confidence. The point is to become acutely aware of the specific ways that the resentment is impacting your identity, and your ability to feel safe, secure, and loved.”
- Step Four: “Next to the reason, or cause for resentment, you are going to write down your part. This is how YOU have contributed to the problem.”
Alex
Lickerman, MD, assistant vice president for student health and counseling
services at the University of Chicago, wants people to know, “Even if the
insult was meant in a personal way, cruelty is never about the victim's
shortcomings but rather the abuser's.” So, when someone has hurt you, it’s
important to understand that it often has nothing to do with you. The most
important thing you can do for the other person, and especially for yourself,
is to forgive and let go. You might even need to forgive yourself.
Sources:
