In my last post, I talked about building goodwill by radiating a friendly, kind, benevolent, or cooperative attitude towards others. These are traits that most of us consider desirable. If given a conscious choice, most of us would choose to live from the affable emotional state of goodwill.
And yet how often is our goodwill veiled by malice and resentment, which occurs as we hold onto baggage from the past that interferes with our positive feelings today. The baggage may be from the recent or distant past. It may not even be something in your current relationships. But it’s there and it interferes.
The Nature of Resentment
Resentment, by the way, is a natural emotion that occurs when you feel you’ve been treated badly in some way. Perhaps you’ve been rejected or abused, misunderstood, violated, or not respected or heard. Resentment lets you know that something is wrong and may play a useful role by helping you protect yourself from being too vulnerable.
But it will also harm you if you hold onto it for too long or it becomes a chronic way of relating to others. It can lead to depression and low self-esteem and result in mistrust, negativity, grudges, and distancing from others. I share this with you because if you find yourself having a difficult time generating goodwill, maybe you’re holding onto resentment.
Sometimes resentment is easy to pinpoint. You thought you had a great relationship and learned that your boyfriend was seeing someone else. Your boss calls you out publicly in a staff meeting. You learn that a friend has been talking about you behind your back. Or your resentment may feel more generalized, traceable to lots of incidents, some you may not even remember, when you experienced harm of someone’s insensitivity, neglect or even abusive behavior from the past. Sometimes you can see a cause or longer-standing pattern. Sometimes it is a generalized sense of being wronged without being able to pinpoint why or how.
Overcoming Resentment
The important thing is to deal with your resentments so you can let them go and move forward. Doing this may be straightforward, like having a conversation with a loved one or co-worker who said something that hurt. Notice, by the way, that I said straightforward. I didn’t say easy. Overcoming resentment can be challenging. So my purpose is to offer you several strategies for dealing with your resentments.
Strategies to Overcome Resentment
1. Let yourself feel your resentment.
It’s real. Pretending that it is not or telling yourself that you shouldn’t feel that way doesn’t resolve it. It just makes it go underground and come out in more harmful ways to yourself and in your relationships. So admit it. Then be present to it. Lean into it and let yourself feel it. You do this as you close your eyes, quiet yourself, and pay attention to your body. What do you notice? What inner sensations do you feel? Where do you feel these? Stay with this as long as you can tolerate the discomfort and then, if you need to, break away from it for a few minutes.
Then do it again. As you allow yourself to feel instead of run from your emotions you’ll find, sometimes immediately, sometimes over time, that your feelings begin to shift. They’ll become less intense. The resentment will begin to dissipate at least slightly at first and more over time. Continue to practice this as you need to. It’s a way of facing yourself honestly and honoring your inner experience and will allow you deeper insight and calm.
2. Take Responsibility for yourself.
Back to my frequent theme of self-responsibility. You don’t let go of resentment by waiting for others to change. It is about taking responsibility to change your own mindset and emotional responses. It’s on you. If you wait for others, you’ll wait a long time. Most of the strategies I am talking about are ideas to help you change yourself-your own perceptions, emotions or behavior in order to let go of resentment.
3. Pay attention to the thoughts that are driving the resentment.
In truth, your feelings are caused not just by what happens but your thoughts about what happens. If I step on your foot you’re likely to feel pain and then anger. But if you look up and notice that I’m blind, you’re less likely to feel anger because you tell yourself a compassionate story. “He didn’t mean to do it” will result in different feelings than if you tell yourself I was trying to hurt you. So after being aware of your resentment, can you find a story that allows you to feel neutral or more compassion towards the person whom you view as the perpetrator? Why not tell yourself a story that doesn’t stoke the resentment?
4. Stop ruminating.
Ruminating is rehashing an incident over and over in your mind. Ruminating and brooding fuel your negative emotions like anger, hurt, and resentment. They cause you to feel aggrieved and justified in your negativity. So, ask yourself if ruminating and holding on to your resentment is helping or hurting? Is it strengthening or weakening to you and your relationships? Is that what you want? You can make a deliberate decision to stop by changing your focus and how you’re talking to yourself.
4. Practice mindfulness, meditation, yoga, relaxation, or stillness.
These techniques help you calm yourself and create sensations of peacefulness, which are the opposite of negative emotions like resentment. Commit to use one of these techniques. You don’t have to become a master for them to make a difference. Nor do you have to devote long periods of time using them, just minutes a day will help calm you. One simple way to do this is to notice your breathing, the inbreaths and outbreaths which refocus your attention and help you feel calm.
5. Identify how you may have contributed.
This isn’t always true, especially if it’s something you experienced as a child or if you were a victim of someone who had all the power. But, on the other hand, it can be freeing to look at your choices. Not that you caused what happened but you played a role. What role did you play? Owning your part not only helps you let go of blame but makes you aware of the power in your choices.
6. Be compassionate with yourself.
As I said before, resentment is a normal and even healthy emotion. You want to let it alert you that something is wrong but not beat yourself up because of it. Be kind to yourself even for the hard things in your life. No, especially for the hard things. You’re human. Life can be hard. Give yourself grace.
Part of being compassionate is to forgive yourself and others. Although it might be hard to let go of resentment, making peace with what happened increases your sense of well-being as well as your sense of purpose in life. As difficult as it may be, endeavor to practice treating those people you feel angry at or have resentment toward with kindness and compassion. You don’t have to like what is happening or happened in the past. Nor do you have to fix it in order to accept it. Your acceptance and forgiveness will free your attention and energy from the shackles of anger and resentment, enabling you to be more skillful in the present.
7. Find a way to get your resentment out.
This may be by talking to someone you can trust to be a safe place for you. It could be family, friend, colleague or even a professional if you have difficulty letting go. Then express your resentments to this person. If you can’t share it with a person then write it in a journal or through prayer. These are powerful ways of getting feelings from inside to outside. It helps you process your emotions, gain clarity, and decide on action you can take.
8. Express your feelings through action.
There are two ways to do this. One is through exercise such as walking, running, lifting weights, or playing a sport. Such exercises allow you to discharge and even release your stored negative energy in a healthy way.
Or, taking action can also be getting involved in a cause to promote some form of social and economic justice related to your resentment. Resentment grows when you simply harbor it and dissipates as you take meaningful and constructive action. It is particularly helpful to connect with others who care about a cause that is important to you.
9. Resist the urge to reinforce the anger and resentment of others.
Although listening to others express negativity and even gossip can be seductive, you don’t have to join in. Resist the urge to participate if you truly want to let it go. Participating with others in their grievances only makes yours grow.
10. Know how to set boundaries.
If your resentment is coming from someone who is currently behaving in a harmful or disrespectful way towards you then it is imperative to know how to set boundaries. Setting boundaries is learning to honor yourself, making sure that you feel safe, respected, and valued.
You can only set boundaries when you know yourself—your needs, feelings, values, and limits. Then when a boundary is violated you let someone know in a clear but non-aggressive way. Here’s one formula for doing so. “When you… I feel… because… Could I request…?” How firm and assertive you need to be depends on the willingness of the other to hear and respect you. And know that setting a boundary is not so much about convincing another as knowing and honoring yourself. You’ll notice that you let go of lots of resentment when you set and enforce your boundaries.
11. Learn conflict resolution skills.
Related to setting boundaries is learning skills to resolve conflict. Many people don’t like conflict and so they either avoid it or accommodate the opinions or needs of a more dominant personality. Over time, however, this results in resentment if you perceive that your own needs, opinions, or feelings are unheard or not part of a decision or solution.
So it’s important to learn skills in dialogue and conflict resolution. I think of these skills as 1. Making it safe for everyone to get their thoughts and opinions out in the open (building a pool of shared understanding); 2. Understanding what is important to each person; 3. And then finding solutions that everyone can support.
Of course, this is a big topic and more than we can cover in this article. The important take-away is to notice if some of your resentment comes from ongoing and unresolved conflict. If so, know that you’ll let go of resentment and feel more empowered as you learn these critical skills. If interested, I have a best-selling course entitled “Become a Master A Conflict Management at Home and Work,” or you can find lots of resources for learning these skills on the internet.
12. Nurture your gratitude.
A final strategy is to nurture gratitude. Are you aware that an attitude of gratitude makes you happier! So look at the good within a relationship. Practice seeing the good in all areas of your life. The more grateful you become the less you’ll hold onto negative emotions.
Summary
I hope you can see from my suggestions that you have lots of choices in overcoming resentment. Understanding this fact is even more important than thinking you’ll find a magical or the “right” solution. You have the power. You can overcome feelings of resentment by taking responsibility for them and practicing strategies that are incompatible with these feelings, that will allow you to move on.
My best to you in this journey and share a thought or personal experience below.
