Overcoming Resentments

                Resentment! The awful poison we take while hoping someone else dies.The Buddha said that holding onto resentment is like picking up a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else – we get burned.  Unresolved resentment leads to feelings of victimization and increased negativity; a state of mind where we are consumed by bitterness, anger and discontentment.  Long term effects can make us physically sick, emotionally hostile and bleed over to affect all of those around us. A life centered on deep resentment leads to only futility and unhappiness.  For the alcoholic harboring them it can be fatal.

How do we overcome resentments? How do we let go of our negative feelings toward those who have “wronged” us?  Resentments can come from anywhere. Maybe we have an unsympathetic boss or a controlling spouse? It could even be the jerk who cut us off on the way home. Before we can work on getting over them, we need to know who we resent and why. This may not be as easy as it sounds. We might have more than few of them spinning through our minds. An emotional inventory is needed to get a firm idea where our resentments lie. There are countless ways to do this, but I prefer the way it’s laid out in The Big Book. With pen and paper make a list of all the people, places, and things we resent. Next to each name describe the cause of the resentment; then list what part of ourselves are affected. There are many good 4th Step inventory sheets you can pull of the internet.  (Note - the 4th is divided into 3 parts: resentments, fears, and sexual misconduct.  Only resentments are in the chart below.)

I'm Resentful at:	Why:	Affects My?	Causes
Man in strain station	He walks against the stream of people and pushes his way down a crowded stairway to get to a train. Almost knocks me down the stairs	Ego and Pride	Fear and anger. I am offended and feel bullied.
Commuting to work	Rude and Noisy crowds. Takes too long to get home	Emotions	Fear and Insecurity. I cant cope with the additional 3 plus hours of stress. Prone to anxiety attacks
My living situation.	Anxiety, I have no space to live in my life.	Anxiety, I have no space to live in my life.	Anxiety, I have no space to live in my life.

With the list in hand the hard work now begins. Stripped down our resentments are almost always the result of a fragile ego and fear. The emotional awareness granted us by the inventory provides a starting point to resolve them. Remember we are not judging or blaming others for what they may or may have not done to us.  We are looking only at ourselves and our actions. Reflecting on this, we can begin changing the way we think and act. The Big Book recommends we pray not only for guidance and direction on how to live our lives free of resentment, but to also ask for tolerance toward those who have offended us. Perhaps they are “sick too”. In meetings I have heard it suggested we pray for such people and don’t pray for them to get hit by a bus, but to simply ask for God’s will to be done for them. Much easier said than done.

 It’s easy to scoff at the idea of praying for those we resent, but it does make you stop to consider all the negative feelings you are harboring. It’s a mark of emotional and spiritual maturity when you can practice focusing love on someone who is harmed you. With prayer and meditation we reach a point where we are ready to forgive. Even for the agnostic or atheist these practices can bring awareness to how damaging resentment is and bring us to the point we are ready to let go and forgive. Forgiveness moves us forward, but first we must honestly want to change.

Willingness to change is the key to everything. It took a great deal of pain for me to reach this point. Letting go meant facing the fear of losing my identity which was largely built on the resentments of my past. My experience strongly underscores the fact that true emotional freedom only came when I was willing to be free.

Forgiveness and surrender means acceptance too. People are people, they make mistakes, including ourselves. Life is far from perfect. We don’t need to like everything that happens to us or become a doormat to others while we are learning to live from a healthier perspective. Instead, we learn a new way to live, where we don’t let how we used to be in the past, shape the way live in the present.

Not specific to recovery, the HeartMath Institute has created a very effective technique for coping with resentments (and other negative frames of mind) called Freeze Frame.  It’s a breathing technique centered on the heart that brings it into coherence with the brain. It’s not recovery related, but it has worked wonders in my life. I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially for those who are really struggling. Please click the links above if you are interested.