Dealing with Resentment

Resentment is a very powerful negative emotion that almost everyone experiences in their lifetime. That feeling of being wronged by someone or something. The feeling that justice has not been done, and that Karma isn’t coming to the person who most deserves it. The injustice of the world can breed resentment towards others, towards the universe, towards deities. It can poison trust for others. It can color your perspective about world and lead you to a dark place. 

Holding on to resentment can poison your life. Holding on to any negative emotions can shift your perspective about life. Combating that resentment can be very challenging, but it’s important to make changes for your own mental health. Focusing on someone else’s perceived happiness doesn’t benefit you, but does take a lot of energy and time. Once that pathway is well established in your brain it’s hard to redirect thought traffic to a healthier, less worn path, but it can be done. 

Your resentment, anger and frustration does not hurt the person or thing that wronged you, but it does hurt you. You put time and effort into ruminations, anger and resentment. That is time you could be spending enjoying life, but frequently we feel that we cannot enjoy life anymore because another person is enjoying life more than us and they don’t deserve to do so. 

The concept of deserving can also slow down recovery from resentment. The truth is that in life people often don’t get what they deserve, good or bad. We are so fond of telling each other “Life isn’t fair” but human beings believe it should be. That belief can cause resentment to flourish as it is an expectation that doesn’t match up to reality. 

When you are combating resentment one of the best tools is self-compassion. Fostering self-compassion allows you to look at the situation in which the injustice happened, see what part you played in it, and forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for holding on to it and make the choice to sacrifice the hurt and pain on the alter of self-compassion. 

Showing yourself that you can forgive yourself opens up a new door to forgive others. Forgiving others isn’t about allowing that person to get off without consequences, but it does allow you to move on with your life. It allows you to feel that although you have been wronged, you are at peace because you forgive yourself for everything that has happened and you have let go of the injustice. 

Compassion is something that most everyone can benefit from. Compassion allows us to forgive. Compassion allows us to combat blame and resentment. It allows us to move