Resentment is an effort to address what has passed, and you cannot influence. It keeps you very much trapped in ego, and keeps you from maintaining much of what you value and want to keep in life, let alone new things.
Resentment is an effort to undo something in your past. Something you can’t undo. Even if the wrong was addressed, you would still be in resentment. It is a vicious cycle, because you will be on your guard. I hear people almost proudly declare they have an emotional wall up. That’s selfishness, but in kind though they choose that stance, they insist people give. Yet the resentment was never made right. The person can never atone. Here’s the big secret. Because whatever they did that you resent so much wasn’t about you anyway, so it puts you back into insecurity if you let it. You start asking why.
Expecting those who did you wrong to put it right? That is resentment, and it doesn’t work because they never really can make it right. Tell me, do you know a resentful person who is happy? Successful? They may have the illusion of these things, but in reality don’t.
It’s said that the truth will set you free. They didn’t have the truth, and were not free when they acted, and in your resentment you make of yourself their jailor. This means you live in the jail too. It keeps you from being able to go forward. I was once asked why I didn’t lose my mind when my ex wife betrayed me. The simple answer was I didn’t want to be there. I let her have her choice. I chose to make mine.
It’s an odd position to be in, because the resentment is fuelled by the resentment of having to deal with resentment. This is why resentment is crippling. It keeps you stuck. Another source I know of says that the gauge of how negative an emotion is, is how much does it prevents you from doing what you really want to do, like express love for a loved one.
All of these feelings keep you stuck. The topic is Failure and this series of posts have been discussing the elements of it. F=frustration, A=aggression, I=insecurity, L=loneliness, U= uncertainty, R=resentment, E=emptiness. They keep pleasure well at bay, and pleasure is life affirmative. Pleasure isn’t vice. Vice, though superficially pleasure, is often mental and emotional pain. The natural pleasures are life affirmative, life supportive. You actually need them.
Just hearing all this may make your chest tighten? This is a body response. I use a technique I loosely call body reading. Your body is your most primal mind, and it distorts nothing. So if you are very uncertain, things like the tight chest speak the truth. It affects your physical health. A lot of heart disease is actually stress over failure, and this is why it’s so common. Your body response may be a scream at you to listen, and natural “animal” behaviours should be permitted. Yoga encourages it and many of its exercises are based on it. When the body sees a crack in your awareness that it might push through, it will push.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~