Freedom from Resentment

I titled this blog "Forgiveness Freedom" because freedom is the consequence I see most often when people (including me) let go of resentments. The word "resentment" comes from the French word "ressentir," which means to "feel the result of," or, in other words, to play the injury over and over in one's mind. Now on the surface, few of us would defend the wisdom or logic of re-infecting a wound so that we could experience the pain of it again and again. The wound gets bigger and more infected the more we pick at it. Besides, each time we relive the incident, it hurts that much more. And yet, somewhere in our brains there is a mysterious relief in the reliving of an injury against ourselves or someone we care about -- much like a mind-altering drug.

Where does this negative feeling of relief come from? Here are two of the places I've found it:

1) "I resent, therefore I am" -- In this situation , a person comes to identify themselves with the outrage they feel over the injury (or injuries) they have experienced. Some years ago, a friend of mine was badly mistreated by her stepmother over a number of years. Seething with anger over the injustices she experienced, my friend attempted to kill herself in her 20s. The experience led her into therapy where she eventually came to terms with her feelings and forgave her stepmother. "The hardest thing of all," she told me, "was giving up my anger because I was afraid that, without it, I wouldn't have any identity at all."

2) "I'm going to get even, even if it kills me" -- Suicide bombers are not the only ones who actively engage in this kind of literal thinking. The unconscious mind believes what we tell it, especially when we tell the same story often enough. This story becomes a mental play that we enact in our mind's eye (like a wide-awake dream). And since this play is internal, all the characters and scenary within it are parts of ourselves. Therefore when we engage in revengeful thoughts, we can't help but harm ourselves, even if we are thinking or acting to hurt someone else. (This attitude is a recipe for scapegoating, which induces people to act out against the scapegoater, which is then a cause for even more resentment.)

Resentments are viruses that like to go underground and hide. Discovering their whereabouts is literally 50 percent of the battle in freeing oneself from their tyrrany. How does someone know if they are harboring resentments? Here are three tell-tale signs:

1) It hurts "so good" -- Some kinds of pain or irritation can almost feel good to the touch (have you ever tried to scratch a big itch?). When the pain you feel hurts so bad that it almost starts feeling good, chances are that you are suffering from one or more forms of resentment.

2) You get mad everytime you think about it -- Each time you reimagine the experience, you feel hurt all over again. Resentments have no statute of limitations.

3) One thought leads to another -- Resentments are "social creatures" that like to be around each other. As you think of one injury, another one comes to mind, and then another....

I like to remind myself that it doesn't need to be this way. If my home were termite-infested, I'd do whatever needed to be done to get rid of the termites. Resentments are like termites. They eat into the home in your heart.

What are your thoughts on this subject?
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FORGIVENESS FREEDOM is a blog devoted to exploring effective ways to understand conflict, and restore and reinforce positive connections.