From The RULES, a six-week course I made in early 2017. Week one was all about resentment.
Close your eyes for a moment. Picture a lemon. A big juicy one, cut into pieces. Pick up one of the pieces, put it in your mouth and take a big bite of the flesh. Really taste it.
Now open your eyes.
Chances are your mouth is watering. But there's no lemon. "You didn't actually experience a lemon then. What you did was feel again the experience of eating a lemon."
To feel again
That's where the word comes from. Resentment goes back to the Old French resentir, to feel again. Every time you go back to something from your past and feel it all over again, that's a resentment in the oldest sense of the word. It can even be a happy one.
The way we normally use it is narrower. It's something we hold against another person. And there's an old saying that holding on to a resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Nobody seems to know who said it first, but it's spot on.
Think about it. Whoever it is probably has no idea you're still carrying it. Even if you've told them, it isn't their resentment, is it? It's yours. They've moved on. You're the one still feeling it.
The big ones
Grab a pen and write down anyone, from any stage of your life, who you feel hurt you or let you down. An old boss, maybe, or someone from your childhood.
Now, the uncomfortable bit. Nobody can actually make you feel anything, especially years after it happened. Going back and feeling it again is a choice. I know it doesn't feel like one in the moment. But the first step to letting go of a resentment is knowing you've got it.
The little ones
It's not just the long grudges. You're driving to work and someone cuts you up. Or someone says something at work and it plays on your mind all afternoon.
Whoever it was probably didn't mean it. And even if they did, they've long forgotten. So the only person still hurting is you. Ask yourself whether you'll even remember it in a month.
Elizabeth Gilbert has a line in Eat Pray Love that I put on one of the course slides. As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul. Even one puff is bad for you.
Exceptions
There's a sneakier way to pick them up, and that's making exceptions. You bend what's acceptable to you to keep someone else happy. It feels good at first. Do it too often, or against your own values, and it turns sour. I put it like this on a slide. "An exception is a resentment waiting to be born."
I'm all for doing things for other people. Helping people is one of the best things any of us get to do. Just not to the point where you're working against who you are.
Get it out of you
So what do you do with them? Bottled up, feelings do the most damage. They come back to bite you, and often the people around you too.
The best way I've found to let one go is to talk about it. Pick someone you trust to keep it to themselves, whose only job is to listen. No opinions, no advice. It usually shouldn't be the person you resent, at least not to begin with. If there's nobody, write it down, even if no one ever reads it. Once it's out of you, it can't hurt you in the same way.
Then ask one more question. Did I play any part in this? Sometimes the answer is no. Some things people do are just wrong, and you had nothing to do with them. But quite often the way we show up has some influence. Seeing that is how you stop collecting new ones.
Try this
Write two lists. One for the big resentments you still carry. One for the small ones that crop up over the next 24 hours. Next to each, ask yourself whether it's doing you any good. If it isn't, talk it through with someone you trust, or write it all out, and say goodbye to it.
Keep your gratitude list going while you do this. And if it stirs things up, read your victories list again too. There's more on both in The five rules that are running your life.
Start with one. The smallest one is fine.
