Holding onto resentment
This blog post is dedicated to a girl/employee that I just met at Lululemon this previous weekend, who I now consider a friend. We saw each other in the store, talked for about 20 seconds and instantly connected, and proceeded to have a 2 hour coffee session the next day and seriously became best friends, haha.
To you Madalina! Thank you for being an awesome human being and landing in my life!
So let’s talk about resentment.
Resentment: bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.
Have you ever been treated unfairly? Of course you have. If you live a life where you have to interact with people on a daily basis (everyone) or have ever had friends (everyone) or functioned in society (everyone), then you have had people treat you unfairly. Resentment can show up in several different ways in your life and you can hold onto resentment for a really long time, even if you thought you’ve let it go.
Example #1: when talking to a friend of mine, she explained she had been through a situation recently where her boyfriend cheated on her and got married to the girl. She thought she had let it go, but when the she saw the pictures of their wedding, she still resented what he did to her and the photos made her feel that resentment that she didn’t realize she still had.
Another example: I was with a friend that I went to high school with who was bullied when we were in school. The bully was brought up in a conversation (on a topic totally unrelated to bullying) and my friend started to get really defensive when the bully was brought up, started to talk bad about the bully and really put her down. She did this because she still had anger in her heart towards her bully and resented the way that the bully had treated her, even though this was 8 years ago.
An example in my own life: In the past I had a coworker/friend who started to do everything that I was doing: working at the same places I did (when i helped her get the jobs), saying the same things as me, doing the same things I was doing in town, taking credit for my ideas, and then proceeded to eventually talk about me behind me back when I had confided in her, take all the credit, made everything a competition, and it just became a very unhealthy relationship.. People talk about how awesome she is for doing the same things I am, and I was like… oh hey, I’ve been doing that for a bit, and I was doing it FIRST. It bothered me SO MUCH! Each time that she was brought up in conversation, I resented her and wanted people to NOT like her. Those were my ideas, after all! I was doing them first! I’m definitely not proud of that and it’s a super ugly side of me. But i’m being honest here.
That is what resentment is: wanting people to pay for the things that they did that were unfair to you.
I think that it’s normal to be angry and the co-worker that steals your ideas, the boyfriend who cheated on you, and the bully who bullied you and made your life miserable. I definitely am not saying that it’s all peace and love towards people who have treated you unfairly. But what IS wrong is doing what I was doing: wanting people to treat them bad because of the way they treated YOU unfairly.
I think that this is something that has been wired in me since high school. If someone did something mean to you, you wanted them to “pay” for it, or for people to not like them, or for them to be exposed for what they did to you. I saw it in others around me, and i modeled it myself for years. I think we all have at one point.
So what do you do about your resentment?
You do not have to be best friends with your bully, ex-boyfriend, or the co-worker that copied you and stole your credit. But you should never wish for them to “pay” for what they’ve done. You shouldn’t wish for their “exposure” or for them to be bullied, cheated on, or ideas stolen just so they can have a taste of their own medicine.
You have to let. that. shit. GO.
That is something that I have to work on in relationships. I mean, I want credit for my ideas, dammit! But here is what you need to do: show kindness to them, know that you are being true to yourself and that you did nothing wrong, know that you did the best you could, and know that everything in your life HAPPENS FOR A REASON! Even the times where people have treated you unfairly or screwed you over.
Don’t compete with them, don’t wish them bad/unhappiness, but send them LOVE. Those people who have treated you bad ned the love more than you know. This is the only way to let go of resentment: to show love and to just work on being a better version of yourself, every single day. Just focus on you, not them. That, and time (time heals all). You will eventually be able to see that photo of that person and talk about them in a conversation and you WON’T get that heavy feeling of resentment in your chest.
One day at a time, people. Show love.