Resentment is a toxic trait detrimental to all types of relationships – business, family, friends, et all. Resentment can be all consuming if we allow it, growing from a targeted thought of how we believe one person has wronged us to a habit generalized across a larger group of people.
Resentment is an internal battle. We have allowed something to affect us, and now project that effect on to our other relationships.
Resentment prevents us from seeing the world in a healthy light.
We impose barriers on ourselves for fear of failure or rejection. Similarly, we do not share our emotions with those surrounding us in fear that they will reject caring about our emotional states.
Avoid the cycle of internalizing negative emotions with some of the following:
1. Recognize your emotions – Allow yourself to feel. Why do you have this emotion? Is this emotion healthy?
Emotions are neither good nor bad. Emotions are opportunities to learn and become closer to oneself. For instance, the emotion of greed could be a projection of being taken advantage of previously. It is far easier to cope and get past an emotion once it has been recognized.
2. Have difficult conversations – There is a time and a place for sharing your emotions with those close. That said, make a time and a place, do not sit with pent up emotions and assume that time will present itself.
Communicating feelings is difficult, as the sharer is becoming vulnerable. Communicating your feelings isn't just for the strength relationship – often times it ends up more beneficial to the sharer.
3. Forgive – We all make mistakes. Our pasts do not dictate or predict our presents or futures. Our past has made us who we are. We should respect ourselves and thus we respect what happened in our past, whether it was in or out of our control. End the blame game and move forward.
4. Don't direct a lack of fulfillment on others – A relationship cannot make you happy. Nobody has the power to change your negative thoughts about yourself…but you.
When dealing with resenting thoughts, it is of the utmost importance to not minimize your personal needs. Sacrificing your personal needs is not good for you or your relationships.
In the end, resentment hurts the resenter more than the individual(s) resented.
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