7 Keys to Letting Go of Resentment
Do you feel heavy? Burdened? Weighted down? If so, this load may be the pressure of resentment.
Resentment – the feeling that some act, remark or person caused you injury or insult – can actually feel good when it first develops. After all, with resentment comes an easy way to blame someone or something else for our missteps. Resentment initially frees us from blame.
Over time, though, resentment may morph into a very negative emotion. Carrying resentment around on our shoulders and in our hearts can poison us physically, emotionally and spiritually. For, as Saint Augustine perfectly said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
Parents are often prime targets for resentment because they influenced and – sometimes – forced the choices we made as children and young adults.
Many of us, for example, went to colleges or went into careers that our parents pushed us towards. It’s easy now, as adults, to blame our parents if we no longer like our career or feel like our lives would have been different – or better – had they exposed us to different activities, ways of thinking, schools, etc.
Resentment like this is not healthy and needs to be let go – no matter how you’ve lugged it around. Here are seven keys to doing just that:
Forgiveness
St. Augustine also tells us that forgiveness is simply the act of giving up our desire for revenge. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but a gift we give ourselves to finally unload the unhealthy weight of resentment and its loathsome sisters (wrath, anger, bitterness, etc.) Forgiveness is absolutely essential to letting go of resentment.
Grace
Grace is an important key to letting go of resentment. God does not want you to hold onto anger, bitterness, and pain. Rather, he wants you to hold onto love – his love. Praying to God for the grace to let go of resentment is so important.
Wisdom
Letting go of resentment can be hard! Depending on the cause and/or length of the resentment you may even need to seek the wisdom and counsel of others. That is totally OK! Excellent people to reach out to for guidance are your pastor, a life coach or a counselor.
Silence
The ugly beast of resentment thrives on drama and gossip. If you’ve grown accustomed to sharing your resentment towards someone with your friends, acquaintances or social media contacts, stop. Unless you’re doing so with healing and forgiveness in mind, talking about resentment only feeds it further.
Gratitude
Another key to letting go of resentment is to find gratitude towards the person/people who you believe wronged you. It is good in everyone and even if your parents, for example, wronged you there are still reasons to be grateful for their existence (the primary one being, of course, that they helped give you life). There is always something to be grateful for and adopting this mindset will help you more easily let go of resentment.
Action
While we can pray, talk, meditate, etc. sometimes it helps to physically release our resentment. A releasing ritual is a way to let go of something that has burdened us. An excellent releasing ritual is to write a letter to the person/people you are resentful to about why and then burn it or write the message on a sky lantern or kite and let it fly away in the wind. You can even symbolically plant your resentment into the earth as a seed or sapling and let it grow into something different, beautiful and life filled. Be creative – there are many ways to take your resentment and physically release it into nature.
Love
The final key to letting go of resentment is to love yourself. As your resentment disappears you’re going to release how much better you feel in your heart, body, and soul. This may also make you angry at yourself for letting your resentment fester for so long. Let it go! Embrace yourself and love yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for having had resentment, just learn from the experience and move forward.
