This is a question most of us regularly ask. From early childhood, we were taught that it was not right to offend the people around us. But for some reason, it was rarely said that being offended by oneself is harmful to our harmonious existence and development. It is up to you to remember the grievances or not, but let's think about whether there is any benefit from this.
Is it harmful to remember grievances for a long time?
By nature, I am a rather quick-tempered, but quickly outgoing person. Despite this, some time ago I could scroll through my head for a very long time thoughts about the unfair treatment towards me. For example, such as: offended, not appreciated, betrayed, forgotten, and so on.
Come to think of it, how much time are we willing to spend thinking about who? Why? and for what? He didn't treat us the way we expected him to. I am absolutely sure that all the thoughts that have been deposited and stored in our heads about how unhappy we have become because of the ugly act of another person, ultimately lead to inadequate, low self-esteem.
As a result - to malfunctions in the work of our nervous system, anger and a decrease in self-esteem. Well, then, usually, well-known sores, nervous breakdowns, failures and disappointments begin ... In general, everything that ingrained resentment towards other people leads to.
How to stop being offended and get rid of resentment?
By and large, resentment is a state when you blame others for doing something wrong towards you, acted somehow unfairly. In fact, this point of view is losing from the very beginning, since you expect others to treat you in a certain way, as if people “owe” you something. And in the end, after this or that person does not live up to your expectations, and resentment sets in.
And of course, most often we don’t think about why a person treated us the way he did. You are wounded, you have been slandered, you are unhappy. Emotions cloud the mind. All this is quite a comfortable position - the position of the victim. Yes, sometimes we are treated ugly, and yes, sometimes those closest to us do it. It is bad news.
But there are also good ones. Do not forget that in your arsenal there are different variants perception of the situation: forgive, analyze this unpleasant conflict, or let go of both the situation and the person if your offender is just a bad person.
Unfortunately, for many, the most convenient option is to blame others for unfair treatment, changing one environment for another. This is the right of everyone, and I don’t think that an adult with such a pattern of behavior that has been established throughout his life is easy to induce to think that he himself is guilty of his disappointments.
But back to the question: how to stop being offended?”, remember that we are all primarily fixated on ourselves. Let's take care of our loved ones, because our long grievances lead to our illnesses, to our negative mood in life, and in the end, to loneliness. So right now, as you replay in your mind all those who did not do what you wanted to do to you, say to yourself: “Yes, it happened. And yes, I was uncomfortable. Now dive for another five minutes and stay in this state. And after five minutes, tell yourself: “That's it, enough insults!”
After all, your life has been going on for a long time, people come and go from life, and your present is now only in your beautiful hands, from the very beginning, from scratch! Therefore, down with resentment and “offense” and forward to your beautiful life filled with the most wonderful people and events! 🙂
How to learn not to be offended by people?
Finally, I would like to give a few simple, but effective recommendations about how to be less offended.
- Remember: being offended is not constructive. The offended person often goes into a state of ignoring the offender, which does not contribute to solving the problems that caused the offense.
- Do sports and drive healthy lifestyle life: for enough fast time in this way you will greatly strengthen nervous system, which will smooth out such negative traits as irritability, resentment, insecurity, and so on.
- Be realistic. Do not live in a world of illusions and high expectations. Often resentment begins when life abruptly brings you back from heaven to earth.
I hope that these simple tips will allow you to deal with resentment and continue your life. life path in harmony with oneself and with others. All the best! Your comments are very welcome, let's discuss this topic. 🙂
According to statistics, at least once in a lifetime, all people are offended. However, everyone handles hurt differently. Why is this happening? A person has certain “sore spots”, hitting which, it is very easy to offend him. Some people have fewer such places, others have more, hence the varying degree of resentment that arises. There are also cases when a person does not seem to be at all, although he simply saves everything somewhere deep in his soul.
Why people get offended: the main reasons
The most common reason for resentment is a simple calculation. A person pretends to be offended in order to derive some benefit from his interlocutor. At the same time, it is not at all necessary to feel resentment, in fact, it is enough to pretend. This method is more often used by girls to get what they want from a man.
The next reason is the banal inability or unwillingness to forgive. In this case, the offended person himself may not know what exactly he was offended by - the fact itself and the subsequent apologies are important to him.
Another reason for resentment can be unjustified expectations. For example, a person is completely sure that after today's interview he will definitely be hired, but they never call him back. Or a birthday girl dreams of receiving a gift from her young man, with whom they have been living together for more than four years, the long-awaited ring, and receives a romantic vacation by the sea.
What to do
1. Analyze the situation: it is quite possible that the interlocutor simply does not suspect that his words could offend someone. In this case, you need to put yourself in his place and see if this person could realize by saying these exact words that he could hurt your feelings.
2. Always take advantage of any situation for yourself. Perhaps the interlocutor pointed out your shortcomings, which really take place. You can thank him for saying it to his face and not spreading rumors behind his back.
3. It is useless to be offended that a person did not live up to your expectations. No one can read minds and accurately guess the desires of another. It is much more effective, for example, to simply ask the husband to throw out the garbage, and the mother-in-law to sit with the child, than to wait for them to guess about it themselves, and then be offended because this did not happen.
Harm of resentment
It has been proven that this emotion causes many diseases, for example, cancer or cirrhosis of the liver in a completely non-drinking person, constant migraines and insomnia, not to mention the lack of peace of mind. It is worth considering what is actually more expensive: pride and hurt feelings or your own health?
For the psychological portal www.psynavigator.ru
In Russian (according to Ushakov), the word "resentment" means unfairly caused grief, insult, as well as the feeling caused by it. Interestingly, in ancient times this word was synonymous with a crack or a slap in the face, when it wasn’t that you were hit hard, but, in a similar way, they hurt you. There is no wound, no bruise, but it is experienced much more painfully than if they had been beaten. Any high expectations are always fraught with deep resentment for a person.
Let's say you do something for someone else and have your own assumption about how he must treat it. And suddenly surprise- He reacts quite differently than you would like. The flashed feeling that you have been underestimated causes a caustic feeling of bitterness. This must have been experienced more than once or twice by every person in his life. In resentment there is always a concrete threat to our positive self-image - self-perception and self-esteem. In this case, the train of thought is extremely simple: "I did not deserve this. I am better than they think about me." If a person is very worried, considering himself offended, it is obvious that a very important string of his soul has been touched. And everything that is significant to us is also vulnerable. It will not be possible to offend with what is insignificant. And most often, resentment is not explained rationally, it is simply emotionally experienced. And the problem is not what is experienced, but what is experienced in a non-constructive way, because in most cases the offense does not go beyond the boundaries of negative emotions. It overshadows logic, instills doubts and self-doubt, and often embitters the offended against others. A person ceases to adequately test reality, the picture of the world is greatly distorted, life begins to be drawn in gloomy colors.
What to do, how and where to look for a way out? Here are some of the express methods:
1. It is necessary to speak the problem, translate it from the language of emotions into the language of logic. Mentally answer yourself the question: why exactly does this offend me. Perhaps you will finally find out what is important to you in life. If you have a real friend, a girlfriend who is ready to understand and listen, open up to them. Thus, you will not only relieve mental stress, perhaps they will help you admit to yourself what you really didn’t want to admit in private.
2. Good way"get rid of" resentment - write a letter to an old friend or keep a diary. The need to express your thoughts clearly and honestly will quickly make you understand yourself. And, perhaps, the resentment that has managed to grow into a problem will not be so significant that you spend time and energy on it.
3. If there is no true friend nearby, there is no one to write to, but it is necessary to speak out, dial the "helpline". It is much easier to communicate frankly with a stranger (for example, with a fellow passenger) than with relatives, and this helps to quickly understand the situation.
4. Do not make decisions right away, in a hurry. Better take a timeout indefinitely, postponing the "dismantling" until the next day, and go to bed. Say to yourself, like the heroine of Gone With the Wind, "I'll think about that tomorrow."
5. Laugh more often and engage in your "I", look inside yourself daily, and not just during the "shipwreck". Regularly challenge yourself with questions: what is important to me and what is not? Look at the world respectfully - but not timidly, seriously - but with a smile. Be in good sense self-sufficient. Instead of holding a grudge against the whole world, smile at him. Do you know how one self-sufficient person, Socrates, treated the world, and therefore people? "My enemies can kill me, but they can't insult me."
6. If you can not unwind the ball of grievances, seek help from a psychologist or psychotherapist. Sometimes only at the third or fourth step does a person understand the underlying cause of resentment. And this is necessary in order not to be offended in the future.
If you are serious about your self-development, then you need to learn the following skills:
First, we must learn to build relationships with others, abandoning unrealistic expectations. That is, I will not err in anticipating the behavior of another if I do not expect anything from him. It is clear that this is ideal, but everyone is able to reduce the personal level of expectations.
Secondly, there will be no resentment if I do not, as much as possible, associate the satisfaction of any of my needs with the behavior of another. That is, to be grateful to another for something done for me, but at the same time not to consider him to be doing something to me. After all, maturity implies, among other things, relying on oneself and gratitude for any help from another.
Thirdly, it is necessary to refuse to evaluate the behavior of others. That is, stop comparing the observed behavior of another with your own expectations. This is the observance of the well-known covenant "Judge not, lest you be judged..."
And then everyone will be able to say to himself: "It is impossible to offend me precisely because I accept myself and others as they are."
To get a personal response from the priest. But some of the questions cannot be answered in one letter - they require a detailed conversation. Sometimes not only with a priest, but also with a psychologist. Recently, we received a letter from a reader who is very worried because of her oppressive feelings of resentment towards a small child. Where does this feeling come from and how to deal with it? We asked our regular author and psychologist Alexander Tkachenko to answer this letter.
Letter from a reader
I often resent my son. He is only five years old, but he always argues with me, snaps, and sometimes just does something on purpose to spite me. I try to explain to him that it’s not good to do this, but usually I get so offended that I just go to my room and cry. Then my son comes to me as if nothing had happened. And I want him to understand how much I was hurt by his behavior. And I continue to resent him. He comes and wants us to play together or I read him a book. And I'm lying on the couch with a stone face and pretending not to notice him. He gets scared, starts crying, says "mommy, I'm sorry." I feel very sorry for him at such moments, but I do not believe that he really realized how he offended me. And I continue to be offended.
I myself from these recurring stories is very bad. I understand that being offended is a sin, and even more so - being offended by a little son. But I can't help myself. On the other hand, there is a commandment “honor your parents”. And my son treats me like his peer - he is rude, does not obey, all the time he wants everything to be only according to him. I'm raising him alone, we don't have a dad. And I don't know what to do with all this. Resentment is the wrong feeling, but I can’t overcome it.
Svetlana
How to unpack “packaged anger”
Psychologist Alexander Tkachenko answers the reader's question
From the point of view of psychology, there are no feelings of "right" or "wrong." There are simply feelings that a person experiences and which are not an annoying or harmful mistake. Each of them is quite real, each of them should be reckoned with and treated with respect. And even more so - when behind them is human pain, suffering, spiritual wound.
A mother's resentment towards her little child is a very strong and painful feeling. And when it is devalued, declared “wrong” and explained in detail to tired, exhausted mothers why they should not experience it, this is about the same as telling a person with a bad tooth why he himself is to blame for his suffering.
Mothers resent their children. It's just a fact of their emotional life, arising in conditions of prolonged stress caused by overwork, chronic lack of sleep, lack of support from relatives, high responsibility for the life and health of their baby. To give a negative assessment of this fact is a deliberately senseless and merciless thing, which only adds to the bitterness of the insult also the bitterness of guilt for this insult. Therefore, we will simply try to talk here about what resentment is, describe the mechanism of its occurrence and talk about how you can deal with this painful feeling.
In psychology, resentment has several names. For example: resentment is an unexpressed demand. Indeed, this feeling arises when you think that your rights were infringed in some way, you were insulted, hurt, but for some reason you could not demand from your offenders that they stop behaving like that.
Resentment is sometimes called a childish feeling. This does not mean that only children can be offended. It’s just that in communicating with parents, it is the child who very often encounters the impossibility of expressing his demands to them and is forced to suppress the erupted emotions, since he already knows from sad experience that their open expression will not end in anything good for him.
What emotions does a child have to restrain in communicating with dad, mom, grandmother? Of course, this is anger, irritation, annoyance, anger. A child, like any other living being, experiences them from time to time. But any attempt to express them to the parents is usually suppressed, and sometimes very harshly.
Hence another definition - packaged anger. In fact, resentment is a complex emotion, consisting of two simpler components: self-pity and anger at the offender. It arises where a person, against his will, was forced to stop this anger, "pack" it, did not let it splash out on the one who caused the pain.
Oddly enough, resentment also has quite constructive functions that allow minimizing the dangerous consequences of a conflict between loved ones.
After all, most of all we experience the pain and injustice caused by those whose attitude we value, whom we would not want to lose. If the relationship with the person who hurt our feelings is not too important for us, we usually give a worthy rebuff, defend ourselves or attack, according to the threat that has arisen. A completely different situation develops when a spiritual wound is inflicted by a person with whom one would not want to quarrel. Then you have to suppress the outbreak of aggression and live with this “packaged” anger for some time, until the feelings calm down at least a little and it becomes possible to talk about them without shouting and breaking dishes.
Trying to keep relationships from breaking up, we give up immediate self-defense. But at the same time, we are still hurt, offended and very sorry for ourselves. This bitter cocktail of repressed anger and self-pity manifests itself on the bodily level in a very specific way. Resentment is easily read on a person's face by trembling lips, eyes full of pain and disappointment, jerky movements. Or - if the reaction is dominated not by self-pity, but by anger at the offender - by tightly clenched jaws, pursed lips, and a fixed look.
Such a spontaneously erupted resentment is both a brake on retaliatory aggression in the offended person and an important social signal for the offender, by which he can easily determine that his words or deeds hurt and that the situation needs to be urgently corrected. But this happens only in the case when both parties to the conflict are interested in continuing the relationship and have a certain degree of emotional maturity that allows them not to “get stuck” in this phase. Then, as soon as the pain from resentment subsides a little, the offended person has the opportunity to present it to his partner, to talk about his feelings. And the offender - to show compassion, regret, ask for forgiveness. In such a situation, resentment acts like a beacon, which, on a stormy night, signals to the captain with its fire: be careful, your ship has lost its course and is heading straight for the rocks.
These are the normal functions of resentment when it comes to the relationship of emotionally mature people who are not prone to manipulation.
But it also happens that quite adult people are used to declaring any of their needs only in such a “childish” way, through resentment. And then pursed lips and a fixed look can turn into a powerful tool for influencing a partner, into emotional "torture mites" with which such immature children will constantly pull anything out of each other - from assurances of love and fidelity to a trip to a resort or buying a new one. car.
And then we can say that a person’s resentment has turned into a form of passion. In the Christian understanding, passion is a certain property of human nature, which was originally kind and useful, but later turned out to be mutilated beyond recognition by misuse and turned into a dangerous disease.
From a reasonable way to keep a flash of anger and show the offender that he is causing you suffering, resentment can also turn into its passionate, sick form. This happens when a person “gets stuck” in his resentment for a long time and even begins to receive some paradoxical pleasure from it. In the Orthodox tradition, such a passion is called remembrance. The Monk John of the Ladder found a very expressive image to describe her: "... a nail plunged into the soul, an unpleasant feeling, beloved in affliction with delight."
Resentment is a mechanism for containing anger and signaling to a partner about the pain caused to us. But in this capacity, it "works" only when it comes to people with approximately the same experience of understanding the feelings of another person.
What happens when the participants in the conflict have an unequal experience, like, for example, a mother and her five-year-old son? For ease of understanding, consider this situation in parts.
Question one: Can a mother be angry with her child? Yes, easily! She is a living person and is capable of experiencing a feeling of anger, for example, when a child is naughty to the extent, stops obeying, does not want to clean up toys after herself. It is only in children's books and cartoons that mothers are always kind, affectionate, understanding and infinitely patient. IN real life any mother can have any number of "feisty" situations. Even the most harmless things can make her angry if she is very tired, if she has not had enough sleep for many nights, or simply feels unwell.
Question two: Will such an angry mother become aggressive towards her child? There are different options here. But still, as far as she has the strength, any mother tries to restrain herself in such situations, and the reasons for this, probably, do not need to be explained.
Question three: what is the name of the feeling that arises when anger that has barely flared up is immediately suppressed and “packed”, finding no way out in aggressive behavior? That's right, that's what it is - an insult. With clenched jaws, pursed lips and a fixed gaze, fixed on nowhere.
And now it's time for the fourth, most important question: can a five-year-old child correctly “read” these signs of resentment on her mother’s face and understand that she is now in pain and bad, that her mother needs to be pitied and supported? With all certainty, we can say that at this age the child does not yet know how to recognize the feelings of other people so subtly. He is not yet able, seeing the changed mother's face, to immediately say: “Mommy, dear, it seems that I did something wrong. Tell me what upset you?" Most likely, he will not notice this change at all and will continue to behave further as if nothing had happened.
A very important conclusion follows from this.
In a relationship with a child, the signaling function of resentment does not work. Not because he is so cruel and heartless. But because he is small and is still poorly able to understand feelings, both others' and his own.
In this situation, resentment can only half fulfill its tasks: it helps the mother to restrain her anger and not splash it out on a child who does not understand anything. But you will have to tell him about your feelings, as they say, in plain text. Without expecting miracles of insight from him, unusual for his age.
It would seem that what is easier is to tell your son or daughter about how you feel now. However, even here there is a rule, without which such a conversation, most likely, will lead nowhere. The rule is this:
you need to talk only about yourself and your feelings, without shifting responsibility for them to the child.
For example, instead of “you see what you brought me to!”, say: “I am very sad now and I want to cry. I don't like it when we fight." With such a construction of phrases, the mother helps the baby not only learn to understand her feelings, but also talk about her experiences, share them. Indeed, often the child is harmful only because he does not know how to correctly express what he now feels, what upsets or angers him.
Of course, we are not talking here about indulging children in any of their whims. Without reasonable restrictions, education is impossible. But in the case of resentment towards the child, the mother first of all needs to learn how to cope with her emotions. And another rule can be a serious help in this:
In no case should you use resentment against a child as an “educational tool”.
This happens when a mother holds her resentment for a long time, demonstrating it in every possible way in order to arouse feelings of guilt and remorse in the child. Alas, nothing good will come of such "education". The child does not understand the reasons for her behavior, he only sees that his mother no longer loves him, does not want to talk and play with him. Such deprivation of maternal love for him is a disaster. No matter how much he misbehaves before this, his mother is still the best for him. main man in the world, she herself is this world, and her care and love is the life force, without which the child will simply die.
Looking at his mother's petrified face, at her pursed lips, hearing her cold "go away, I don't want to talk to you", he only sees that his mother rejected him. His small world collapses, he is horrified by the impending death and understands only one thing: in order to survive, you need to beg forgiveness from your mother at any cost. The child, of course, does not see any connection between what is happening with the recent conflict over scattered toys or uneaten porridge. He's just not up to it, he's scared and depressed. In his sobbing "mommy, I'm sorry" only a request to return the love, life and peace that he lost overnight. And when mom asks in the same icy tone: “Why forgive you?”, He is completely lost, because he has no answer. And this makes the mother even more angry, she considers his behavior insincere and continues to punish the delinquent child with her protracted resentment. Then, of course, she will forgive him, hug him, pat him on the head and say: “Well, now you understand that you can’t do this?” And the tearful child obediently nods, clinging to the warm mother's hand. But instead of an instructive lesson, he will take out of this story only the experience of rejection.
Now he knows that his mother can deprive him of her love at any moment and that it hurts a lot. The world ceases to be safe for him in the very core of his childhood - in his relationship with his mother. Living in such an unsafe world becomes scary.
And the more often the mother will resort to such "educational measures", the less chance she will have to achieve the desired result. The fact is that in repetitive painful situations, the child's psyche simply reduces sensitivity to them so as not to collapse from pain and horror. But it is impossible to selectively weaken the feeling of pain alone. Therefore, the child's general ability to experience any feelings is reduced. His soul freezes, like the heart of Kai from the fairy tale about the Snow Queen. He will also experience joy "half-heartedly", and along with his pain, he will no longer feel someone else's.
But the most devastating consequence of such “upbringing” is the conviction for the child that love must be earned, that only the good, who do not make mistakes, do everything and always only right, are loved. From a Christian point of view, this is a completely wrong view. God says that love is given not according to the merits of the receiver, but according to the goodness of the giver: ... love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven, for He commands His sun to rise over the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Do not the publicans do the same? (Matthew 5:44-46).
Yes, a mother can get angry at her child because of her infirmity. Yes, she is able to immediately “pack” her anger into an insult so as not to frighten the child during a quarrel. But consciously using this offense as a way of education makes no sense. Yes, and this method is too expensive then it will cost both the child and the mother.
There can be any number of reasons for a mother to be offended by her child. And each of them is important to her, no matter how insignificant it may seem from the outside. After all, this is her life, her pain and tears, her hands lowered from impotence. To reproach her for such an insult means to deprive her of the remnants of confidence in her maternal viability, to load her with a new portion of guilt and a consciousness of her own worthlessness.
However, there is one common cause which underlies many private grievances of this kind. Knowing about it, it will be easier for mothers to cope with their feelings in difficult situations with a child. The fact is that the mother spends the first months and years of a child's life with him in almost complete emotional fusion. After nine months of pregnancy, when both of their hearts beat in her body and for two there was one of her breaths, mother will perceive the child as part of herself for a long time to come. She will feel his emotions and desires as her own, from the shades of his crying she knows for sure whether his tummy hurts, whether he is hungry, or he is simply tired of lying in wet diapers. She needs this maternal hypersensitivity in order to understand the needs of the baby, which he still does not know how to put into words.
But when this period of natural fusion ends, and at about three years old the child has its first major crisis of separation from the mother, it can be very difficult for her to get out of this habitual relationship. It is here that the very basis for various grievances against the child appears.
After a long emotional fusion, a mother may unconsciously perceive her child as an equal to herself. And from here to resentment for any reason - at hand.
“Why is he angry and yelling at me, and I have to be silent and smile in response? Why is he mischievous on a walk, and I have to endure it and not be mischievous in return? In general, why do I owe him something all the time, but he doesn’t owe me anything?
Simply put, a mother’s resentment appears exactly where she either perceives the child as an equal adult, or she emotionally “falls” into childhood and sees herself as a little defenseless girl who is offended by this angry boy, whom for some reason everyone calls her son.
And if you learn to see these "failures" in an imaginary equality with the child, then there will be many times less resentment, and it will become much easier to experience them. There are no clever psychological techniques here. It is enough just to be aware of such a danger and not deceive yourself when the mind says: “here, now you have again put yourself and the baby on the same level. Be careful, resentment wanders somewhere nearby.
The rest is a matter of skill. Having stopped herself in this way at least once, mom gets new experience which you can then rely on with more confidence. A child is not equal to an adult, he is still only being formed as a person. And on this path, sometimes very unexpected discoveries await him and his mother.
For example, there are situations when children seem to test their parents for strength with their antics. But even in this case, they have a very specific task - to check to what extent our love for them extends. Are we ready to love them like this? But like this? Or even like this?
And the adulthood of parents is manifested here precisely in the ability, without collapsing, to perceive children's anger, resentment, insults and give feedback, in which there will not be the same feelings, but there will be a clearly readable answer: yes, I love you even like that, I am ready to be with you and support you, help you. Such behavior is very calming for children, because this is the behavior of a strong, older one. The one on whom you can rely, who can withstand what children have not yet learned to withstand.
The Commandment to Honor Parents Old Testament- a very serious law. This can be judged at least by the fact that its violators of the law of Moses prescribed to be stoned: Whoever speaks evil of his father or his mother must be put to death (Exodus 21:17). However, this commandment is not just a generic or everyday character. The fact is that the people of Israel were primarily a religious community. And the father and mother in this community were the very first teachers of the law for a person. They were the first to tell him about God, how to live righteously before Him on earth, and taught him to distinguish between good and evil. Those who did not honor their parents-teachers did not honor the law itself. Those who rejected the law also rejected God, which means that they became good-for-nothing people who, in ancient world there was no place among the living.
Such is the inner logic of this commandment, in which it was unconditionally assumed that the father and mother would be word, deed and own example instruct your children in a righteous life.
Used drawings by Ekaterina Roiz
In general, I am not a supporter of helping people cope with feelings or get rid of them, but on request " how to deal with resentment I react differently than in other cases. I usually help accept and learn to express my feelings.
But the feeling of resentment stands apart from all other feelings. Its main difference for me is that it is directed at the person himself and is destructive. It is very difficult to turn resentment into a resource (as you can do with almost any other feeling). Each time, being offended, a person spends his life force, not replenishing it with anything.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is necessary to cope with the feeling of resentment.
In the first part of the article Resentment It was said about the origin and formation of a feeling of resentment and the reaction that follows it. From childhood, this feeling passes into adulthood. In general, nothing changes.
An adult is offended if:
- regards the situation as unfair
- does not have the resources to solve the problem in a constructive way
- unconsciously uses resentment as a feeling that suppresses some other
- benefits (being offended, he can manipulate the behavior of other people)
So how do you deal with resentment?
It is difficult to provide one general solution for a problem for all people, but for the initial independent research, try the following points:
1. Answer the questions
Why are you interested in the question of how to deal with resentment? Why do you want to get rid of this feeling? What does it interfere with? If there is no more resentment in your life, how will it change it?
2. Try to remember all the "forbidden" feelings in your childhood
Phrases such as “good children don’t get angry”, “hating is bad”, “you can’t envy” may come up in your memory. Who forbade them to you?
How do you deal with these feelings now? Are they still "forbidden" for you? And for other people?
If you manage to remember these phrases, then you can re-evaluate these "truths". Until now, they were so deep in the subconscious that there was no thought to question their correctness. And now you can formulate your truths, for example, “the goodness of a child has nothing to do with the feelings that he experiences”, “there are no bad or good feelings”, etc.
“If I could have any feeling that I would have in this situation?”
Why is this “forbidden” feeling so scary for you now? (If in childhood there was a fear of losing the love of significant adults, now it is ...?)
If you can figure out why you are so afraid to let your feelings out, then by dealing with these fears, you can begin to experience the full range of feelings, and not the resentment that replaces them, which will surely make you a happier person.
4. Can you identify a group of people (or situations) with whom (in which) you most often feel resentment?
Who from your childhood do these people remind you of? Why are these situations special?
If you can draw a parallel with specific people from childhood, then this will mean that you still feel like the child you were.
What to do with this understanding? Work with Inner Child very difficult and without the help of a psychologist here you can not cope. But the essence of solving the problem is to "grow" your Inner Child, help him outgrow the addiction.
5. Is there any benefit to you from resentment?
Try to objectively evaluate how other people react when you feel hurt and behave "offended".
If you see a benefit in your resentment, then first consider, “what is more valuable to you: to receive this benefit or to cope with the resentment?” If the benefit is more valuable, then you can do nothing further, since it will be pointless (no work on yourself will give results). If dealing with resentment turns out to be a priority, then 1) you need to recognize and accept the fact that it is beneficial for you to be offended 2) look for ways to get what you want in other ways.
6. About justice
What do you think about this? Answer for yourself the questions that were voiced in the first part (I will duplicate them here):
- How did you know that she is?
- Someone promised you? Who? When?
- Based on the assumption of justice, how can one explain that one is born rich and healthy, the other poor and sick?
- Why does "injustice" exist for centuries? Is this "fair"?
- What function does faith in justice have for you? How does she help you? What questions does it answer?
These are just the first steps towards solving the problem. how to deal with resentment". Many questions are difficult to answer on your own. But sometimes it is enough to seriously think about the problem and begin to study it, as much becomes clear. When there is understanding, there is also the possibility of controlling previously uncontrollable situations.
