“I’m tormented by a heavy insult, I’ve been dragging through a gloomy life.”
“How unfair people are! Why do I need this?! My abilities and professionalism are not appreciated at work... We did the work together - everyone was noted, but they forgot about me! Well, isn't it a shame? For my care for my family, for my efforts to keep the house full, clean, comfortable, at least someone would say thank you... Ungrateful! Why is it everything for others, but nothing for me? Don't I deserve it?! How unfair life is!
A small grievance scrolls through your head over and over again, growing like a snowball and attracting new grievances. They press down like a heavy slab from under which you cannot get out. And there is no desire to get out: the painful state gnaws, deprives one of strength and becomes an excuse for inaction. Resentment appears more and more clearly on the face - dissatisfied and gloomy, manifests itself in reproaches and claims to others and returns in multiplied portions, because people try to avoid communicating with such a person. As a result, resentment replaces life. The oppressive feeling that life has failed leaves the only illusory consolation: to live the next life from scratch.
Will she be next?..
How do successful people get rid of resentment and negativity?
What do we associate with the phrase “successful person”? With a self-confident, purposeful, rational guy or girl who will find a competent way out of the situation everywhere. Indeed, this is so, and in order to prevent such a destructive feeling as resentment in your life, you need certain attitudes, for example, the habit of resolving misunderstandings through negotiations. Yes, sometimes it can be difficult to communicate that you are worried about someone's behavior in person, but depressing feelings will do much more harm both to your psyche and to your relationships with people. In addition, adequately approaching relationships as interactions between two individuals will also help in healthy conflict resolution.
Resentment is “my earthly compass”? - broken compass
Resentment is a dead end that prevents movement forward into the future. Instead of living here and now and getting joy from life, you poke around in the past, reproducing in your memory all the details of events: someone looked the wrong way, said something unflattering or, on the contrary, did not pay attention, forgot to fulfill what was promised. Despite the severity of past grievances, you seem to cherish these memories, indulging in them longer and longer. This is how fixation on the past occurs. In essence, resentment is a refusal to live in the present, an inability to find joy in it, but a “virtuoso” use of any event to replenish the collection of one’s grievances. It’s time (almost in the words of a poet) to ask: “Where did the impulse” of resentment take me? Does resentment show the way? And where?.. Yes, he points. There, where everything is in the past, where nothing can be changed, into oblivion...
What is resentment
What is resentment, why is it dangerous and how to get rid of it?
Photo: Depositphotos In psychology, resentment is a state after unjustified expectations - real or imaginary.
- The real expectation is when a person has not fulfilled his obligations.
- Imaginary - when other actions or words were expected from him.
Regardless of the nature of the expectations, a reaction will follow - it spills out or remains inside. In the first case, a conflict flares up. In the second, a state of emptiness and detachment from the offender arises.
"I remember evrything…"
The ability to be offended and remember all the grievances is characteristic of people of a special type. In system-vector psychology they are called people with an anal vector, who by nature have a powerful memory. Such memory allows them to accumulate past experience and pass it on to youth, ensuring continuity between generations in the development of culture and social experience. Such a person remembers everything: both good and bad. The memory of the “good” that was done to him gives rise to gratitude and the desire to “repay with good”; the memory of “bad things,” or rancor, gives rise to resentment and the desire to take revenge on the offender. These opposing characteristics are like two sides of the same coin, like a scale of possibilities for using a natural gift - memory.
Is resentment always harmful?
No not always. We live in the real world, which means that those around us, like us, are not ideal. Not everyone understands the language of cooperation and ordinary exhortations may not sound convincing to them.
In such cases, showing offense will help convey to the person the idea that something is wrong much faster and more clearly.
The most important thing is to clearly understand why you are offended and keep the situation under control, and then negative feelings will not affect you, but will only help manage the relationship.
Life without offense is truly possible, because in essence, a person himself chooses how to react to the events around him. And when this choice is made consciously and wisely, you truly control what happens to you, and this is the main value for a successful thinking person.
Is the mother a saint or the first offender?
For a person with an anal vector since childhood, the most important values are home (as a space and structure of relationships), family and parents, especially mother. This is SACRED for him. According to his specific role, such a person is called upon and is able to protect his home, family, elderly people and children from external enemies.
For a child (up to 6 years old), it is the mother who provides a sense of security and safety. In this sense, the father has not a direct impact on the child, but an indirect one - through the mother. If a man gives his wife a sense of balance, then she, with her inner calm state, provides such a feeling to the child; and vice versa, if a man causes anxiety, irritation, and dissatisfaction in his wife, then her condition is passed on to the child, who begins to experience stress from the loss of confidence in his own safety. And this can have a bad effect on its development.
A child with an anal vector in good condition is a “golden child”: diligent, obedient, loving his mother and grateful to her. True, he is a little slow, has difficulty making choices and takes a long time to make independent decisions, so he tries to do everything that mommy says, and so carefully and well, in order to receive praise. Deserved praise for such a child is a manifestation of justice and order in the world.
But it happens that the mother has different properties from the child and tries to develop in him the same properties that she herself has. The consequences of this are serious problems in upbringing: “fertile soil” is laid for the child to flourish in grievances. A fast, dexterous, sometimes fidgety mother constantly hurries, tugs, interrupts her slow baby: “Come on, hurry up, why are you digging around!” And he, by nature incapable of rapid changes, experiences stress and stupor, which can manifest itself in unmotivated stubbornness and, of course, resentment.
Another mother, immersed in her thoughts, does not seem to see how her son is trying to be obedient, good, the best. Yes, she doesn’t seem to notice him either, and the boy feels offended: they didn’t appreciate him, didn’t praise him! Or the mother of two children pays less attention to one (because he is older, stronger than the other. And the deprived one has a growing feeling that his mother is unfair to him: “didn’t love him, didn’t give him enough...” Such states of the child are associated with the loss of a sense of security and safety and give him abnormal development .
A child's resentment towards his mother, remaining for life, is then transformed into a resentment towards women - first towards one, the first girl, from whom an offensive attitude is unconsciously expected. Then the initial bad experience is recorded, and the resentment is transferred to all women: “They are all the same.” And then - to the whole world. As the scale of the object of grievance grows, the strength of the grievance itself also grows. And the only way to bring yourself into some balance is to take revenge on everyone and everything - at every opportunity. Well, since you can’t get pleasure from life, then at least relieve the tension - take revenge for your ruined life. “Who is to blame? MOTHER! It all started with her."
In what forms does resentment manifest itself?
There are different types of grievances. One form is resentment towards a loved one or partner who does not fulfill his usual obligations towards you. In this case, resentment represents pent-up anger - the person is dear to you, and you protect him from your anger.
Another type is neurotic resentment. It comes from childhood. If a child was disliked as a child, he will have a grudge against his parents for the rest of his life, and he transfers it to close people - husband, wife. It seems to a person that he is not valued, that he is not cared for, that he is not loved. He strives to receive proof of love, but what exactly he does not know. Cannot clearly formulate his need.
Another form of resentment also begins in childhood: the child manipulates to get what he wants. If parents make concessions, resentment as a reaction to events is fixed at the level of a conditioned reflex from childhood.
Many people continue to “turn on” their child in adulthood, because being offended is the easiest way to emerge as a “winner.” People react to insults and feel guilty. At the same time, there is no need to take responsibility for resolving the situation.
“They carry water for the offended”
Adults with the anal vector in a developed and realized state are professionals in their field, meticulous in detail (perfectionists), the best experts who help identify the slightest inconsistencies in order to correct shortcomings and mistakes. These are masters with golden hands who can do everything: from cleaning a home to repairing a car and building a summer house with their own hands. These are the best fathers and mothers, whose children are not only fed and cared for, but also taught much of what parents can do.
However, the same people under stress become victims not so much of circumstances as of their own grievances: due to the lack of expected honor at work, respect from the younger generation, their children, who are obliged to respect their elders; due to insufficient order in the house (“why are the slippers out of place?”) And now the best jacks of all trades in the world turn into sofa sitters, the best parents and spouses in the world turn into despots initiating domestic violence.
The main reason for the occurrence of resentment is disappointed expectations: well-deserved praise, rewards, preservation of the usual way of life and relationships, sympathy. An offended person is very predictable in his reactions. Therefore, in addition to all other troubles, such people also become victims of manipulation: through resentment, he can be unsettled and “removed from the field” as an active opponent; through praise you can make you do almost anything; through expressing pity and sympathy for him - to get what he wants.
The fate of an offended person is unenviable.
Resentment: what is it for and why are we afraid of it?
About forgiveness, about resentment. I like it.
Why is “never being offended” bad?
I just want to say, oh, there are no negative feelings. That is, any unpleasant feeling performs a certain function necessary for the individual. Therefore, when a person says: “I never get offended,” there is nothing good in that. Either he has lost his sensitivity, or he is holding back his emotional reactions, or there are some other reasons.
Why are we afraid to feel offended? In some cases, because in early childhood we were often told that being offended is very bad: “They carry water on the offended.” Or another “wonderful” expression: “Be above it.” Another formulation of the same thing: “They don’t take offense at fools.” Parents don’t even think about the fact that with such words they are instilling pride in their child.
The other extreme is when they say: “Stop it! It's OK!" And in this way they encourage the child not to feel what he really feels.
Resentment as a feeling is a very important signal for a person that something is not right in his relationships with others. It is important to understand what this signal is about.
Unjustified expectations
If we look at the essence of resentment, we will see that when a person is offended, it means that his expectations from another person or from the world have not been met.
A reasonable question that a person can ask himself is how adequate were my expectations? Did the other person who allegedly hurt me know that it hurt me or that I didn’t want it that way? Is he aware of what I expected from him?
And if the answer to this question is no, then why be offended? In this case, you need to clarify the situation, you need to tell him about your expectations and draw conclusions for the future, warn him, talk about it.
Resentment as manipulation
When a person is offended, and he is seriously offended for a long time, and does not speak, then if you ask him why he is doing this, he will say: “I am doing this to improve our relationship.” Moreover, by “improve our relationship” he means that the other person should become comfortable for him, should meet all his expectations, and then their relationship will improve.
In this case, resentment works as manipulation: if you do not change in accordance with my expectations, then I will neither talk to you, nor communicate, nor smile at you. That is, until you become comfortable, I’m not friends with you. Such a strange idea of what “improving our relationship” means.
And indeed, resentment is often used precisely as a method of manipulation.
When resentment is justified
But there are times when resentment is justified. That is, my expectations are adequate to the situation. What are these cases?
When I voiced my request, my need, my desire to a person, when he heard me, this is important, because some people seemed to listen, but it’s not a fact that they heard or understood. It is also necessary that the person agrees to fulfill my request and my expectation, that is, he admits: yes, I am ready to do this. And if after that he does not fulfill his promise, then the offense here is completely adequate and appropriate.
Ability to communicate
But we forgot another important point. If a person had objective, serious reasons for not fulfilling my request, then resentment is also inappropriate here.
That is, until we find out what happened by talking with the person, it’s too early to be offended. When we have already clarified everything, then either resentment is simply not needed, or resentment helps us (since it is a very energetic feeling) to increase the emphasis on some aspect of the relationship.
I-message
This is where resentment actually serves an important function because it helps us talk about our feelings with the intensity with which we experience them. That is: “It hurts me!!! I felt unpleasant... I was scared! It was awkward and inconvenient for me.”
Notice that I am now describing a person's words in the form of an "I-message." What is an I-message? When I talk about myself: about my feelings, about my needs, about my desires.
That is, I’m not saying: you did something bad, you’re such a scoundrel, you offended me, and that’s why I don’t want to communicate with you. I talk about my feelings and give feedback. Because a person could do this unconsciously, did not attach importance to his words and actions. Perhaps he did not have objective serious reasons, but there were some other reasons.
Finding the reason
If a person does evil intentionally, that is, he knows that it hurts me, knows that I will worry, but at the same time, as they say, “out of spite,” then this is a very serious signal about problems in our relationship.
Here, too, there is no point in “sulking” and being offended for a long time, but you need to notice your offense and clarify the relationship - what happened? Because maybe he’s unconsciously taking revenge on me for something, or maybe he’s just screaming about how bad he feels, but for various reasons he can’t admit it.
By hurting me, making me feel bad, he can thus attract my attention.
Myths about forgiveness
And here the question is: when to forgive? And can everything be forgiven?
This question is always asked at our seminars, and the answer is clear: everything can be forgiven. But myths about forgiveness that exist in our lives immediately emerge.
Myths #1: Forgiveness means forgetting.
Some people (this is one of the myths) believe that to forgive means admitting that “nothing happened” - “let’s put it aside for clarity.” Nothing terrible happened, the person did nothing.
What if he really did? We seem to justify it, and whitewash it, and call black white. But this has nothing to do with forgiveness. Because to forgive does not mean to “forgive sins”; it does not mean to devalue an action.
Forgiveness does not carry with it a devaluation of the harm, the evil that a person has caused to us. And we forgive the person, the individual. Remember that there is a saying: “love the sinner, but hate the sin.” This statement is very appropriate here.
We should not, to please a person or to preserve a relationship, refuse to expose any vices or sins, misdeeds and malicious actions. Therefore, it is very important here to separate forgiveness from reproof. Moreover, in denunciation it is necessary to call a spade a spade. If this is not just my subjective feeling, but a truly objective situation, an obvious situation, that a person has betrayed or deceived, or greatly let down.
Myth No. 2: “I won’t forgive you until you apologize”
Another myth: you can only forgive if the person himself asks for forgiveness. Nothing like this. We do not forgive for a person, we forgive for ourselves.
What is resentment? It is I who bear the evil against another person within myself. And this evil, like tension, literally physically lives somewhere inside me. The question is, “Where - in the heart or in the head?” - a rhetorical question, but the main thing is that I carry this evil within myself.
Forgiveness does not depend on whether the other person admits that what he did is evil, and that he did this evil, whether he wants me to forgive him, but depends on whether I want to continue to bear evil on the other person . Moreover, it is not his evil, but my evil - the fact that I am angry with him, the fact that I condemn him, the fact that I do not accept him.
And for the heart, for the soul, being angry with another person is a very heavy burden. When a person does not forgive, there is an element of self-destruction in this.
People keep their grudges for decades, thinking that by doing so they are punishing the one who harmed them, but first of all they are punishing themselves.
Myth No. 3: weaklings forgive
What other myths are there? That forgiveness is weakness. If you forgive, you will be like a rag. But in fact, forgiveness requires a lot of courage and inner strength. After all, we must make an internal effort in order to separate the pain that we experienced from our relationship with the person.
That is, the pain can remain, so it is not always possible, after forgiving a person, to forget what he did. A painful trace may remain throughout your life, but this does not mean that the person has not forgiven.
We don’t remember the nail we ran into in childhood, but the scar remains with us for the rest of our lives. We are not angry, we do not judge, we have forgiven a long time ago, but the trace of this trauma may remain and sometimes remind us of ourselves.
It must be kept in mind that forgiveness does not always mean the end of pain. And if a person, still remembering what happened, experiences some kind of pain, this does not mean that he has not forgiven.
Forgiveness as a decision - “decided and forgave” - is impossible. Without feelings, without some kind of internal emotional work, there will be no forgiveness.
Myth No. 4: It will go away on its own.
In the same way, the opposite - “when the feelings inside go away, it will somehow forgive itself, without my will” - is also not true. It doesn't forgive itself.
Forgiveness is a combination of both will and feelings. I make a decision, and then I emotionally implement this decision in some way. Based on this, forgiveness is not an act of “cutting off” just like that, but a process. And for some situations this is a long process, which depends on the degree of injury and destruction that happened to me.
I really like the expression that forgiveness is one-sided responsibility and one-sided openness. Forgiveness does not expect reciprocation (ideally). And forgiveness does not automatically mean reconciliation: if I have forgiven a person, then I will continue to communicate well with him. A person can commit an act towards me that makes further communication with him impossible.
That is, if I have forgiven, this does not mean that I will continue to be friends with him as before, that nothing will change in our relationship. Sometimes it changes and changes dramatically.
Forgiveness as a gift
Forgiveness is my free gift to another. I give it to him without expecting anything in return. What are we expecting?
We expect him to change, correct himself, realize his mistakes, and repent. No, I don't have to, I shouldn't. Maybe. With our forgiveness, we seem to help him a little, accepting him as he is. But this is not a guarantee.
Forgiveness is both generosity and risk.
Generosity - because it really is such an act of the soul, and risk - because you don’t know where you will end up. The result of my forgiveness is unknown either to me or to the other person.
Benefits of Resentment
Therefore, when we talk about resentment, it is very important to remember that the essence of resentment is unjustified expectations. And the first thing we do when we feel resentment within ourselves is ask ourselves the question: how adequate are my expectations?
If expectations are adequate, we clarify the relationship. If expectations are inadequate, the issue of resentment is removed. And the expression that “they carry water to the offended” is correct only if the offense becomes not so much an emotional reaction (ceases to perform a signaling function), but becomes a way of life, a way of building relationships - such a manipulative means with the help of which a person builds his own relationships with others.
There are many benefits to resentment. To be offended, to be a victim is immediately a “halo” over your head, “wings” spreading behind your back. This is self-affirmation against the backdrop of “bad”, “terrible” others who are so evil, so bad, so insensitive.
An interesting sociological study was conducted when people were asked: “What would you like to change in those around you?” The majority said: so that others would be more tolerant, friendly, sensitive, and understanding. “What qualities would you like to develop more in yourself?” Well, of course, confidence, determination, perseverance, strength are completely different, opposite qualities.
When offended, a person often uses others as an object of self-affirmation. And this is already a way of building relationships.
What to do with grievances
- How do you understand that you have sincerely forgiven?
- To understand that you have forgiven sincerely, it is important to have some internal criteria within yourself. Moreover, these criteria are different for each person.
The internal criterion is the feeling that I do not hold a grudge. For some, this will be a feeling of lightness and freedom, as opposed to tension, heaviness and some unpleasant feelings, and for others, this will be the opportunity to calmly think or talk with the offender, when there is no unpleasant aftertaste or any distortion inside. perception.
For some, sincere forgiveness is the cessation of an endless dialogue in the head, when a person proves, justifies, accuses, explains, condemns and mentally scrolls through this dialogue in his head ad infinitum. And if suddenly it ends, and there is silence in the head, then perhaps this indicates that the person has sincerely forgiven.
It is very important for each person to find out for himself - how can I understand within myself that I have truly forgiven sincerely? There cannot be an external criterion here, and another person cannot suggest or help find this criterion. This can be found out through introspection and careful attention to your inner world. There are no other ways.
— Is it possible to tolerate rudeness, for example, in a store or at the post office?
— If we talk about our reactions to the rudeness that we may encounter on public transport, in a store and in some other places, then here we are most likely not talking about offense. Because resentment relates more to personal relationships and emotional connections. And in transport and stores the situation is depersonalized, where the insult may not be directed at me personally, but at me as a member of society, as a passenger or buyer. Therefore, there will most likely not be resentment, but a reaction of irritation and rejection.
It is completely normal to experience negative reactions when we encounter injustice or hooliganism or rudeness. And here it is important what we do next. If we begin to be rude in response, then this, of course, is unacceptable. Or we are silent because the forces are unequal, and we are afraid. This may be because sometimes the risk is too great, the risk of a literal physical threat, that a person might hit or continue some kind of insults - and here, perhaps, it’s not worth “getting into trouble.” Heroism, of course, is welcomed, but not in all situations.
In a situation of insult or public violence, it is best to turn to someone for help if we cannot cope ourselves. In the store, ask for a manager or demand a complaint book. Don't leave it unpunished.
Why? Because by giving feedback to another person on his action, we help him. You can, of course, be afraid that we will offend him, or that he will be upset. But by not giving feedback, we leave him in the field of impunity. He feels that he can continue to behave this way, and this leads him into temptation. Without facing resistance to his negative behavior, he begins to think that this is normal.
It happens that people do not consider their behavior boorish.
I often give this example in lectures. I was traveling on a train, and next to me a husband and wife were talking to each other, using obscene words. This is how they communicate. They weren't arguing, they were just having this conversation. I and two young girls were sitting nearby. And it was terrible to listen to, so when I realized that if I didn’t do something now, I would have to listen to this for the entire trip, I reminded them that they were in a public place and that they shouldn’t express themselves like that. They were completely sincerely surprised and said: yes, yes, sorry. It turned out that they know normal words. They just somehow didn’t think that they weren’t at home.
I don't want to discuss the moral character of these people or the way they communicate now, but it is important to show that sometimes people do not realize that they are breaking the rules. And then, indeed, you can remind them, point out this without any aggression, anger, irritation, but simply ask.
Yes, this doesn't always help. You may hear something unpleasant in response. But exposing sin—we are called to this. This is a call to all Orthodox Christians. Don’t leave it unattended, because a person really may not know or not notice.
— Do you need to talk about your grievances to others or is this a private matter for everyone?
“When we are offended, we are faced with the question: to tell another or not to tell.” It depends on the situation, because we are responsible for our feelings. And another person may unintentionally hurt us. Therefore, blaming him for offending us is not always possible.
The next question is: how close is our relationship with this person, and how much am I going to continue communicating with him? It depends on whether I give him feedback on his actions, on his words, on his actions or not. If I want to communicate with a person further, then it would be good for him to know in what cases it hurts me, what words can hurt me, what actions I do not accept.
Of course, in the form of an “I message”: “I want to say that when people do this, it makes me feel bad (or it hurts me, I feel bad, I don’t like it).”
What to do if it concerns serious things, first of all, health? A simple example. A person starts smoking without asking permission. And my head hurts from tobacco smoke. He didn't want to offend me. Should I sit, endure, sniff tobacco smoke and then suffer from a headache, or should I tell him: you know, tobacco gives me a headache, so please don’t smoke in front of me?
This feedback does not condemn the person, it simply says that I don’t like it, it doesn’t suit me. I'm not saying that I was offended.
Therefore, in this case, of course, you can talk about your feelings, you can talk about your reactions, but remember that sometimes our emotional reactions are inadequate to the situation. This inadequacy may be caused by our fatigue. We didn’t get enough sleep, we don’t feel well, we’re just oversensitive at this particular moment, and we can react to ordinary actions: how is this possible, what is this?! But this does not mean that the person did something bad.
— How to react when you are deliberately offended?
- If I know that a person offended me on purpose, then I begin to have doubts about our relationship. Because if a person wants to hurt me and hurts me on purpose, then what kind of relationship is this?
Or maybe I provoked it? Also a thought.
But even if I provoked it, this is not a reason to respond to me “evil for evil”; you can always solve such issues somehow differently. I unwittingly hurt a person, he responded to me. But it is not necessary to multiply evil, you can clarify and stop evil.
In any case, if we are talking not about family relations, but about friendly relations, then the question of distance, trust, and sometimes the question of terminating these relationships arises. Why should I communicate with a person who deliberately hurts me? Unless I'm a masochist, of course.
With family relationships everything is more complicated.
— How to behave with a touchy person? Do you need to be careful all the time, please him, or speak your mind directly?
— Often, when faced with touchy people, we begin to be hypocritical, indulge in people-pleasing and think that this is a manifestation of our virtue, that we take care of him in this way: by pleasing and serving his touchiness, we are doing a good deed for him. But that's not true.
Hypocrisy and people-pleasing cannot be virtues, no matter what motives they are caused by, just like our “patience.”
How does such “patience” differ from tolerance? Patience is when I squeezed all my feelings inside. Moreover, what are the feelings? Dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, disagreement, rejection, sometimes even hatred. And on the outside I nod, I smile, I agree, I don’t say anything against. But this has nothing to do with the virtue of tolerance. Because tolerance is internal acceptance without indignation, anger and condemnation of another person.
Often the result of patience is gossip. Because here I endured, endured, “didn’t show it,” but then I go to the place where I feel safer, and there I will express everything that I think about the behavior of another person. Therefore, such servility does not lead to good.
It is important to remember that responsibility for feelings lies with the person himself. I cannot offend, and I cannot be offended. I may be offended. It is my choice how I react and for how long, and what I then do with this resentment. Either I think and take some action, or I care for her, cherish her.
But we have already said that resentment can be an excellent way of manipulation and self-affirmation. Therefore, there is no point in indulging in this.
Sooner or later a person may find out that it turns out that we do not agree with him, and that we have tolerated him all along. From whom will he find out? Yes, from us. Patience will end, and we will tell him everything that we have been saving all these long years. And for him it will be a terrible blow and disappointment. That is, we tolerate for the sake of preserving relationships, but in fact, relationships built on hypocrisy are gradually destroyed.
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