Hi all,
We resent people at times because they did something wrong to us. Maybe they lied to us. Maybe they did not help us when we needed it. Then, we resented them and stopped talking. Or at least, we stopped being as close. I think everyone experiences something along these lines at some point in their lives.
I have been thinking what good this is to us. This thought is the result of another line of thinking. I was originally thinking what makes us tired. Obvious ones are extreme physical activity, sleeplessness etc. But there are also not so obvious ones such as resentment towards people. Let’s say that we are not on good terms with a colleague due to a reason similar to the ones above. We have to go to work. In addition to the work stress, we also have to deal with facing someone that we just fell out. We may believe it is ok but our minds usually do not think it is ok. Even if this is someone we don’t have to see that often, falling out with a friend is something that occasionally comes and goes in our minds. This is a secret energy drainer.
What can we do to keep our energy level? I believe we can forgive. Just trying to cut our emotional ties with the incident.
We can do this by thinking about the incident from our friend’s perspective: maybe they lied because they were under too much stress as well and they could not deal with whatever truth they were supposed to tell. Maybe, they would have told us if it was on another day. This is the strategy I use the most.
We can also try to tell ourselves the good sides of these friends rather than focusing on their lie. I am sure our friends have many good sides to them.
We can forgive by instructing ourselves to extract lessons from the incident and leave the incident in the past. This is not easy at all, but by forcing ourselves to focus on what good lies therein for us, we can gain more.
If we can forgive the major incidents and the participants involved, we can feel lighter, I believe. At least, it made me feel lighter to the extent I achieved that forgiveness. How do you deal with resentments? Do you try to forgive? If so, how do you do it? If not, do you want to?