Have you ever felt angry at someone for something they did to you and feel powerless to stop it or change it? And that feeling keeps coming back, and festering? Resentments are one of the most insidious and harmful negative emotions we feel. But many, even most of us, experience them, and often without knowing or understanding it.

In this newsletter, I will be explaining what a resentment is, how it affects us, and give you seven tangible tips to overcome your resentments and free yourself from the pain we cause ourselves.

What is a resentment?

The dictionary defines resentment as a "bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly." Some have called it "victim anger." A resentment is a negative emotional reaction to being mistreated. It often involves an underlying sense of having been wronged by another person without justification. Resentments are negative feelings of ill will toward someone or something, usually in our past. We re-experience the past injustices, whether they are real or perceived, and our feelings of anger that flow from them. We get angry towards a person, institution or situation, and we persist in holding onto that anger. When we struggle to let go of our resentments, or even keep the resentment alive by remembering the wrongs done to us and the ways we have been hurt, we feel like a victim, long after the original injury happened.

I suspect that most of us have felt resentments over some things that happened in our life. Many of them are personal or arise from broken relationships. Some of us actually experience them professionally.

I have had several things happen to me in my practice as an attorney that created resentments. I was involved in a hotly contested divorce case with a lawyer who had quite a reputation of being a "pitbull." He was constantly making accusations not substantiated by the facts. Three times I was in court with him, and all three times he called me a "liar" to the judge. Those statements were absolutely without foundation. They were never said to me personally outside of the courtroom where the record could have been corrected in a professional way. I had a very hard time letting go of that behavior, even though many told me that the judges all knew what he was about, placed no credence in what he said, and accepted my truthful response to his accusation.

The other occurred when the other party to a case (not my client but the opposing party) filed an attorney grievance against me, the first in over four decades of practice; he then had his paramour file one as well. The accusations were completely false. It was very unfair and absolutely "dirty pool." But I had to engage an attorney to respond to those charges; they had to be reported to my insurance company, and they involved both financial expense and wasted time. They were of course promptly dismissed as being groundless.

Professionally, many lawyers I've spoken to have experienced resentments over such things as partners who treat them abusively, yelling, angry etc.; clients who file malpractice claims against them without a basis; other attorneys for engage in nasty conduct or make groundless claims; and support staff who regularly drop the ball on their assignments, when the associate does not have the power to change their employment situation.

Of course, for many of us, the more difficult resentments are those which arise in our personal life, whether it is a broken relationship, some false accusation, some harm that was done to us. We relive the pain of each of these experiences that happened, and continue to experience the harm and anger that we felt.

How do resentments affect us?

When we hold onto those feelings of anger toward someone else who wrongly harmed us, the pain starts to eat way at us inside. I have always liked the phrase, "feeling resentful about someone else is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die." When we feel resentful, the party who harmed us does not know, does not care and is not affected. The only person we are harming is ourselves. It is as if we become the slave to the person who hurt us. Ultimately, when we continue to feel that resentment, we are the ones who suffer the most. We are giving power over our happiness to the person who deserves it the least, the person who harmed us. The resentment can even become obsessive, and we may have an inability to stop thinking about what happened and reliving it, feeling the pain over and over again.

The good news is that our feelings of resentment can be changed. We have power over them. We can free ourselves from that emotional pain we cause when we relive the events.

How do we free ourselves from our resentments?

There are many things in our life which we cannot change. But we do have control of our attitudes and our thoughts. And we can stop that other person or that institution from continually causing us pain by continuing to fester on what happened. It is very possible to free ourselves from our resentments. Here are seven tips you can use in overcoming that continual anger you feel about something that happened to you:

1. Understand our emotion. Reflect on what happened and understand our feelings about it. Why are you feeling the way you do? How did what happened harm you? How were you affected? Allow yourself to feel those feelings. Understanding what happened, and how we feel is the first and crucial step. We must acknowledge that we feel resentful. Rather than avoid it, it healthy to admit "I have a resentment."

2. Accepting our role. Is there anything whatsoever that we did to cause or contribute to it? Almost always, there was some action or behavior on our part that had something to do with what happened. Take responsibility for our piece of the event. Accepting our role is not only an action of personal responsibility but it is a step towards freeing ourselves from the victim mentality at the heart of our resentment. 

3. Share your feelings. Reach out to a trusted family member or friend, let them know what happened; and how you feel. It can be cathartic to stop holding those feelings inside and instead voicing them with someone you trust. You may also see the situation in a different light; or obtain new insight about what happened and why. 

4. Take action where we can. We have the power to choose to take action about what happened. Is there anything we can do about it? Journal about it? Speak directly to the person? Write a letter? There is no right answer. But, reflect on whether there is something constructive you can do; and then do it. 

5. Practice acceptance. We cannot change the person. We cannot undo what happened. It is what it is. So, accept it. Stop resisting it. Stop arguing about it in our mind, and continuing to feel angry. Accept it as being what happened and that we cannot change it. That will help us to move past it. 

6. Forgive. Isn't it hard to forgive someone who harmed us without reason? Of course. But, it is actually a step of creating our own personal freedom. When we feel angry over what someone did to us, we only hurt ourselves, not the wrongdoer. Forgiveness does not justify what happened, and is not an admission that what happened was not wrong. What it does though is stop that other person from continuing to cause us pain. It frees us from the self-inflicted anger we continue to feel. Forgiveness is self-empowering. It ends the other person's control over our happiness.

7. Be grateful. Instead of festering on some past wrong, what do we have to be grateful for today? Write a list of all the blessings in your life and reflect on them. When we focus on what we have to be grateful for, we feel serene and at peace. 

Which of these tools are helpful to you?

I am working with attorneys and other professionals to help them be as successful and fulfilled in their profession as they want. I would love to learn more about you, your challenges and your goals. If you would like to chat, please set up a complementary discovery call with me here: https://calendly.com/garymiles-successcoach/one-to-one-connect-call