Content

• Steps
• Part 1 of 2: Admit Your Feelings
• Part 2 of 2: Letting go of the resentment
• Warnings

Are you feeling resentful because someone hurt your feelings a lot? Are you offended by someone who seems better than you? Resentment is the process where you mentally fixate on a painful or unpleasant situation to the point that it makes you angry or bitter. Feelings of resentment can eat away at you from the inside out, poison your heart, preventing you from trusting others, feeling compassion, or opening up to love in the future. Overcoming resentment means accepting what happened and forgiving the person, as well as changing yourself so that these feelings do not have any negative impact on you.

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Admit Your Feelings

1. 1 Identify the source and cause of your resentment. Try to determine what feelings you are really experiencing and why you are experiencing them. Try to understand yourself. When did this feeling of resentment begin? Did one event or a series of them make you feel this way? Do you resent one person, such as your partner, or several, such as your parents or relatives?
   • Recognizing the roots of your grievance will help you choose how to overcome it. For example, if you feel resentful because someone close to you has disappointed or let you down, you might want to change your expectations about others. Obviously, you cannot change people, so the decision here will be to change yourself or learn to accept what has happened.
   • Sometimes the resentment triggers come directly from the person. However, it also happens that they are associated with insecurity or a complex that you already have.
2. 2 Recognize your role in the resentment. Sometimes we resent others because we are upset that we have opened up and made ourselves vulnerable enough to others. Deep down, we may feel confused or ashamed that we did not foresee such a situation. We get angry because we weakened our defenses and opened up to the one who hurt us. In a sense, we are angry with ourselves for our human qualities.
   • As it is well noted in one quote: "Taking offense is like drinking poison and expecting another person to die from it." It is you who decide whether to forget the resentment and move on or stay in this state of bitterness. Take responsibility in this matter and do not blame the other person for everything.
3. 3 Think it might be jealousy or a sense of ownership? Jealousy or the feeling that you too should have what the other person has, be it a material thing or an inner quality, can lead to bitter feelings. If you resent a person because he has what you would like to have, then if you pour your feelings on him, it will not do any good. You must come to terms with what you feel is lacking in your life in order to overcome this kind of resentment.
   • An example of jealousy that leads to resentment: You are angry with a person who received a promotion that you claimed to be. You may have felt that you have more eligibility for promotion because you have been working in that job longer.
   • To overcome feelings of resentment from jealousy, you need to be honest with yourself and act. Are you really annoyed by this person, or is it your personal capacity? If you really think your job deserves a closer look, actively communicate with your management about other positions that may appear in the near future. And if you think you've outgrown your current place of work, try looking for a suitable position with another company.
   • If you are jealous not of the person himself, but of some of his qualities or abilities, sit down and calmly conduct an honest assessment of your feelings. Channel the energy of envy towards self-improvement.
4. 4 Feel what you feel. Anger and resentment are strong feelings. It often happens that we ourselves harm ourselves even more by pretending that these feelings are not there, or by trying to push them away. Resentment arises because we run away from our own feelings about the situation, we try to supplant them, which leads to the development of feelings of hatred or anger towards the offender. To be healed, you need to accept your feelings.
   • Anger often masks other emotions that are harder for us to understand or show. People show anger because it is easier to appear angry than to admit that you are feeling rejected, disappointed, jealous, confused, or hurt.
   • Take time for yourself to not only reflect on what happened to you, but also to really feel all the emotions that accompanied that situation. Feel angry if you are angry. Admit your pain or confusion. Don't push these feelings away. You can only move on if you really feel what you are feeling.
5. 5 Talk to a friend or another person you trust. Find someone you can talk to and tell him what happened that upset you so much. When you talk about your feelings with another person, it helps you see the situation more objectively. The interlocutor will be able to notice patterns in your behavior that led to the incident, and will also help you come up with a solution for this situation. It is always nice to have people nearby to talk to.
6. 6 Write down what this person did to upset you. Write down the situation or situations in every detail that you can remember, without missing anything. When you do this, write down the traits of the person that hurt you. You don't need to call him bad words just to offend. Perhaps the person is self-centered, cruel, rude, or disrespectful? Think about what he did and what category of disrespect does it fall under?
   • Then write down how that person's behavior made you feel, taking into account not only the anger, but the deeper feeling underneath.
   • Finally, write down how this behavior and your feelings about it have influenced your life. For example, if you are betrayed by your partner, you may feel angry, sad, or confused.Your partner's cheating has made it difficult for you to trust or bond with others out of fear that they too might offend you.
7. 7 Tell the abuser how he upset you. In some situations, when a person we love has offended us, we have a desire to understand him. True, even if you understand why a person offended you, it will not change what happened (and the person may not even know why he did it), but a frank conversation about what happened is a step on the path to healing.
   • Ask the person to meet with you to talk. Use sentences with "I" to express your feelings about the situation ("I was offended that ..."). After you have expressed everything, without criticism, ask the person to explain the situation from his point of view.
   • You should start a frank conversation only after you objectively assess the situation, and not subjectively, that is, you acknowledge your role in the situation and your feelings.
   • If you feel like you’re going to continue your relationship with this person, explain to him how important his apology is to you, or ask for specific reimbursement. For example, if your partner had the imprudence to cheat on you, and you decide to stay with this person, you must set boundaries and determine what behavior you expect from him in the future.

Part 2 of 2: Letting go of the resentment

1. 1 Stop thinking about it all the time. There is even a scientific term for this - rumination. Rumination is a thought process where you ponder a situation over and over again, allowing it to remove you from the present moment and create negative feelings. This kind of repetitive thinking is the basis of resentment. Therefore, in order to get rid of rumination, you need to learn how to manage your thoughts. Here are three ways to overcome persistent thoughts of resentment:
   • Focus not on the problem, but on the solution. It is a healthy and future-oriented way to deal with resentment. Looping over what happened will get you nowhere. Make a plan for what you have learned from the situation, it will help you in your personal growth. Write down a number of ways you could resolve the case, such as improving your stress management skills or redefining your expectations for others.
   • Analyze the situation twice. Sometimes our resentment against a person is based on what we perceive to be wrong. But a person may not even know that he did something wrong, and even if he did, it is unlikely that he intentionally wanted to offend you. Try to be realistic about the situation. Perhaps you think the other person should read your mind?
   • Focus on your strengths. If you are offended by another person, you can spend a tremendous amount of time looking closely at your flaws. Try to identify your strengths that may be relevant to the situation. For example, if one of your friends disappointed you, the strong point here is that you have other friends with whom you still have a good relationship. Another potential strength can be your decision to forgive the person despite their wrongdoing.
2. 2 Write down the compensatory qualities of the person who offended you. This may be the last thing you want to do, but trying to acknowledge the good qualities of the person who hurt you will be very helpful in your drive to move on. In addition, it will allow you to look at the situation more objectively. People sometimes make mistakes, but there are no completely bad people. Everyone has good traits that are worth checking out, look for them from the person who offended you.
3. 3 Sorry. The wounds inflicted by those who are dear to us do not heal for a long time. But if you carry a grudge within you, it prevents you from healing and continuing to grow. Make a decision to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness does not mean that you should leave this person in your life and continue to communicate with him.It also doesn't mean that you should forget what happened. To forgive means simply to free a person from his anger, and thereby free yourself from those negative feelings that you carry in yourself. Forgiveness makes you better.
   • Forgiveness can take many forms, but ultimately it comes down to letting go of resentment. After you sort out your feelings about the situation, you can simply say out loud that you are not going to carry a grudge. Say, "I forgive you." Tell this person in person if you are going to keep it in your life.
   • After you've written down your opinion about what happened, tear the paper to pieces or throw it into the fireplace. Take away the power they have over you by deciding to forgive them and move on.
   • Show empathy for yourself. In addition to forgiving the other person, you should also strive to forgive yourself. Be as courteous and courteous to yourself as you would to others. You deserve to be forgiven too.
   • Express your forgiveness out loud and show compassion for yourself. Stand in front of the mirror and say to yourself: "I love you," "I am only human," "I am working on myself," or "I am a worthy person."
4. 4 Seek spiritual understanding. If you are a spiritual person, try to find meaning in the situation that has developed. Perhaps it happened so you can observe others? Could your difficulty be a source of inspiration or encouragement to someone else? Also, depending on your beliefs, bitterness towards another person can be harmful to your spiritual health. Pray, meditate, or talk to your spiritual guide about how to leave grievances in the past.
5. 5 Seek help from a specialist. If you find it difficult to let go, forgive, and move on, you may need to seek help from a mental health professional. Carrying anger and resentment with you on a daily basis can affect your mental, physical, and emotional health. You may need anger management therapy or cognitive-behavioral techniques to help you deal with rumination.

Warnings

• Try to refrain from revenge or the desire to offend another person just because you have offended you. Remember that evil can never defeat evil, only good can do it. There is no need to increase pain and suffering.