It is normal to feel a range of emotions, yet many people are troubled by recurring negative emotions that interfere with well-being. When things are going smoothly, we occasionally still experience sporadic disappointment, frustration, anxiety, down moments. Coping mechanisms for negative feelings vary, as does individual tolerance. Well-adjusted individuals roll with the punches. Others become shackled by negative emotions that overwhelm and take control. Whether a diagnosable disorder or a vulnerability to mood swings, lingering bad feelings are a life problem for many.
Negative emotions are affective mood states that heighten unpleasant arousal (e.g., fear, anxiety, worry) or lower mood (e.g., depression, grief). Negative emotions intertwine with thoughts that take center stage and cause unpleasant feelings. However, it is usually the other way around: feelings arise, then thoughts associated with the feelings justify the unpleasantness with narratives that explain them. The cognitive association and justification that accompanies the negative emotion appears as the problem. In reality, the negative emotion is primary and the thoughts parade as the problem itself, rather than the explanation for the negative feelings.
The individual wants to subdue them. People assume that if they banish the recurring thoughts, the bad feelings will go away. Here’s the rub: people cling to unpleasant thoughts even when a cost is paid in continued emotional distress. Among negative emotions, resentment is a bird of a different feather. Resentment comes from an enduring belief about the cause of your bad feeling. We blame our bad feeling upon someone or something external to us.
When someone is depressed or anxious, there may be a circumstantial trigger. If the negative feeling lasts, you begin to consider the possibility that your bad feeling was born inyour brain. Though circumstances provoke reactions, mostly the reactions are eventually dismissed.
Not so with resentment.
Resentment isa complex, often prolonged feeling of anger, bitterness, and disappointment. An “injustice collector” levying a past debt. It can arise from a single event or grow over time. It feels like anger, but it is insidious. Envy, hatred, and/or disgust are its lieutenants.
Under the iron heel of resentment, you feel unjustly victimized, wronged by someone, some event, some set of unfair conditions. People resent the actions, perpetrations, inconsideration, or indifference of people with whom they interact. People resent their fortune, their lot in life, the conditions they believe are holding them down.
No one is exempt from resentment. We want and seriously expect life to unfold according to our whims. Resentment is built on a structure of belief: beliefs about mistreatment by someone, by some rule, institution, or condition. For instance, you may resent how someone treated you, their sense of entitlement, an idea that you were cheated or unjustly disadvantaged, perhaps not recognized, included, or valued. You may have suffered actual harm, personal indignities, frustration by discrimination — the idea that you can’t win because the odds are stacked against you. Resentment can soar by perception, rather than actual fact or validation.
When things don’t go our way, we attribute unfavorable motivation and intent to the persons or conditions adversely affecting us. Proof may or may not support the belief; resentment bypasses facts. These are some characteristics of resentment:
Resentment can involve a mix of disappointment, anger, and disgust, and is distinct from, though related to, anger.
It often involves the re-experiencing of past wrongs, whether real or perceived.
Unlike sudden anger, resentment can linger, fester, even worsen over time if not addressed.
It can originate from wholly unrelated circumstances and times, having to do with undigested feelings from the past.
Signs of resentment can include recurring negative thoughts about the event, negative behaviors like constant carping, withdrawal, passive-aggression.
Continued resentment is self-defeating because it compounds stress, sabotages relationships, personal satisfaction, and the ability to love. We are all too human: we “savor” grievances when we are martyrs to wounded innocence. Pride and threatened sense of self beckons the stewpot I call “righteous indignation.”
Your mind adapts its “story”—its narrative, its self-justification, what it tells itself—to your internal state of arousal and feeling state. This story or narrative is the sum total of what is perceived, evoked, and fantasized as you respond to life’s steeplechase. The internal dialogue operates continuously; it is part of being awake and alive. This internal dialogue can be referred to by different names, such as the editor, the voice-over, or the announcer. Or the devil within! Often it operates in the background, speaking about what’s happening, interpreting events, giving opinions, cracking jokes, making sarcastic comments. Typical examples: “He’s an idiot.” “She’s a moron.” “He’s going to cheat me and charge me a fortune for this repair.” “I’ll turn on the charm.” “She’ll accept my proposal.” “How can he not give me that raise! Mr. or Mrs. Narrative is like a not-so-kind uncle, often uninvited. Occasionally, it can get pretty loud, noisy inside your head when the narrative argues with countervailing opinions that somehow show up. Sometimes, it will try to outduke other intrusive thoughts shouting in your head. When the conscience presents its case, you can feel like you’re caught in a traffic jam at rush hour, bound to be late again, and you can become preoccupied with the stress of making it through the next traffic light before it turns red. When this internal chatter gets loud enough, it is difficult to feel intact.
Don’t get me wrong: the narrative serves a useful purpose. It helps you maintain a cohesive sequential story about what’s going on. The narrative is the descriptive embodiment of your “self.” When this self—you—gets threatened or perceives a threat, your gut reaction combines a visceral physiological response (usually heightened arousal) with emotional heat. When a threat is perceived, the attached emotions are an instinctive response that can save you. Most often, however, negative emotions are an overreaction, an old stale laundry list, and usually not the best response to a challenge. Defenses are mounted pell-mell, the mind concocts a story to protect itself and justify your nervous system’s reaction.
When someone cuts you off in traffic, your heart pounds involuntarily—a malicious discourtesy! You react with aggression. What a jerk…! Your narrative flashes out like a whip snake, extracting evidence and arguments from your litany of beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and logic. Meanwhile, it is none other than your state of heightened arousal, the programmed response of your nervous system assault that is actually scripting the narrative.
Your mind’s ability to adapt flexibly and quickly has a downside: inconsiderate and insensitive behavior breeds more of same! The acceleration of this reactive, self-justifying, counterproductive cycle becomes addictive. The emotional defensiveness, narrative self-justification, and social reinforcement that encourages “getting even” promotes a subconscious chain reaction. This combination response is “delicious” in the same way that adrenalin feels pleasurable when it pumps you up. Anger, indignation, sarcasm, resentment, and scorn are energizing, they feel good and can feign temporary control when aimed outward with sufficient skill. If you voice your resentment, you appear to be “in charge” by responding with bluster, as you watch an opponent retreat or hesitate. Your narrative gives you a hero’s welcome; it pats you on the back for being so assertive. However, certain problems arise when the reaction continues, particularly in response to imagined or exaggerated perceptions of threat or supposed disrespect.
The temptation to follow this self-justifying narrative can be malicious, can lead that to an increase in aggression. More justifications, rationalizations, and selective perceptions confirm what you already believe about the other person. It also incurs heightened fight-or-flight arousal—not only is deleterious to your health, but to your success as a social animal. Anger is not the only provocateur. Fear, inhibition, jealousy, and insecurit, can also trigger cascades of aggression, defensiveness, and withdrawal.
This loop of affront, emotional overreaction, and non-compassionate response is a common phenomenon. To a certain extent, we all do it.
But it doesn’t have to blossom. The reactive process can be interrupted and defused at any point along the way. However, the more each reaction accelerates and the more habitual the process becomes, the more natural it seems and the harder it becomes to break the cycle.
How about changing it up? How about introducing a response that is incompatible with the tempting and seemingly automatic process? A deliberate response to negative stimuli can slow down and can often interrupt the chain reaction. Ask: What is the real threat posed by this person’s behavior? What would happen if I didn’t respond? What risks are there in not responding right away? What would it cost to respond uncharacteristically, being nice or accommodating? If I could respond in a saintlike manner, what would that look like? If I respond in a compassionate, rather than defensive or self-justifying, what will be the payoff?
Alternatively, if you are in the habit of self-deprecation or are overly timid, you might question your automatic responses to a challenge that makes you feel downgraded and spurs you to withdraw. What if I spoke up and offered my feelings? What would happen if I simply asked about the subjective intent of the person who has offended me?
The very act of introducing questions into your internal routine imposes choice. Introducing questions may not fit at first with your emotions. Stopping to question yourself may be a departure from your normal operating procedure. The process will, however, give you more options, a broader repertoire of responses, and more eventual choices. It will slow down and effectively disrupt the ingrained fight-or-flight, circle-the-wagons defensive reaction that can quickly escalate and lead to emotional scenarios you don’t want or need.
You deliberately disrupt maladaptive reactions when you engage directly with the supervising narrative. Acting graciously when you feel angry is not hypocritical. It is a conscious decision to change the narrative. It is also possible to interrupt the internal narrative by soothing it or reasoning with it. Changing your mind is a sign of bravery and independence, not of cowardice or indecision.
Consider: the longest distance between two points is between the mind and the heart. This is the journey of compassion. Many people spend the better part of a lifetime trying to bridge this distance—some by choosing a path that joins the mind and heart (as in developing feelings, awareness, and empathy); some by choosing a path that maintains a connection with proper boundaries and separation (as in exercising compassion without letting rampant emotions overrule judgment). Both paths work. Sure, it is difficult to resist temptation and counteract natural tendencies. A frequently uncooperative world triggers self-defeating behavior all the time. But changing it up intentionally, deliberately, is well worth the effort.
Willful compassion is the antidote. Purposeful compassion allows us to alter our feelings and behaviors and, by so doing, permits us to change many of the unpleasant responses of others—even when our adversaries’ repellent feelings and attitudes formerly may have appeared to be seem chiseled in stone. People will find it difficult to treat you ungraciously or unkindly in the face of your compassion. Regardless of what others do, you will feel much better about yourself. You will radiate intactness and dignity when circumstances no longer dictate your attitude.
No doubt you have been wounded at times in your life. You have suffered injustice, rejection, lack of caring and appreciation. You may have been mistreated despite your best intentions. Many of your grievances have gone unrequited. You may have been snubbed or disrespected by people who matter to you, or by people who really don’t matter at all. Yet you are called by a higher power to love all people, even the ones who act like jerks and treat you abominably. Compassion finds forgiveness, and forgiveness transcends the injuries we suffer.
Resentment comes naturally—it is part and parcel of self-justifying, defensive, blaming, excuse-making human nature.
Though often harmful, resentment can also serve as a protective mechanism. Resentment can be a motivation for positive change.
Potential functions of resentment
It feels like a way to protect yourself from vulnerability, a way to reinforce self-worth. I won’t let this happen again becomes a mental guard against intrusion, against being taken advantage of. Maintaining the sense of injustice asserts that one is worth more than the treatment dished out.
It provides a false sense of control or power and can be used to avoid difficult conversations or deeper issues. In the face of a deliberate offense, you remain justified in your victimization, in being “right.”
Resentment can provide energy or motivation to take action and make changes. Broaching the reasons for resentment can be cathartic and/or communicate the need for restitution.
Resentment can signal that a personal boundary has been violated, casting the “legitimacy” of the transgression into doubt.
Resolve resentment
Recognize that it’s an issue for you and understand where it’s coming from. There may be legitimate grounds for your grievance; be open to the idea that you may be relishing, magnifying, and reinforcing the perceived offense.
When possible and safe, address the situation with the person involved; or communicate with a trusted professional. Hold the person accountable. Don’t be surprised if they don’t agree with you.
Forgiveness is a powerful tool for releasing resentment: when you stew about something or someone, they’ll get over it, whereas you may not.
Okay, so you have been wronged, mistreated, put upon unfairly. Do you intend to carry the torch forever? Evaluate the cost of maintaining righteous indignation. Consciously decide to shift from resentment to appreciation.
Coping with life’s unfairness and the insensitive, scurrilous behavior of others, it becomes natural to build resentments. Some of your resentments probably have a good case, a legitimate grievance that leaves you wanting to be made whole.
But don’t harbor them.
Resentments come naturally; letting them fester and wallowing in them allows misery to prevail.
Are you ready to release the shackles, to break free from resentments you’ve been nursing? Do you want more emotional freedom and flexibility? The world looks different when life is not stacked up against you personally.
Does this resonate with you? Talk to me.
— Mark Steinberg, PhD
