Resentment Detox

Live Class Recording - This class helps you release silent (and very obvious) resentments and replace them with real conversations. You’ll leave with tools to clear the air and rebuild closeness without drama.

Transcript

Resentment Detox and you know by now that I love a little definition of the words that I'm using and why I like it because we are all different people and we all have maybe an idea what resentment means to you but your resentment meaning might not be the same resentment meaning that I have here.

So that's why I want to clarify so we all know when we talk about resentment in this class today this is what I'm talking about.

So resentment in the simplest way possible I define it as your expectations don't get fulfilled so you start resenting pushing that other person away you're building a disconnection you might not be aware of it you might do it and you probably do it subconsciously it just it's like a program in your brain but this is what happens when we talk about resentment and your expectations that you have are based on your values you believe experiences so it goes through your brain and whatever values etc you have that word it gets filtered through so the other person's behavior get filtered through your little brain and that is what comes out and if your expectation doesn't get fulfilled you might say let's step back let's push that person a bit away and that is resentment that we talk about here today and the detox is because at the end of the last part is what you can do to let go of that resentment to not build it up even more dial it down but before we do that I have prepared three examples for you that I think will make it a bit clearer on situations where resentment might have been built up for you it has for me that's why I picked three examples that I lived through in my current or past relationships and the first one is that you get annoyed when your partner isn't listening so they are on the phone or they do something else or they just don't look at you they turned away from you and you get annoyed and it's like so you don't like it your expectation is mine was as soon as I talk they listen yeah it was very I talk you listen because my value was I do that to others when others talk I stop doing what I'm doing and I give them my attention so that's why I build this expectation I do it I expect you to do it as well and my belief was only undivided attention is true listening that's the belief I created it now here's the thing I want you to listen to these questions because for each example I prepared a couple of questions to reflect on what's going on here for this example so being annoyed when your partner isn't listening doesn't give you their full attention how do you feel how do you feel when your partner doesn't give you their full attention and you might have been here a couple of times so you know the thought model that your thoughts create your feelings yeah so your feelings are an interpretation of the emotion the body feeling that comes from a trigger goes through your brain and now you create an interpretation of the feeling so if you feel sad if you feel annoyed if you feel overwhelmed if you feel annoyed whatever feeling comes up go a bit deeper and ask what thoughts come up what thoughts do you have that create that feeling let's move on the second example you struggle quietly instead of asking for help I did that a lot when I was younger because I thought I can do everything myself I don't need anyone so I did struggle like lifting something that was a very very intensive or something that happened very often that I was doing something and my partner at the time there when he buy and I just struggled physically often and I didn't ask for help I didn't ask for help because my expectation was they see me struggle they come running helping because my values are that I would do that I when I would see them struggle I would run and help take it off their plate do it myself and that's why I believe they should do that as well they should help so you might see a theme here like what I would do I expect the other person to do and that's my expectations that's how we build expectations because my experience everything is filtered this is my expectation of it you should help me I shouldn't have to say a word you should just see me struggle leave everything that you're doing and come and jump to my rescue and because they didn't yeah it's like you don't live up to my expectations or you have different values I don't know if this is good I don't know if I like this so you start resenting you start pushing them away emotionally maybe not on purpose and you might not even realize it but this is what happens it's like that's not nice so here are the questions for you that I want you to reflect on particularly about this example why didn't you ask for help again we come back to how you're feeling what is the thought behind that you can go back and say what was your emotion your body feeling what was the trigger for you not saying anything the other question is what was your assumption of their reason not helping you because that's what happens in your brain they don't do it they don't fulfill your expectation and you assume whatever you assume I often assume that they don't care they're not the right person for me if they don't help me if they don't see that and have the same expectation as I have then we don't so I assumed a reason why they wouldn't do it I didn't ask of course you don't ask you just assume but what is the reason that you assume why they don't help you write it down just just for fun now let's move on to the third example and I have I had this and I have this with clients very very often particularly when it's about valentine's so you say you don't want a present and then you don't get one this can be for birthdays for anniversaries but with clients they have that so so often for valentine's day that they say no no don't want to don't want a present it's just a day and then valentine's day comes and they have a present the partner doesn't because they said don't want a present so the partner listened but they had the expectation that the partner would have a present because that's what they did you see again this is my value this is my belief I expect you to have the same and because the partner didn't have that yeah resentment builds they're not interested whatever thought come up and often the belief is that it's healthy a really healthy relationship you can spot a healthy relationship by the presence you get or give that's a belief clients of mine have that only the presence defined but again this is a different topic but we get here into love languages etc so but people have that now here are the two questions specific to for this example what did you try to hide or mask when pretending you don't want a gift and you can take gift away and say when you put when you put it we're pretending you don't want help so what other words you want to put instead of gift put it in what did you try to mask or hide when pretending you didn't want a gift because sometimes it's we want to be like we're not high maintenance we don't want a present they shouldn't get a bad see a bad image of mine I want them to believe x y z and that's why we say things like that so what did you try to mask or hide when pretending you didn't want a gift second question is would you respect their wishes if they would say I don't want a gift for valentine's birthday anniversary or whatever it is and your belief your expectation is that that's what we do we give presents for valentine's day birthdays etc and your partner says I don't want a gift would you respect their wishes and if not why not so the good thing is when you become aware of this resentment pattern when you let go of resentment you raise or create emotional intimacy and that's the foundation of any relationship deep connected relationship is emotional intimacy don't get me wrong all the other intimacies like the physical intimacy are part of that deep connection but if you don't have that emotional connection where you trust that you can be yourself that you can that you can talk about your wishes your fears your hopes your dreams without being laughed at or taken advantage of if you don't have that with your partner then the emotional intimacy is missing or there is a lack of maybe it's not as much as there could be but this is that's emotional intimacy when I'm talking about emotional intimacy to have that and of course if you stop with those expectations with that resentment it builds trust like with the third example would you respect their wishes because if they say I don't want to and you say I don't care what you say I just do whatever I think is important that takes trust away but if your partner realizes I can say and you respect my wishes however unfamiliar or alien they might seem to you that builds trust that builds emotional intimacy and if you don't do that you get that emotional disconnection and you fight a lot so I'm always an advocate for conflict because conflict is only a difference in thoughts or opinions but when the resentment builds up you get from conflict into escalation into arguments into fights so the bounce back time gets very very long because you have built all that resentment and you take their behavior so personally that sometimes it happens that everything they say just feels like an attack because you have built up so much resentment so much disconnection you don't trust that person anymore or you struggle to trust them you struggle to believe when they say I want to be with you I love you I'm here for you because of that resentment because you may not have said you need help because you just try to pretend to be something that you're not all alike with the first example like you have this expectation for the attention but you didn't ask why they don't do it you didn't ask for their reason not to help you you just went into your brain and assumed and that brings the disconnect that brings the resentment now the big question is what do you do and the first step is you become aware that you're doing it awareness is always the first thing to become aware oh this is happening oh I'm doing this and then the second step is you accept it as this is what we deal with right now it doesn't mean you can't change it it's not giving up acceptance simply means that these are the cards that we're dealt with let's see what we want to do with it that brings us to the third step you make a decision do you want to continue like with your behavior your thought patterns uh everything that that's been there and that you've become a master at or not it's a yes or no question so you decide do you want to don't you want to yes no it's very simple it's not complicated it's that simple it's a yes no so you decide do you want to don't you want to if you say no I don't want to happy how it is there you go that's done if you say I don't want that then what you do next is what do you want instead we need to clarify what do we want instead if you don't want that okay how does it look like what you want and that might be hard that might take the most time to just figure out what do you want instead how should it feel so go back to then to your expectations to your beliefs to your values go through that and say ah these are my beliefs these are my expectations these are my values interesting what do I want instead and this is the point where your inner critic ego monkey brain however you want to call it comes in and is particularly loud because they want to protect you from emotional harm and this is new this is out of the ordinary this is maybe overwhelming so they want it wants to however I don't know how to tell it but your inner critic wants to protect you and the protection looks like keeping you in the status quo and what you know in what you've done so far so be aware that many many interfering thoughts will come up and number five if you go on and do it you you are clear now on what you want instead and then you do it easy peasy and that brings me to the end of today's lecture

Reviews

This made so much sense once I actually stopped and not only heard the words being said, but listened. We expect others to treat us the the way we treat them because we’ve been conditioned since since children that that’s how it should be, but we don’t all speak the same love language. So voice your expectations and communicate, if you still feel you’re not getting what you need then that’s when to process next steps. Don’t let your expectation though, cause resentment for someone else who might not even be aware that they’re presenting an issue.