In this video,
We're gonna talk about three ways holding onto a resentment hurts you and what it takes to heal.
There's a famous quote that says,
Resentment is like drinking poison expecting the other person to die.
And basically what that means is that we're hoping somebody else is gonna hurt the way we're hurting.
If you're new here,
My name's Michelle Ferris.
I'm a psychotherapist and I love helping people create relationships without sacrificing their big hearts.
So let's talk about what is a resentment.
A resentment is a hidden hurt where we stuff our feelings because we don't want to get into a confrontation or we're afraid of what's going to happen if we speak up.
So what we do is we stuff that hurt and that anger and it festers and it becomes a resentment over time.
Now the hard part with the resentment is that the other person often has no idea that we're feeling hurt.
And that's why expecting other people to be hurting because we're hurting isn't realistic because resentments are hidden.
Now,
Ironically,
Resentments hurt you more than the person you resent because think about it.
All that pain and that hurt is impacting you.
You're the one living with it.
The other person typically has no idea that that's how we're feeling because we're hiding how we're really feeling.
Here are three main ways holding a resentment hurts you.
And the reason I'm talking about this today is because a lot of times when we do things over and over again,
We get stuck.
And resentment is a perfect place where a lot of us get stuck because we don't want to take action.
We're actually hoping the other person is going to come to us.
But because we haven't said how we feel,
They typically don't know that we're struggling.
And that can be a problem because over time,
When the other person doesn't notice our hurt and we end up holding on to that resentment over many weeks or months or even years,
We really start to cause a lot of problems in the relationship.
So let's talk about the three ways holding on to resentment hurts you.
First in relationships,
It creates a lot of separation because the first thing you're going to want to do is you're going to want to everything is okay when it's not.
Because that's what a resentment is.
It's a hidden emotion that we don't want to own because we want the other person to seek us out and to ask us what's wrong.
And a lot of times they're not going to do that because they don't know.
Now the other thing is that holding onto resentments makes it really hard to resolve issues between you.
So as a result,
What happens is you may end up wanting to avoid that person because it's too painful.
And every time you even think of them,
Your blood starts to boil.
That happens a lot with resentments because what happens is we stew and we get stuck there because we don't wanna speak up.
We think we shouldn't have to because they hurt us.
The problem is is that nothing ends up changing.
Now,
The next way resentments hurt us is our physical,
Emotional health.
Now,
Physically what happens is when we hold resentments,
It creates a lot of internal stress,
A lot of negative thoughts that we end up ruminating on.
And we can tell ourselves a negative story over and over and over again.
And that does create a lot of internal stress and anxiety.
There's been studies shown that that internal level of stress creates illness.
People often get stomach aches or headaches or other stress-related illnesses because of how they feel emotionally.
Now,
The way this impacts our emotional health is in a couple ways.
One is it can create anxiety and depression because over time,
With a resentment,
Those ruminating negative thoughts create a pattern and we start to feel more anxious and depressed.
And if we have a lot of resentments,
That can be even more damaging to ourselves emotionally.
Thing that happens with holding on to resentments is that it takes a lot of energy to hold them in and over time they're going to start leaking out and some common ways they leak out are sarcasm or very indirect comments that make no sense in the moment.
I've done this myself where literally I'm resentful about someone and all of a sudden I say a comment and I didn't really mean to say it.
And I know that when that happens,
It's because I'm storing a resentment and I haven't spoken up yet.
Another thing that happens is that we end up exploding over little things and eventually they say something and all that resentment has to come out.
So the other person gets really confused and it can cause a lot of relationship problems because they don't understand that you've been sitting on hurt for several weeks,
Months,
Sometimes even years.
Impacts us in a way that makes it hard to feel hopeful and optimistic.
Because when our relationships are suffering,
We're suffering.
Part of what happens when we have those ruminating thoughts is they form a negative story where we tell the story to ourselves or to other people who are willing to listen.
And it becomes a big victim story about us being the innocent party and them doing all the damage.
And the problem is,
Is while there's probably a grain of truth in that hurt,
Becomes its own story.
And over time,
It gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Maybe you know people in your life that have done this,
Where they have a negative resentment story and they've told it for years.
Or maybe you have one where you just can't let it go.
That can hurt you.
Because when we're stuck in resentment,
It really does impact our ability to feel hopeful and optimistic in relationships.
Instead,
We start to feel taken advantage of or people aren't going to be trusted.
So over time,
Not handling our resentments really impacts our ability to feel joyful and optimistic.
What does it take to heal resentments?
Well,
The first thing is we have to be sick and tired of doing the same thing,
Expecting different results,
Right?
That's the definition of insanity.
Holding onto that resentment,
Expecting the other person to notice is typically where we get stuck.
And what you wanna start doing is shifting that focus from what that other person did to you to what you need to do to take care of yourself.
But what it takes to heal the resentment is to shift your focus.
It's going to grow.
Thanks so much.
Bye.
