Can’t Stop Feeling Resentful?

Whether you are on your last nerve with your kids, constantly having to grit your teeth with your boss, feel triggered by your in-laws or have resentment towards someone who isn’t showing up for you the way you would like, you don’t need to let it fester, ruminate or quietly build up in your inner pressure cooker.  There are many things you can do to work through these feelings and free yourself from them.  Without this bit of work, these feelings can cause havoc with our ability to think clearly, focus on important tasks and feel confident in our own abilities.  Not to mention, getting in the way of us feeling happy!

This blog post was sparked by a great conversation with a client who was irked about something and said that their spouse said to let it go as it was negative and toxic, but they believed they were within their right to feel aggrieved.  I explained that both points of view are correct!

If someone or something has put your nose out of joint and you feel angry, you feel angry!  Trying to ignore that feeling, rise above it, reframe it or just let it go might sound like a solution, but often we are just attempting to stuff down emotions, while feeling increasingly resentful or stressed.  These negative emotions are toxic, so focusing on them isn’t wise, but ignoring them isn’t the solution either.  They will only pop out later wearing a different hat.  In fact, it’s my belief that most of us are carrying around decades of unprocessed emotion, because we don’t acknowledge and process how we feel at the time and “complete” the cycle of the emotion.

A quick personal story here, I am a very doting and grateful mother of a 6 year old girl.  However, her birth went very badly, and I received some less than compassionate treatment from the consultant while it was underway.  This person was responsible for my care at what was the most vulnerable moment of my life and for one year after this event, I had flashbacks to various bits about the birth and how I was handled, every evening while getting my daughter to sleep.  I was so happy that my daughter had arrived safely and was so glad to be a mother and okay myself, that I hadn’t really acknowledged or processed how I truly felt about the birth.  Until her first birthday dawned and I realised I was a whole year into flashbacks.  

I decided to write an angry letter to the consultant.  Not to send.  Just to vent.  To get absolutely everything off my chest.  I really went to town on this letter.  I cried a fair bit while I was writing it.  After I’d finished, I read it back through once and then destroyed it.  I never had another flashback after that. 

Writing that angry letter allowed me to rant and finally process something I’d been holding in for a long time, without even realising it.  It got all of that emotion out of me and gave me the clear space to enjoy my early evenings snuggling my baby girl instead.

This is why I decided to create “Fuming” – it’s a notebook, or journal, specifically for you to use to work through those angry and resentful moments.  Let’s be honest, expressing our anger isn’t always the vibe in social settings, but holding onto it isn’t either.  I wanted to create a space to be allowed to be angry, that you can go to, to let go of your grievances.

The journal starts with a few pages of instructions on how to get the best of our angry journalling and then moves from ranting into resolutions when desired.  Then the rest of the notebook is left blank for your words.  

Whether you use it to pen fierce letters, or just acknowledge and offload how you feel, there is something about putting pen to paper and what it does for the brain.  It’s like permission to finally stop bringing it up!

If you like this idea and you’d like a specific place to put your rants, and the gentle guidance contained within it, you can buy my anger journal called Fuming on Amazon via this link: https://link.amazon/B0izwbDAD

Of course you don’t need this specific journal, any piece of paper will do.  Give it a try for a week.  Take a bit of time every day to let yourself write down all your angry, resentful and fearful thoughts about whatever is bothering you the most, and then allow yourself to let it go afterwards.

It’s amazing what a difference this practice can make for how you feel about colleagues, loved ones, your job, the state of the economy and much more!  Anger is a powerful emotion, don’t let it be the thing that blocks you from seeing clearly all the joy and success available for you in life.

If you think that tailored 121 support would be helpful to you, so you can move on from your resentments and creating lasting positive relationships and behaviours, please reach out and book a free discovery call.