10 ways to clear resentment
Happy Sunday, Soothers. I took a little break from the newsletter and podcast last week to recover from a cross-country trip to LA for a wedding (we sat next to TREVOR NOAH in the airport lounge, sadly our only celebrity viewing, but a pretty good one!) and also to focus on creating the materials for this month's membership workshop, on how to regulate your nervous system as a highly sensitive person, and in particular, how to work with the fawn, aka the people-pleasing, nervous system trauma response. The live workshop is over but you can still purchase the replay, all you have to do is sign up for a month of the membership at $44 and you'll get access (then cancel at any time). That $44 gets you a lot —Tarot circles every Sunday, New Moon Journal Circles, access to my Sunday Soother Slack, and more community. Read more about the membership here - there are different tiers depending where you are and your needs!
Anyways, let's move on to my favorite topic: RESENTMENT.
Just kidding, it's actually my least-favorite topic, but probably my most-felt emotion. I am, and for a long time, have been an incredibly resentful person. I think you may not really believe me when I say that, because I can present as capable, grounded, whatever, via my online presence, so you're just going to have to take my word for it, I have spent years STEWING in resentment. Shoving down anger. Being passive-aggressive. Going into my little grimace-resentment-hidey-hole and peering out angrily at others (most of whom, most of the time, had no idea I was feeling that way towards them).
I lacked boundaries. I never stated my needs clearly. I overgave, over and over again. I often portrayed myself and felt honestly I was a victim. I would often go into full-out martyr mode. I felt burning jealousy and envy of others and tore them down in my head. I would use manipulation — always coated in a guise of helping — to try to get others to do what I wanted, needed, what I thought was best. I would offer fixing, advice, solutions and stew when others would inevitably not do what I so clearly thought they should. And I judged others. Lord, how I judged. All tinged with a flavor of resentment.
Resentment was my constant companion. So much so I thought it was just a part of my personality. But it never was.
And thankfully, I have to say, I have made SO MUCH PROGRESS on this front, particularly in the last three years. I can't claim that I never feel resentment any longer, but it no longer has me on a leash. I know what I need to do now when it shows up, I have a plan, and tools.
And today I want to share them with you.
Before we dive into these tools, I also want to say this: I think if you are feeling resentment, a lot of the time, it makes sense. Especially if you are a woman or a member of a marginalized community. We live in a world with systems that create exploitation, unfairness, oppression, injustice. Who WOULDN'T be resentful? And the most common area I see my audience feeling resentful in is their hetereosexual relationships. I mean, again, it makes sense. The patriarchy has fucked us all. Even those of us with pretty aware straight male partners are shouldering an undue load of emotional and household labor, and let's not even get started talking about parenting. And if you're not partnered, you're probably shouldering the emotional labor in your job, doing unpaid emotional labor, and again... it all makes sense to feel resentful about that. It IS unfair.
And at the same time, I think it is up to us to try different ways of clearing resentment so we can move from an embodied, sovereign, clear and grounded place, to demand our needs be met, to speak our truths, to do our best to achieve our own desires and goals, that are so important to us, that we're often giving away.
What I see resentment really do, is make people think they have to give away their power, over and over again. Kind of just roll over passively (or let's be real, passive-aggressively) and sigh, "This is just how it is and how it has to be."
It's not. It's really not. If I, the most resentful resenter of all, can make great strides in strengthening my boundaries and clearing up resentment, then you can, too. So may these tools serve you, and let's dive in!
You have to practice both stating your needs, and then following through on them, and THEN LETTING OTHER PEOPLE BE IRRITATED OR ANGRY AT YOU or "disappointed" in you. This is the most basic but most important thing you can do for resentment. Here's a theoretical example: Maybe my boyfriend would ask me to go to an event with him. Maybe I would go even though I really didn't want to but being a people-pleaser, you just say yes when you mean no. The event was boring, I was exhausted, and it burned me out so I was tired the next day because I didn't get a restorative evening. Then after, I would spend so much time stewing at him, resentful he had "made" me go with him. But, uh, I could have said no. Nobody had a gun to my head! And the only reality was I was scared he would be irritated with me if I said no. And maybe he would have been! But I am an adult! He is an adult! He's allowed to be irritated, and I am ALLOWED TO LET HIM BE IRRITATED. It is not my job to fix his emotions and make him comfortable all the time! You HAVE to practice letting others have uncomfortable emotions that may be sparked by your choices. This is the number one practice that will have an effect on your resentment. Practice in the smallest ways, with the people who feel safest to you. Practice being not liked. Practice disappointing others. Practice sticking to your promises to yourself. Melissa Urban has been SO GOOD on this stuff. I haven't read her boundaries book but this post of hers on communication patterns in relationships is related to this topic and useful reading.
Try out the concept of "user manuals." One thing I really appreciated that I learned from the Life Coach School is the user manuals concept. They write, "Whether we know it or not, most of us have manuals that we have “written” for other people in our lives on what they should do and how they should behave. Most often these people are not even aware that these “rule books” exist, yet we expect them to follow the rules and get upset with them when they don’t. It is important to understand that even though it is perfectly okay to have certain expectations of other people, we can get ourselves into big trouble when we start tying our emotional happiness to their responses to those expectations." Here's a podcast on it you can listen to. Where do you have manuals for other people — ways you think they "should" operate? You need to let them go. People get to do whatever they want to do, be however they want to be. Stop controlling.
Using thought work to clear up where I am placing expectations on other people that is then causing my resentment: Thought work, or mindset work, is another important concept I learned from the Life Coach School. This is simply a way of getting clear on how my thoughts are interpreting neutral circumstances by writing them down and placing them into this little formula they teach you. Their model of thought work is explained here. Byron Katie's work also has had a big impact on me and her Judge Your Neighbor worksheet and the four questions will help you with your mindset and resentment struggles.
The Dance of Anger: A Woman's Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships: This is the book I recommend most to my clients struggling in romantic relationships. It's a little dated and it talks mostly about straight marriages but it has a ton of value on resentment and how to begin to move past it for all sorts of relationships. Cannot recommend enough.
Magnesium: A supplement recommendation! I find that highly sensitive people are DEEPLY fried and lacking electrolytes and magnesium, which can contribute to our irritation and anger. Of course, talk to your medical professional, but I low-key think everybody should be taking some sort of magnesium supplement. I take a couple of teaspoons of the CALM magnesium brand every night in hot water, about an hour or two before bed. Helps with my sleep, too! Key tip, start slow, as it can cause digestive irritation and issues if you have too much too soon. If you're interested in more of my health and wellness recommendations for highly sensitive people (supplements, diet, etc.) I write more in depth about these on The Secret Soother.
EFT Tapping: EFT tapping has saved my butt so many times. It helps me process emotions up and out of my body and return me to a grounded state when I was previously so badly triggered. Try this video on clearing resentment from my EFT fave on YouTube, Brad Yates. You can also google around for other EFT/resentment videos you can try out.
Journaling: I find the resentful person is the person who has listened to everybody else's needs and emotions and spends no or little time in touch with themselves. Journaling is like writing a letter to yourself; it's a way of saying 'hi' to the parts inside of you that need some love and attention, that are feeling neglected and sad and angry. I think the best types of journaling for resentment are inner child journaling (I share some of that in this post here) and JournalSpeak as taught by Nicole Sachs. Bonus, if you have lower back pain and there is no medical cause for it, it is most likely related to repressed resentment and anger (see Dr. John Sarno for more too). If you experience chronic pain and you struggle with resentment and repressed anger, these journaling approaches will help emotionally and physically.
Tend to your liver: In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the liver is the organ that stores and processes anger, resentment, rage, bitterness. I find people struggling with these emotions can have a sluggish liver or other liver problems (fatty liver, etc). I certainly did. By working to remove or reduce alcohol, caffeine, gluten and sugar (not 100%, but maybe 80/20) and also taking herbs meant to stimulate the liver (dandelion root, milk thistle, others), and also getting acupuncture where I talked to the practitioner about my anger and resentment issues, I feel I made great strides here. Again, head to the Secret Soother to hear me talk about how you can use food/nutrition/supplementation to support your emotional healing and growth. This liver tonic tea from a local apothecary near me has been great, too.
South nodes: This one is for my astrology buffs. Look up your north nodes and south nodes. I find those of us with south nodes in Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer and Libra (or with north nodes in the houses ruled by those signs) came from a lot of past life karma of playing the people-pleasing victim. Knowing your north node can give you guidance of how you're meant to learn and unlearn in this lifetime. My south node is in Pisces, in the house ruled by Scorpio, and if you read anything about those south nodes... it's kind of a mess. Very watery, very victim-y, very resentful. Moving towards Virgo and Taurus energy (my north node direction) is all about earth energy, boundaries, being in my body, creating healthy routines, being in nature, and making my own money. Jan Spiller's book on north & south nodes changed my life for the better.
Nervous system regulation: You probably know about fight, flight and freeze as responses of the nervous system, but do you know about fawn? It's the people-pleasing trauma response of the nervous system, the "fourth F." If you want to know more, you can read Pete Walker's books and more here, and you can also sign up for the replay of my fawning nervous system workshop in the Sunday Soother Membership. $44 gets you the workshop replay, 30 days of access to the full membership, and lots more. Sign up here, and let's ground and regulate our nervous systems together so we're feeling less inclined to people-please, and when we people-please less, we feel less resentment.
What do you think? What helps you feel less resentment? I'd love to hear, and I hope these tools and approaches were of help. You deserve to feel worthy, to have your needs met, to express your emotions, to feel clear and grounded. Let's do it.