Resentment: what, types and ways of forgiveness

Resentment is a complex feeling that everyone experiences. Resentment significantly complicates life and negatively affects the state of health, since at the psychosomatic level, strong resentment often causes the development of serious illnesses. In this article, we will describe how and why people are offended, what are the offenses and how to cope with them.

Resentment is an ancient and very strong feeling, which is inherent in us almost from birth to old age. An insult in psychology is usually called an inadequate (negative) reaction of a person to events, relationships that he considers to be unjust, offensive. The emotions experienced by a disappointed, insulted person, whom he believes were unfairly offended, always have a negative emotional character. If sadness is light (creative) or dark (longing), then resentment always has only a negative, painful emotional background, which harms primarily to those who experience this destructive feeling.

If you consider the insult carefully, decompose it into its components, it will become obvious that it consists of indignation at the actions of someone, anger at the offender and pity for his own person. Usually, people feel the strongest resentment when, under the circumstances, nothing can be changed. This is the main difference between a bitter resentment and the usual claim or reproach used by a person to induce another to change something in the situation.

Resentment is very closely related to the concept of justice. It is easy to offend a person who has an increased sense of justice. Negative feelings develop when a person believes that they are being treated unjustly, that his rights are infringed, deprive him of something. If everything happened rightly, from the point of view of a person, then there is nothing to be offended with - one can only be upset.

Is a feeling of resentment normal, can it be considered natural for a person? It is definitely difficult to answer this question, because it inflicts a serious blow on the psyche and state of health. From this point of view, it cannot be considered natural. This version is also confirmed by the fact that no one is born with offense. A newborn cannot be offended - either intentionally or involuntarily. It can cause physical pain, scare him, but the newborn simply does not know how to take offense. Breasts have the rudiments of congenital anger; resentment for them is too complex.

Children usually make their first “successes” in comprehending the science of offense by the age of 1-1.5 years, at first simply copying it from adults or peers. Then the child only improves this destructive skill, some manage to manipulate his parents and other adults with a good help. Children become masters in the field of grievances by adolescence.

At any age, the mechanism of development of resentment is very simple and, if you understand it, then you can easily learn to cope with this negative feeling without much damage to yourself. The start of the offense gives a mismatch between our expectations and reality: from the person we expected one thing, but got the opposite. All resentment can easily be put into four mental internal operations:

• first, we build our expectation (imagine how everything should be, how and what we will get, how we will be treated);
• then we observe reality for some time (how everything actually happens, what is offered to us, how we are treated);
• mentally compare our expectations with reality, compare, find differences;
• we make an informed decision about the reaction (we are offended, believing that the discrepancy is unfair).

Resentment is different. They are united by one thing - this feeling comes from childhood. That is why it is often said about an extremely touchy adult that he behaves like a child. Nevertheless, psychologists distinguish several types of grievances. First of all, demonstrative and hidden insults. This is a way to notify the world of your decision: some are offended so that it is obvious to everyone (demonstratively), others do not show the mind, but they accumulate resentment in the soul, hide it, cherish and groom. The second type is the most dangerous, which most often leads to diseases such as oncology, severe systemic autoimmune ailments. Internal grievances prevent you from living normally, building healthy relationships.

The famous psychologist, master of systemic vector psychology Yuri Burlan proposed a very simple and at the same time detailed classification of types of insults:

• per person;
• to a group of people;
• to the world (life);
• to higher powers (God, destiny, providence) and oneself.

In the first and second types of offenses, all sensory organs are involved. Another person can offend a person with a word, a look, an act. The discrepancy between expectations and reality is very clearly traced. Resentment against a group of people is more widespread. Individual people may be offended by some religious, national group, professional or gender (a man who is offended by all women, a woman who is bitterly offended by all members of the stronger sex).

Usually, the basis of such resentment is the personal experience of resentment against a specific person from such a group, as a result of which the offended person begins to generalize, transfer his feelings to other representatives of the group, which, in fact, did not provoke such an attitude.Such insults make it difficult for a person to interact with society, with specific people.

Resentment for life, the world is a very difficult kind of resentment. Such a person is offended at all. He refuses to adequately accept the world. As a result, his anger often turns for no apparent reason at all that his arms reach: at the cat or new children's swings installed in the yard, at the insolent who tried to get to the doctor without waiting in line. We just need a reason to take revenge on the world, hit, break, destroy. In the body of such people, destructive processes also occur.

But the most difficult view is the last one - an insult to higher powers. It is conditionally divided into two subspecies: resentment against God directly for the fact that “it is given to others, but it is not undeservedly given to me” and resentment against itself. Such people are almost always in a bad mood, they often say that higher powers are unfair to them, usually they have difficulty professing at least some religion. Those offended by themselves are real “Samoyeds,” they actually start the internal subconscious processes of self-destruction. Hence there are difficult diagnoses with a cause unexplained by physicians, constant troubles, which can be both domestic and fateful.

It is believed that resentment occurs for several common reasons.

• Desire to manipulate (a person’s deliberate decision to be offended, and demonstratively, explicitly, in order to achieve the desired from another). This is often the case for children who are refused by their mother to buy a toy or let them go for a walk in the yard, so often do girls or women who want to force a partner or spouse to change their decision or behavior, to do as they need. So sometimes men act, but for representatives of the stronger sex, such causes of resentment are less common than others. The exception is pensioners. In old age, the desire to attract attention, to force others to do what an elderly person needs, is often expressed through demonstrative resentment.
• Inability to forgive (the most common reason). This is also a manipulation, only unconscious, involuntary. To be honest, I ask the offended why he was offended and why he needs this offense, he is unlikely to be able to answer these questions on his own, because he does not realize what is happening. He himself would be happy to get rid of the unpleasant sediment in the soul, but does not know how, constantly mentally returning to negative experiences.
• Unwillingness to put up with reality (deceived expectations). Of course, everyone heard that no one owes anything to anyone, no one is obliged to correspond to someone else's ideas, but very often we sincerely hope that friends will offer help themselves, they will not have to ask that the spouse will guess what exactly he must do in a given situation.

Symptoms of resentment depend on whether it is explicit or hidden. Offended defiantly changes facial expression, can “pout lips”, turn away, refuse to continue the conversation. With all his appearance, he shows that he is filled with indignation, indignation, anger, that his best feelings were “trampled”, “scolded”. At the same time, the offended does not go aside, he tries to make his resentment noticeable, otherwise the "performance" loses its meaning.

People who diligently hide their resentment in the farthest corners of their souls behave quite differently. They want privacy, they like isolation, especially from the object of insults.Until the “volcano” ripens inside, they can behave quietly, but then they necessarily become irritable, angry, unrestrained.

The ability to take offense is activated in certain periods of life.

It is difficult to find a person on the planet who would never be offended by anyone. But we do not have the task to eradicate and destroy the offense as a phenomenon. You just need to learn how to control it, understand it, feel it and let it go in time - let it fly. A person who wants to be healthy and successful, such a burden of negativity is completely useless.

I would also like to talk about such a pathological insult, which becomes a character trait - about mental insult. There are people who feel offended almost constantly. They themselves do not really know what and why, but they are always offended. Such resentment is formed in childhood. A child who is not given enough attention quickly realizes that you can look at the views of adults and get what you want, often using a manipulative insult. He is so used to behaving this way that soon this destructive feeling becomes part of his personality.

This kind of resentment, fortunately, is not so common. But in each case, it requires professional psychocorrection, which should be handled by an experienced psychiatrist, psychotherapist.

Since the feeling of resentment is destructive, destructive, it is necessary to get rid of it. This will not only help to establish relationships, but also significantly facilitate all spheres of a person’s existence (it will become easier on the soul, it will be easier to work, it will be easier to make decisions, if there is a disease, then health will become noticeably better).

You need to immediately understand that to fight offense, to confront it, as many little-known psychologists advise on the Internet, is Don Quixote’s campaign against windmills. In addition, an attempt to deny something that has already become a part of you (resentment) is the right way to a hospital bed. It is precisely such attempts to suppress, hide one’s anger that usually lead to a severe, difficult illness. Resentment is needed:

• recognize and accept;
• to take responsibility for it only on ourselves (we ourselves decided that we would be offended!);
• disassemble it into "components", comprehend each of the four thought processes of the classical development of resentment;
• replace negative emotions at each stage with positive ones.

In order to learn how to cope with such destructive feelings as resentment, in 1993 a psychologist and professor Yuri Orlov created a method of sanogenic (healing) thinking. If to outline the essence in brief, then The professor proposed to contrast the whole pathogenic (anger, aggression and resentment) with the positive and the creative (joy, love, forgiveness). Orlov’s methodology is now actively used in recommendations for teachers, doctors, specialists working with prisoners, people with disabilities, as well as for the prevention of cardiovascular pathologies.

Consider how to forgive an insult by the method of sanogenic thinking, using a specific example. For example, a mother is offended by her son or daughter, who have grown up and almost do not devote time to her. This insult has been gnawing for a long time, to transfer it becomes more and more difficult. At the first stage, the mother needs to make a small notebook in which she could enter her self-observations, write down what minutes of life, under what circumstances, how many times per day, she mentally returned to the feeling of resentment against her adult child.

Next, the woman needs to talk about four mental operations, which are the essence of resentment (we wrote about them above). In the same notebook, she needs to draw a page in four parts and write out in each:

• expectations (how she saw the relationship with her son, how he should act in her understanding, what he should say, do, give, etc.);
• reality (what he does, what he says and gives in reality);
• the difference between the first and second (here you need to write out all the differences between expectations and reality);
• the nature of the offense (here it is necessary to indicate exactly how the offense started: demonstratively or implicitly, does the child know that his mother is offended, is the character of manipulation an offense).

The ultimate goal is to clearly see that expectations are just a figment of your imagination, and reality is exactly what needs to be adequately accepted. Thus comes the understanding why a son or daughter does exactly what she does. Along with this comes the internal acceptance of their actions. This already means justification and forgiveness.

Nobody should be “convenient” and comfortable just for you. Therefore, the main part of the work is working with your own expectations from a specific person or from a group of people, from the world. It is useful to ask yourself, and where, in fact, did such expectations come from, did the person give grounds for such expectations to be built, are your expectations realistic or do you want impossible things from your loved ones. Usually this gives a fairly quick result, and a person begins to evaluate reality more objectively.

Also effective may be a method aimed at posing yourself in the place of your offender. Try to imagine if he knows how he should have behaved so that you are not offended. You can understand why he didn’t do what we wanted, if you understand the motives that led him. This method will make it possible to realize that the son (daughter) is not specifically paying the elderly mother less attention than before. He just has a lot of work, he has his own family, children, he has problems that need to be addressed.

To forgive means to understand. You can understand everyone, the main thing is that there is a desire to get rid of the excruciating feelings, from anger and self-pity, which destroy you. And there is not much difference, whether it is a slight offense or a serious one, the offender has apologized or not - all kinds of this destructive feeling somehow destroy our health, our personality.

Dealing with one offense is a big deal, but it’s much more important to learn by ourselves and to teach our children not to be offended, not to hold a grudge. It will take time and desire to work on yourself. The advice of practicing psychologists can help with this.

Everyone has the right to their own opinion, to their own conclusions. If asked about them, feel free to say what you think is right. If not, then do not try to impose on another what is peculiar only to you. Otherwise, avoiding offensive situations will not work.

There is good in everyone. If you try to see these grains of good, then they can easily push back even tons of bad. If someone offends you, try to break the chain of four “offensive” mental processes and just remember at least one situation in which this person acted well and pleasantly for you. Resentment can be avoided.

If a person is unfamiliar to you and you don’t have any positive experience with him, then just mentally note something good in his appearance (beautiful eyes or hair style).While you will mentally do this, the mechanism of development of resentment will be violated, a negative feeling will not form.

Even if it is difficult to understand and at first glance it is almost impossible. Just mentally put yourself in the place of another. This will help to see the main thing and not pay attention to insulting trifles, not to build unnecessary illusions and then not to be disappointed in trifles.

Each time, when resentment begins to boil in the soul, remember this hackneyed truth. Life is really one - to rewrite it then will not work again. Therefore, is it worth spending every hour and day to destroy yourself with anger and hatred, self-pity? Try to imagine yourself in old age - will you have something to remember good, if during the course of your life you most often experienced destructive feelings.

On the other hand, your abuser also has one life.

There are always and will be people who will have the task of provoking an insult to you, that is, they will deliberately offend. The goal of such people is to hit harder, pinch where it hurts, to cause a reaction. Do you need to endanger yourself and your health because of someone else’s conflict? It seems that no. Therefore, an adequate action would be to ignore attempts to offend you for the living.

Pity a person mentally (conflict, believe me, life is very difficult!), Note to yourself a couple of its positive qualities, keep calm. There will be nothing to oppose the offender against such a “wall”.

In love, in everyday life, in friendship, petty grievances often arise. We call them that - trifling. To overcome them, it is important only to try to see the situation as a whole, completely, not to focus on the little things that are about to make you make that very harmful decision - to start the process of resentment. Husband fries potatoes not in strips, but in cubes, although you asked to do it in strips? Before you open your mouth for angry speech, think about what he does at all - he fries potatoes for you. He wants to do something nice. Is it worth being angry? Moreover, the potato cubes, if you do not focus on the little things, are also very tasty.

It is not necessary to tell others that you have forgiven them, it is not necessary to try to hold on to relationships, but forgiveness is imperative. With forgiveness, the heaviness in the soul passes. Therefore, in any situation, goodbye. Changed - sorry, let go. Betrayed - forgive and do not return to this in your own memory. Forgive the lout and the impudent, the criminal, the thief, they live as they know how, and are not obliged to be what you want.

See how to get rid of resentment and learn to forgive in the next video.