How much pain and torment the offense brought to each of us! How many difficult hours have we spent, overwhelmed by this feeling! But what is it? Resentment is a consequence of our expectations that were not met by someone else.
Who? Usually these are our family, friends, colleagues and other people with whom we are in close contact. It is from them that we expect and demand a lot.
For what? To feel needed, important, loved, accepted, supported, cared for. To feel protected and forget about loneliness. This is the same blissful state that we experienced in distant, distant childhood and which we are unsuccessfully trying to grab at least by the tail now.
Yes, of course, the desire to receive these very psychological strokes, care, love and attention is characteristic of absolutely every person. This is completely natural. But when our desires are not justified, when they remain unfulfilled or are not fulfilled in the way we wanted, resentment flares up in us.
We begin to feel abandoned, unwanted, lonely, helpless and worthless - a very unpleasant, difficult and painful feeling. Therefore, today I propose to break down how to communicate with other people in order to experience it as rarely as possible.
I'm offended - I'm not here
Something incomprehensible is happening, as if an attack from outside. In a short period of time, a person goes from being normally and actively existing to being passive and disoriented. Many people claim that they literally lose their heads or the ground under their feet. They describe this state as an invasion of negative thoughts that grow with a certain force. Contrived problems, past stories and images begin to appear.
Emotions and body reactions are immediately connected. A person begins to form in his head the upcoming scenarios of his life, completely absorbed in this process. He is not satisfied with himself and other people. He feels bad and uncomfortable. There is a constriction in the throat and chest, there is not enough air and you want to cry. All attempts to switch your attention and concentrate on something else fail. A person is completely absorbed in thinking about the same thing. He's self-absorbed.
Many people call this condition “mental pain” or resentment. It is accompanied by self-criticism, remorse for something. Have you ever watched yourself? If not, try it. You are yourself. You think, reflect and all your attention is somewhere not here. Automatically, you turn on the TV, trying to distract yourself from these thoughts. But then a program about your problem appears on the screen. Another example. You are walking down the street, not noticing anything around, and suddenly, raising your head, you see an advertisement. There are words on it that confirm your inner state. There are many such examples. What is this? Who influences us and our reality? What is at the root of what is happening? How to get rid of a depressing state and become a joyful person? Start over.
Method #1 - Let off some steam
There are times when, due to circumstances, you cannot express everything you think to your offender. For example, he is your director and does not tolerate any arguing, even if he is wrong. The accumulated negativity grows more and more, and at some point you begin to understand that the work itself, where the hated boss is located, turns into torture. Instead of solving the problem, you tolerate your condition or begin to think about starting to look for another job. However, you should remember that in the first case, you begin to experience serious stress, which will destroy your health and personal life, and in the second, you may again encounter a similar situation at a new job. Learn to make the right adult decisions.
When you come home after an insult, give vent to your emotions. You can even discuss the offender as you wish, cry, hit the wall with your fist. The main thing is that it should not last more than a few hours. Discuss the problem only with the person who can understand you and give the right advice in this situation. You can often hear from friends: “leave this job, why do you need it,” “don’t pay attention.” Maybe there are people around you who hold leadership positions (it will be easier for them to understand the behavior of your director), it’s better to consult with them. If there are no such people, then go to an appointment with a psychoanalyst. If this is not an option, then try to figure it out yourself. Ask yourself questions and answer them honestly:
- Why did he do this to me?
- Is it all my fault that this is happening?
- Why did this action of the director cause offense?
Read more: Aggressive behavior of a child in kindergarten
Having understood the situation (it may well turn out that you were wrong, and the boss just lost his temper), sit down and think through what you would say to your offender. The speech should be short and very clear. If this situation weighs on you for several days, try to voice your opinion in person. After all, most likely he did not notice something and offended you unfairly. When meeting, keep yourself on top, do not give free rein to your emotions. If this does not help, and you need a job or relationship with this person, then there is a second method that can be successfully used.
About thoughts, emotions and the essence of things
Our nature is dual. We are essentially divine beings, but at the same time we have a material nature. Our desire to live in love, happiness and joy has a spiritual motivation. That is why we strive throughout our lives for true pleasure.
Everything that prevents this pleasure in us is an unnatural, but at the same time very “habitual” state. This is our material nature. When it dominates in a person, he lives joylessly all the time.
It all starts with a thought
Thought is the root cause of all emotions and events in a person’s life. Every moment we select from thousands of thoughts those that we “like” and pay special attention to them. Sometimes the thought process takes hours, and sometimes even years, of a person’s life. Thought comes from outside at our request and remains with us solely by our choice.
Observe how thoughts come and go, and what you think about. Try concentrating on something, such as a butterfly. Record the time and look at the result. Did you wait a few minutes? Congratulations! You probably have practical experience. Many people participating in the experiment cannot stand the minute. This experiment clearly shows that thoughts are not ours and do not belong to us. Thought gives rise to emotion. Emotion breeds action. Action gives rise to our future life. The choice of thought is the first thing a person should start with if he wants to live in joy.
Emotion Follows Thought
Emotions are a substitute for true feelings of joy, love and constant happiness. We can say that this is an information program of consciousness aimed at:
- Satisfaction of desires and needs;
- Control of behavior for further manipulation;
- Providing security for protection.
I suggest you do a short but very effective exercise. Write down everything that comes to your mind without stopping for 15 minutes. Don't analyze. Just write. If nothing comes, write the text: “I don’t receive anything” until it starts coming. Very often we receive pictures in the form of images, which our brain immediately interprets. Thanks to this practice, you will discover that much of what is written is complete nonsense that you did not order. By analyzing the records, you will also see a description of your problem and perhaps understand its absurdity.
From all of the above we can draw conclusions. A person who does not control thoughts, emotions and reactions to an existing problem becomes offended. At the same time, he looks for a reason in his environment, abdicating responsibility and blaming others. He is dissatisfied with many or almost everyone, he teaches everyone, telling them how to live. At the same time, he himself does not follow his own moral teachings. It is very important to learn:
- watch yourself;
- track thoughts, choosing only positive ones;
- control internal and external processes.
Each new situation complements the previous situation and together they make up the scenario of our life.
Try to understand the other person
To learn not to be offended by others, you must first try to understand the person who offended you, because any action has its own motives. It is unlikely that there are a large number of people in the world who consciously go to cause harm to others. Of course, in every flock there is a black sheep, but it is not worth judging the entire flock by it.
If someone hurt you, try to analyze exactly what emotions he was experiencing at that moment. Perhaps he felt unwell or was simply overtired after a hard day at work. If we talk about teenagers, many of them generally offend their peers unconsciously, for example, by making a bad joke. If you find the answer to the question of why exactly the person close to you did what he did, then it will become much easier for you, and you will forgive him.
I'm offended - that's what I want!
Resentment is one of the tricks of consciousness so that a person concentrates his attention on it and falls into a trap.
Resentment is our personal choice. This is anger or dissatisfaction that some of our expectations were not met. The root of resentment is self-obsession, egocentrism. Resentment is manipulation, a way to force another person to do something for us instead of us. A person deliberately tries to make another person feel guilty.
Being offended is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Method number 3 - take the side of the offender
This method is the most difficult. In addition, it is not possible to use it as quickly as we would like. This method consists of understanding based on lived experience. Are you being bullied at work? See if you are offending anyone in your family or colleagues? Why are you doing it?
The wife begins to understand her husband who came late only after she herself stayed with her friends. Children lose grievances against their parents only after they themselves enter adulthood. A subordinate stops being offended by the director only after he himself receives a promotion. Why is this happening? Understanding comes. But why wait so long?
Try to understand and forgive immediately.
Come up with excuses for the person yourself.
How to deal with resentment? Looking for joy
- Keep a Diary of Awareness. Every half hour, note what your condition is.
- Keep your thoughts clean. Is there a lot of “yours” there, genuine? Is this thought worth the fuss?
- Learn to relax and meditate.
- Write a list of “mood eaters” and try not to pay attention to what is written on this list.
- Write a list of mood boosters and try to stick to it.
- Learn to develop a positive attitude towards life.
- Learn to value your time. Schedule your day minute by minute. Be a busy person.
- Play sports.
- Read books 1-2 hours a day. Discuss books. It is very interesting.
- Ventilate your surroundings. Write a list of those people with whom you communicate and see most often. Communicate with positive-minded people more often.
- Start helping people around you.
- Appreciate every moment of life.
Joy within. Seek and you will find...
What is resentment and how is it dangerous?
If you decide to forever stop being offended by other people, then first you should understand what resentment is in order to know your enemy by sight. Generally speaking, this is a negative reaction to the actions of another person, which we consider unforgivable, and our offender considers completely natural. This statement only proves the fact that the boundaries of resentment are quite blurred, and its origins are always individual. However, this negative emotion can greatly ruin our lives, so it should be dealt with in every possible way. Moreover, if we let the feeling of resentment completely occupy our thoughts, it can lead to depression and even affect our health.
You should also understand that if you give in only once and allow yourself to be offended by some person, then everything will definitely not be limited to one time. Negative situations that lead you to resent your loved ones will be layered on top of each other, as a result of which you will begin to be offended even by things that most people consider trivial. Quite often, such an attitude leads to the fact that relatives do not communicate for years, and love relationships end at the development stage. Therefore, try to find the root of the problem in yourself in order to build your own happy future with your own hands.
Be smarter than the one who offended you
Yes, looking down on other people is not good. However, this expression is very suitable for conveying its meaning to readers. Remember how, as children, adults told us: “Just be smarter.” Of course, for a child such a phrase sounds quite incomprehensible - how can I be smarter when another person has offended me? However, this is the whole point. Even if another person deliberately offended you, you will annoy him much more if you do not react to such stupidity. Just try to think of the offender as an individual who does not understand anything about communicating with people. You won’t be offended by a child who hit you so that you run after him, will you?
