Resentment, especially when paired with anger, is an intense emotion. Bottling these emotions up causes more damage than good. Pretending that these feelings aren't there, or trying to push them away, may even contribute to hatred. Healing resentment means accepting our feelings.
Resentment, used as a form of distrust, has a strong component of self-punishment: "the false appeal of self-punishment is that it seems to keep us safe from future hurt and disappointment", when in reality it is hurting the resenter more (i.e. how we mistreat or distrust others unrelated to the offense, ourselves, etc ...
A person experiencing resentment will often feel a complex variety of emotions that include anger, disappointment, bitterness, and hard feelings. Resentment is commonly triggered by: Relationships with people who insist on being right all the time. Being taken advantage of by another.
Resentment allows the victim to feel morally superior to the wrongdoer, who has attacked her self-worth. It serves as an attempt to restore self-worth. The fact that resentment is a negative emotion that feels good is one of the factors that makes it so useful to leaders.
“At first, you feel angry that you're not being treated fairly or that your needs are being ignored,” says psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD. “Over time, this snowballs into disappointment, bitterness and hard feelings.”
Hovering somewhere between anger and disappointment, resentment is a nagging feeling that you've been treated unfairly in some way by another person. In romantic relationships, this emotion can be challenging to identify yet highly destructive, eroding away at the very fibers that hold two people together.
Emotions of anger and resentment are often held in our jaw and around the mouth. If you often have a sore throat, mouth ulcers or grind your teeth at night, it could be a sign that there is an excess of overactive or stagnant energy in this part of your body.
Holding onto a grudge can significantly impact your mental and physical health. “When we hold onto grudges and resentment, it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick,” says Angela Buttimer, MS, NCC, RYT, LPC, a licensed psychotherapist at Thomas F. Chapman Family Cancer Wellness at Piedmont.
Resentment is a self-eroding emotional state, potentially leading to depression and physical symptoms, such as rashes and headaches. The function of resentment is not to make people feel powerless but to attract attention to a relationship in trouble in order to improve it.
An imbalanced liver and gallbladder can be caused by longstanding feelings of repressed anger, such as resentment, frustration, and irritability.
The emotion of anger is associated with the choleric humor and can cause resentment and irritability. It is believed that this emotion is stored in the liver and gall bladder, which contain bile. Anger can cause headaches and hypertension which can in turn affect the stomach and the spleen.
By refusing to give up a “justified resentment,” you may believe that you are punishing the person who wronged you. However, resentful behavior actually leads you to feel hurt and victimized again, disempowered.To let go of resentment would be to experience increased freedom and mental health.
That's because of the intense effect of resentment on the body—which essentially creates a toxic mind-body cycle. "Ruminating over the feeling of resentment and the interaction that brought about it can flood the brain with stress hormones that make you more susceptible to negative thoughts," says Dr. Awosan.
The difference between resentment and hate is that resentment is usually tied to a specific circumstance. You hate somebody in general, but you resent them for a particular event.
A person experiencing resentment may feel personally victimized but may be too angry or ashamed to discuss the resulting emotions, instead allowing the grudge to fester and be expressed in the form of anger.
Resentment has the toxic potential to unwind your relationship because it blocks partners from moving toward each other to repair deep hurts. Many couples who come into counseling find they waited too long.
One thing you can know for sure is that if you don't try to address the resentment, it won't go away by itself. Resentment is a cancer that metastasizes and eventually makes it impossible for a healthy relationship to survive.
In a series of studies, Vivian Zayas and Yuichi Shoda found that people don't just love or hate significant others. They love and hate them—and that's normal. The key to getting through the inevitable hard times, as my own research suggests, is to never stop trying to understand where your partner is coming from.
Consider taking an empathetic approach. Embrace the conversation with the person who hurt you — as hard as that may be. While you might feel like the victim in this scenario, it's very possible that they're the victim of a past trauma that triggered the act over which you're feeling resentful.
Emotional Trauma Symptoms
Psychological Concerns: Anxiety and panic attacks, fear, anger, irritability, obsessions and compulsions, shock and disbelief, emotional numbing and detachment, depression, shame and guilt (especially if the person dealing with the trauma survived while others didn't)
Resentment is closely related to, but not the same as, anger. Resentments can be viewed as negative feelings toward someone or something that stems from the past. Resentment is often the re-experiencing of past wrongs- real or perceived- and the old feelings of anger connected to them.
Envy Leads to Resentment
Resentment is a complex emotion. It describes the displeasure — the anger, disgust, and contempt — you feel towards someone you think has wronged you in some way or violated some code of values.