Resentments
You’ve begun to identify your unfinished developmental business. You’ve been discovering that your Matrix, which was primarily formed by your early attachment experiences, has formed mistaken and limiting beliefs about yourself and the world. You have seen how your early childhood experiences did not fulfill all of your yearnings and how it is your job now to identify and meet those yearnings and to Rematrix with the belief that your yearnings are pure, important, and worthy of being met. You’ve been noticing your charges, projections, and transferences that indicate the unfinished developmental business that is now your job to complete.
What feelings have you noticed as you were doing the assignments? Chances are you have had feelings of regret (sadness), hurt, and anger as you realized how your yearnings weren’t consistently met as a child. You may have realized how your unfinished developmental business has been in the way of creating more intimacy in your relationships. You may also have seen lost opportunities to fulfill your heart’s desires. Remember, unfinished business is part of being human.
Completing or finishing unfinished business is part of being a successful human being—and part of growing ourselves up!
That is what we are encouraging you to do—to become aware of and complete your unfinished business and to develop skills in more ways to engage so that you become more whole and experience more intimacy, freedom, and joy.
This week, you take steps to become more aware of your unfinished personal, emotional business and move forward in your life by learning to express unexpressed feelings, thoughts, and resentments. Now that you have identified your unfinished business, practice assuming goodwill on the part of others while you engage more fully and express more of your thoughts and feelings.
You have spent time becoming aware of the emotional charges, projections, and transferences you are experiencing in your life today. You are drawing connections and seeing how these experiences inform you—and provide a pathway to discovering the unfinished business of your past.
Another focus for this week is on a particular type of unfinished developmental business—resentments.
Resentments are generally a combination of fear, hurt, and anger. We build resentments by not expressing fear or hurt, and we become angry that we are afraid or hurt. Whether the hurt is real or exaggerated, or even imagined, it becomes resentment when it is not expressed or resolved.
The word “resentment” stems from the term to re-sense. The dictionary defines it as:
“Indignation or ill will felt as a result of a real or imagined grievance, or aggrieved feelings about something or toward somebody usually as a result of ill-usage or insult, or an instance of these.”
For our purposes, resentment represents stored energy that does not lead to improved satisfaction. Resentment drains or traps your energy and gives you no positive outcome. It is a waste of your vital life force. In doing this week’s assignment of inventorying your resentments, you are listing the unproductive withdrawals from your life bank accounts that are draining you of resources that could be directed toward greater fulfillment and satisfaction. The positive function of dealing with resentment is that not only do we affirm the original feelings underneath the resentment, but also, when we express it, we frequently break through emotional and relationship roadblocks that keep us from efficiently getting where we want to go in life.
This week, inventory your relationships in terms of withheld communications—where you have held back expression, information, feelings, judgments, gratitude, resentment, and even love. Look more closely and deeply at the emotional charges and resentments you have with various past and current primary relationships, including parents and others. Think about where you have held back expression. What is it about your relationship with them that leaves you feeling incomplete, unheard, empty, saddened, distant, or resentful? In what situations or with what topics do you feel like a child again with your parents? What is left unsaid or unexpressed? What truths have you not shared? What are some of the feelings you haven’t let out? Judgments you haven’t released?
Identifying these thoughts, feelings, and situations is a step in preparing you to express them to your parents and those close to you. With this preparation, you feel more like an adult when you are interacting with others and assuming goodwill. You are taking a step toward actually seeing your parents and others more fully for who they are, as well as being yourself more fully. It can create an opening for more love and compassion. Be aware of what you’ve left unexpressed—and experiment with expressing some of it! And as you uncover and express your withholds, document what you are discovering about yourself in this expression.
Assuming goodwill supports you in expressing your withholds and resentments. If you are focusing on the possibility of that person holding goodwill for you, it becomes easier to let go of the antagonism toward others and be more willing to let them know what you have been withholding. Rather than letting the resentment fester and build up, or obsessing on what they are doing wrong, or how they don’t appreciate you, or how you think they are trying to sabotage you…you work to hold the context that they aren’t necessarily your enemy or just out to get you, but that there is goodwill in the other and in the relationship, and create space to express yourself and your feelings and thoughts. Start to look for what is positive in the relationship as a foundation for sharing more of what you have been holding back.
Assuming goodwill helps you to not build up more resentments and withheld communication. You won’t as easily assume that someone has ill will toward you. You may see that they are insensitive, unaware, manipulative, unkind, or….but that they aren’t necessarily an agent of the evil empire. They are human beings who are not meeting your yearnings, and you can increasingly let them know what you are feeling and what you’d like from them more directly.
Practicing these two skills this week are the beginning building blocks toward a vision of eventually becoming clear and current in all of your relationships. Enjoy assuming goodwill as you express your withholds.
Now that you have an inventory of the types of your unfinished business, you can take steps to complete the transactions and create room for different opportunities.
Much of the distance and dysfunction in our relationships is caused by inefficient, incomplete, and withheld communications. Harboring unsaid resentments, hurts, or beliefs about others are often the result of strict, covert rules against open communication in our families of origin. These withheld communications create distance and emotional muddiness in relationships. To the extent that we withhold our feelings, hurts, and resentments, we also withhold our full love, joy, and gratitude. By not being current and up-to-date with others, we create unspoken barriers between us. When we share the feelings we have been storing up toward others, we create the possibility of developing intimate honest relationships with them.
This month, you are introduced to the skills of becoming more clear and current in your relationships. Clearing means to directly express stored-up withholds, judgments, resentments, or feelings towards another in an attempt to create a "clear" space in the relationship. While it may feel risky or scary to do this in a direct way, the price for not doing so is high. Clearing does not imply license to blame or dump on someone else; those engaging in clearing are expected to take ownership and responsibility for their feelings and reactions.
The first step toward getting clear and current in relationships is to realize what you have withheld in your communications in relationships. This week, you inventory your withholds—your unexpressed thoughts, feelings, judgments, gratitude, appreciation, caring, hurts, and anger, etc.—with the people closest to you.
What is unsaid, unshared, or unexpressed? What are you purposely withholding from them in order to not be punished or, perhaps, to punish them? Or what is it that you are afraid to share, fearing that you won’t be loved or accepted? What are you reflexively, habitually, or unconsciously withholding from others?
Inventory Your Withholds—& Express More Fully
Main Assignment
Your main assignment has two parts this week:
PART 1: Inventory Your Withholds and Express More Fully
This week, you get more specific about your unfinished business. Inventory your withheld communications (“withholds”)—your unexpressed resentments, thoughts, feelings, and judgments (both positive and negative) towards your parents, other family members, and those you care about most.
In doing your inventory of withholds and resentments, don’t ask yourself, “Do I have withheld communication?” or, “Do I have resentment toward someone?” but rather, “What withholds do I have with this person?” or, “What resentments do I have with this person?” During the day, it is not “Did I withhold today?” or, “Did I experience resentment today?” but rather, “What did I withhold today?” and, “What resentments did I experience today?”
Very-Able Assignments
Pick One Category a Day
Each day, focus on one of the categories listed below:
Parents and Family
Spouse or Significant Other
Children
Friends
Co-workers, Partner, Boss, Others
Identify all the withheld communications and all the resentments and anger you have with the person you chose to concentrate on for the day. Set the timer for five minutes every day and free associate on any withheld feelings, communications, and expression with people in the category you choose for the day.
Scan for Unexpressed Communication
Use the worksheet to do an hourly and daily scan for unexpressed communications, withholds, and resentments, which may take the form of uncommunicated feelings, thoughts, and judgments, or gratitude, love, and compliments. Where were you hurt and didn’t express it? With whom? Who were you angry at, yet didn’t express it? Who did you have ill will toward or dislike? Where and with whom did you not share your thoughts, feelings, or judgments? With whom did you withhold your care, love, appreciation, or gratitude? Keep track this week of where you withhold communication and do not keep current with others.
Experiment with Expressing!
Experiment with expressing some of your withheld communications from your inventory to the people close to you—share some of your withheld thoughts, feelings, gratitude, and resentments. You don’t have to express everything yet—but experiment this week by sharing previously withheld communications with people close to you.
Express Yourself in Meaningful Conversations—Minimum of 2 per Day
Take action this week and practice the important intimacy skill of engaging in meaningful conversations with others—express yourself and don’t hold back! Share your thoughts, feelings, and what is in your heart. Share your vision, your hopes, and your dreams. Engage others in sharing more meaningfully with you. Have meaningful conversations about creating meaningful holidays. Have at least two meaningful conversations every day. Express—don’t withhold!
“Assume Goodwill” When You Attend and Invite to Growthful Events
Use this week’s Rule of Engagement to “assume goodwill” from others and the universe. What if you believed that the universe was helping you learn and grow, and that you were an agent of others' learning and growing? With that spirit, invite friends and family to join you on the journey by sharing the progress you make and inspire them to explore this in their own life events.
The purpose of this week is to become aware of what you withhold. Use the attached worksheets to help you keep track of withheld communications.
Make copies of the attached Withholds and Resentments Tracker and use it each day to make your list of your withheld communications, feelings, and truths. Track anything you can think of that you haven’t expressed to people close to you in the past. Be as thorough and complete as possible in your inventory.
Think about different people in your life and begin by setting a timer for five minutes and let yourself freely write any unexpressed thoughts, communications, feelings, gratitude, and resentments that come to mind until the timer goes off. It doesn’t have to make sense. Simply allow yourself to expose all withheld communications and resentments.
Continually go back to your list throughout the week and see what more there is to add. Scan for unexpressed communications using the Unexpressed Communications Chart. Use the Withholds and Resentments Inventory to summarize your unexpressed communications with people in your life.
You don’t have to express all of your withholds and resentments this week (you’ve been storing them for a lifetime!); however, experiment with sharing some of them.
Most of us are in the habit of withholding from others and ignoring resentments. You may be surprised at how many times you have feelings and thoughts that you wouldn’t have noticed before or how many times you feel hurt with minor residual resentment that, before this exercise, you would not have paid attention to.
PART 2: Practice —Assume Goodwill
While you work on your withholds and resentments, practice the Rule: Assume Goodwill. Assuming goodwill is a skill to learn. Make it a habit to assume goodwill and look for the positive in the person with whom you are interacting, rather than assuming that person has it out for you. So often we scan for what the people in our lives are doing wrong, how they don’t appreciate us, or worse, how they are trying to sabotage us.
And when we do that, studies show we easily miss 50 percent of the good stuff our partner is doing and perceive negativity that isn’t even there.
As you continue to work on your unfinished business through identifying where you have been withholding or harboring your resentments, you will create more space. As you combine that clear space with an assumption of goodwill, be delighted and surprised at how deep relationships can be!
