As I sat by the lake this morning, a rat scuttled past me. Rats abound by the lake, partly because of all the food humans discard when they sit there for their snacks and lunches. It always astounds me that people can carry a picnic over there but they can’t carry the remnants home again – or even a few hundred metres to the bins in the car park.
I don’t mind rats. I’m not saying I’d welcome them into my kitchen but they have their place in nature. For one thing, rats are the biggest consumer of pigeons’ eggs. But the people who leave their rubbish for the rats to eat, crows to peck and other people to clear up? Now those I really resent.
Few people like to admit that they hold resentment. It’s not one of the more attractive traits: to be resentful. Resentment is, after all, a form of hatred – and no one likes to be a h8r. In the words of the great Jedi Master, Yoda: hate leads to suffering! What most people don’t realise, however, is that it’s ourselves who suffer when we resent others. There’s a wonderful saying, falsely attributed to Buddah but most likely from one of the 12 step programmes:
Holding on to resentment is like drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die.
Resentment is subtle. It’s not red hot anger. It’s more like a cooly festering cancer in our soul – and it seeps out in all sorts of ways: that bitchy little remark or snide comment; raising our eyes to the skies when someone talks; talking over someone; rubbishing their opinion. Oh, the ways it seeps out of every pore are myriad.
And we can always justify it. S/he started it; they did this or that or the other to me/my family/friend; they deserve it; after everything I did and look how they treated me…. Can’t you just smell the burning martyr?
Of course, I don’t know the people who leave their polystyrene burger boxes for the birds to eat, or their plastic bags to float off into the water to suffocate the waterfowl – but I still resent them. And it affects me internally. I can feel myself go tense when I see the rubbish strewn across the water or the banks; I can almost taste how much I despise them.
And, of course, resentment isn’t reserved for strangers who do things we don’t like. The most common recipients of our resentment are those we love: partners, ex-partners (can’t you just hear the resentment as you say the term `ex’?), parents, neighbours, friends and even our children. Those little niggles – the toothpaste squeezed from the top, underwear NOT put in the laundry basket, parents telling us to wrap up warmly even though we’re adults and on and on….
And how we let them know about it, we sigh, we roll our eyes, we snap, we pointedly pick up the underwear and make a big show of putting it where it should be. Because, of course, we know how everything should be and everyone should behave! Again, listen to the self-righteousness hidden beneath the words. Eugh! Yucky!
And that’s the rat poison!
The judgements; the moral superiority; the poor-me-victim; the burning martyr; the bitchiness; colluding with others as to how dreadful X, Y or Z is and, for me one of the most insidious, the blaming of others for our actions or inaction.
I can almost guarantee 100% that my resentment of the litter droppers isn’t hurting them one iota – but it does disturb my peace, it affects my meditation and it impacts on my own self respect – because I don’t like people who hate/resent others. I judge them to be morally less than I am – so what does that say about me when I am the one resenting? Ouch!
Let go of your resentment as soon as you can. For your own sake. Resentment is a normal emotion – we’re human – but when I realise the toll it’s taking on my health, my self esteem, my spirituality and my relationships, I don’t want to hang on to it.
So, in the words of Queen Elsa in Frozen; Let it Go! And the sooner the better – for your own sake.
Reiki in Wanstead 