Resentment with a side of lye for breakfast: Part I

When we carry resentments, it can turn into bitterness. That bitterness of what happened to us hurts us. Several years ago, I have not spoken to someone in over 25 years. This person looked beaten down by life. What happens to us when we continue to swallow and stuff down that bitterness of how life turned out; life wasn’t fair and has dealt us a pitiful hand. And we hold onto that poorly dealt hand, hoping and wishing that we could toss the cards and have another hand dealt. We actually can have another hand dealt when we are willing to let go what we initially got.

With that bitterness comes righteousness, of wearing a badge of honor in being wronged. It becomes a big part of our story that continually defines us based on past events. We are that story and we show it to the world. Maybe we can garner enough sympathy, that “poor me” comments that acknowledge that deep pain that keeps us right in place of when the traumatic events occurred.

Our internalized pain was inflicted on us when we could not even figure out what the feelings are and maybe we have been ignored by the hurters/abusers, even around others who we believed should have protected us. Having nowhere else to put those painful and scary events, we internalized them. Sometimes burying them in the dark, keeping them secret, they fester and roil into every cell of our body. It is taking up all the spaces within us where joy and living can live. No room for that. Keeping that kind of bitterness keeps in a prison of our own making. Each painful event creates stronger bars in prison cell. This has been inside us for so long, it has become a big part of our landscape.

Have you been on a rant or listened to someone else on a rant about how their life turned out? Pain layered with more pain. We can end up on that hamster wheel, going round and round until we get so exhausted, we fall off, or the person listening will fall over from hearing all of that. After the ranting, what has changed? It can look like going on that is a way to recharge that internalized pain, to keep it going and reinforcing that prison. Maybe we hang on because we believe we won’t remember if we let it go?

Keeping that story alive everyday keeps us stuck from living a broader and more expanded life. It keeps us from becoming more than the story. It keeps us from finding out that there is more to us to be discovered, nurtured, growing into freedom from those chains that are tethered to the prison walls.

Holding onto the bitterness is like having lye for breakfast. That poison eats US up on the inside and rarely does it matter to the ones who hurt us. When we believe we are punishing them, we are really punishing ourselves. Their lives move on regardless of the path of destruction they leave behind.