Resentment: What’s It Costing You?

Don’t you just love a-ha moments?

They’re a bit like looking at an optical illusion; you spend time focusing on the image knowing there is something there that you cannot see and then BINGO something in your perspective shifts and you see it!

Now you see it, it seems so blindingly obvious that you wonder how you never saw it before. But now you do, you’ll never look at that picture the same way again.

I’d like to share an a-ha moment I had recently with you all which has fundamentally deepened the way I think about the often-used, throwaway phrase “getting things off your chest.” How many times have you heard that phrase? Countless times, right?  “It’s good to get things off your chest,” “Why don’t you tell him/her and get it off your chest?”…. You probably use it yourself God knows how many times a day.

Every step you take towards manifesting what you want in life throws up the opportunity to clear whatever is standing in your way.  Where some people get stuck is they fail to see the opportunity since it often shows up disguised as an inconvenient obstacle or drama.  Lately as I move towards what I want, I have come to regularly feel a heaviness around my chest, in the heart chakra area.

Old and deeply buried resentments are surfacing, ready to be released and healed. Resentments that are standing between where I am now and where I’d like to be.  Harbouring resentments takes a lot of energy, vital energy which could be going towards what I actually want as opposed to what I am not happy with.  Now that I feel the stifling feeling of this blockage I have come to notice just how much these resentments block the flow of energy in the heart chakra.

A lil bit about the heart chakra

Your heart chakra sits in your chest area and is the seat of love (personal and unconditional) and all that comes from love, like compassion and forgiveness. It is also the bridge between your physical and spiritual self, so it’s pretty important!

When it is blocked you may find you have issues around judgement, self-love, bitterness, resentment and unforgiveness both towards other people as well towards yourself.  Since the bridge that links the material and spiritual world is blocked you will encounter some difficulty moving your dreams from daydreams and visualiastions to physical reality.  You may find it hard to love yourself enough to allow your dreams to manifest physically and no amount of pushing and shoving towards your goals can counteract that.  See what these resentments are costing us?

The phrase “getting things off your chest” actually has a much deeper meaning since whatever is “on your chest” is a HUGE energy blocker.  When you let things fester, you are blocking that loving energy of your heart and ONLY YOU will feel the effects of that.

Love expands and fear constricts; love opens you up to possibilities and solutions, fear closes down your options by entertaining doubt and worry. That seemingly unrelated desire you have of financial freedom, a thriving business or a healthy weight could be sitting on the other side of that resentment you are harbouring. This doesn’t make logical sense but energetic sense and energy doesn’t work with the laws of logic. Blocked energy manifests itself as a variety of undesired situations from ill health to a lack of money.

What’s interesting is that these resentments I found are not new ones but very, very old ones that I had no idea I carried and they’re the worst ones! Just because I couldn’t feel the heaviness in my heart until now doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, quite the opposite actually. They were alive and kicking and running the show unconsciously.  They were busy blocking the things I wanted from being received by me, all completely under the radar and out of my awareness. No matter how much physical action I took in certain areas, it was never enough to counteract the unconscious energy of resentment that had been there for years.

There is a famous Carrie Fisher quote

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

And ain’t that the truth? No matter how justified I was in my resentment, it was to me I was doing the most damage. Getting these long-held resentments off my chest has been a hugely liberating feeling moving me from the stuckness of resentment and blame to the real resolution of forgiveness of the other person, but most importantly, of myself.

What do you need to get off your chest? Who are you harbouring resentments for?  Here are some old favourites: Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Teachers, Spouses, Ex-Partners, Old (maybe even current) friends.

I’m not asking you to go out and purposely dig up all your old memories to find your long-held resentments as I believe they will come up when they are ready to be released.  But from now on be present to yourself (with honesty AND compassion) and start to notice where you overreact to people or situations with an anger (or maybe even rage!) that doesn’t seem justified or where you find unfairness.

Stop squeezing the love, joy and success you are chasing out of your life.

Related posts:

1. How To Deepen Your Connection To Your True Self
2. Who’s Choosing Your Resolutions? Heart or Head
3. How to Stop Complaining