Resentments - Power Posts

[bluidkiti]

"If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don't really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love." BB, 3rd & 4th edition, pp. 552

****************************

Twenty-Four Hours A Day - 11/7

A.A. Thought For The Day

I have lost many of my resentments. I have found that getting even with people doesn't
do any good. When we try to get revenge, instead of making us feel better, it leaves us
frustrated and cheated. Instead of punishing our enemies, we've only hurt our own peace
of mind. It does not pay to nurse a grudge, it hurts us more than anyone else. Hate causes
frustration, inner conflict, and neurosis. If we give out hate, we will become hateful. If we
are resentful, we will be resented. If we do not like people, we will not be liked by people.
Revengefulness is a powerful poison in our systems. Have I lost my resentments?

******************************

"Having a resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die."

*******************************-

As Bill Sees It

Dealing with Resentments, p. 39

Resentment is the Number One offender. It destroys more alcoholics
than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we
have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have also been
spiritually ill. When our spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out
mentally and physically.

In dealing with our resentments, we set them on paper. We listed
people, institutions, or principles with whom we were angry. We asked
ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found that our
self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships
(including sex) were hurt or threatened.

<< << << >> >> >>

"The most heated bit of letter-writing can be a wonderful safety
valve--providing the wastebasket is somewhere nearby."

1. Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 64-65
2. Letter, 1949



Let Go Of Resentments

Resentments are sneaky, tricky little things.
They convince us they're justified.
They can dry up our hearts.
They can sabotage our happiness.
They can sabotage love.

Most of us have been at the receiving end
of injustice at some time in our lives.
Most of us know someone who's
complained of an injustice we've done to him or her.
Life can be a breeding ground
for resentments, if we let it.

"Yes, but this time I really was wronged,
" we complained. Maybe you were.
But harboring a resentment isn't the solution.
If it was, our resentment list would resemble
the Los Angeles telephone directory.
Deal with your feelings.
Learn whatever lesson is at hand.
Then let the feelings go.

Resentments are a coping behavior,
a tool of someone settling for survival in life.
They're a form of revenge.
The problem is, no matter who we're resenting,
the anger is ultimately directed against ourselves.

Take a moment.
Search your heart.
Have you tricked yourself
into harboring a resentment?
If you have, take another moment
and let that resentment go.

God, grant me the serenity that acceptance brings.

Melody Beattie



Walk in dry places____Letting go of resentment.
Releasing the past.
How can we really put an end to festering resentments toward other people? "Pray for these people," the Old-timers said. "Go out of your way to do something good for them." This is a big order for most of us, but we are working for a big reward: Sobriety, peace of mind, and personal progress.
When we pray for others in this manner, we're practicing the noble art of forgiveness. How do we know when it's starting to work? Lewis Smedes, a master teacher of forgiveness, offers this thought: "You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.
Forgiveness also is supposed to include forgetting the wrong. What we really forget is the hurt connected with it. When anything that once evoked pain comes to mind, we're growing spiritually if it no longer has the power to hurt us.
We then discover that we had been letting our resentments hurt us again and again. We also learn that the one effort to forgive is not nearly enough. Forgiveness takes the same amount of practice and emotional power we put into carrying the resentment.
......................Today will bring enough problems. I don't have either the time or the energy to play the old tapes that cause me pain. I'll practice praying for those who hurt me, and I'll take it for granted that my Higher power is removing my resentments.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


Walk in dry places______repeating the old hurt
serenity
It's been pointed out that the real meaning of resentment is to "re-feel" an old injury. This means that we let ourselves feel again the pain we had when we were previously wronged.
Common sense tells us that this is a foolish practice. But with emotions like resentment, common sense can be crowded out. It is a rare person who can avoid resentment about matters that caused deep injury. Resentment is so much a part of everyday life, in fact, that it's considered abnormal not to resent a real wrong.
We've also been conditioned to believe that we're being spineless and wimpy if we don't become outraged by certain injustices and wrongs. There's a difference, however, between feeling strongly that something is wrong and being sullen and resentful about it. The first kind of feeling helps us remedy the problem: the second feeling simply intensifies our hurt. Under no circumstances can we afford resentment.

....................I'll make this day resentment=free, despite the currents of feeling and bitterness around me. "Re-feeling" old injuries is not the way to the happier life I seek.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)
May 26, 2004

Resentment
This business of resentment is infinitely grave.
We found that it is fatal.
For when harboring such feelings
we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.
The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again.
And with us, to drink is to die.
If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.
c. 2001 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 66.
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
^*^**^*^
Thought to Ponder . . .
Resentment is like taking poison
and waiting for the other person to die.
* * *
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
A N G E R = A Negative Grudge Endangers Recovery.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


Walk in dry places______Civilians who show resentment
Healthy Thinking
As compulsive people, we're urged to watch resentments carefully. These negative feelings can flare up out of nowhere and bring terrible destruction.
This sensitivity in spotting our own resentments also makes us more aware of resentments in others..... perhaps people who are not alcoholic and thus are considered "normal."
When this happens, we have no responsibility to point their resentment out to them. Our best approach is to deal with them as cordially as possible and to withdraw gracefully if their resentment is a universal human problem........ not just an affliction of alcoholics and other compulsive people.

..............While guarding against resentment in myself today, I'll not be surprised or hurt when it appears in others. If it does, I will not feel hurt or surprised, knowing that it's a human problem.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


AA Thought for the Day
September 30, 2004

Resentment

This business of resentment is infinitely grave.
We found that it is fatal.
For when harboring such feelings
we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.
The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again.
And with us, to drink is to die.
Reprinted from Alcoholics Anonymous, Page 66, with permission of A.A. World Services, Inc.

Thought to Ponder....

Resentment is like taking poison
and waiting for the other person to die.
Recovery Related Acronym

A A = Attitude Adjustment.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


Pray For Those you Resent

My favorite story about praying for those I resent
is one I told in Playing It by Heart.
Here it is again:

Years ago, when I spotted the Stillwater gazette, the oldest family -
owned daily newspaper in existence, I knew I wanted to work there.
I could feel it - in my bones and in my heart.
When I went in to the offices to apply
for the job, however, the owner didn't
have the same feeling I did.
He had an for a reporter,
but he wanted to hire someone else.
Abigail, he said, was the right one for this job.

I prayed for Abigail every day.
I asked God to take care of her, guide her,
and bless her richly and abundantly.
I prayed for her because that's what I had been taught to do -
pray for those your resent.
Sometimes I prayed for her three or four times each day.
I prayed for her this much because I resented her that much.

God, I hated Abigail.

For the next months, almost half a year,
I tromped down to the Gazette once a week,
begging to be hired.
Finally, I got a job there.
But it wasn't the one I wanted.
Abigail, bless her heart, had mine.

She got the best story assignments.
She worked so quickly and
with such journalistic ease.

So I kept praying, "God bless Abigail," because that's all I knew to do.

Over months, as I got my lesser assignments from the editor -
lesser than Abigail's, that is - I began
to watch her work.
She wrote quickly and efficiently.
Got right to the point.
She was a good interviewer, too.
I started pushing myself to write better,
and more quickly.
If Abigail can do it, so can I, I told myself.
My enemy began to inspire me.
Over the weeks and months that transpired,
I spent more and more time around Abigail.
I listened to her talk. I listened to her stories.
Slowly, my enemy became my friend.

One day, Abigail and I were having coffee.
I looked at her, looked straight in her eyes.
And suddenly I realized,
I didn't hate Abigail anymore.
She was doing her job. I was doing mine.

Soon, I got an offer from a publisher to write a book.
I was glad I didn't have Abigail's job;
I wouldn't have had time to write that book.
Then one day in June 1987, that book hit the New Your Times best-seller list.

Years later, I wrote the story about Abigail in
Playing It by Heart.
The book got published.
I returned to Minnesota to do a book signing.
I was in the bookstore's bathroom,
washing my hands, when a woman approached me.

"Hi Melody," she said. I looked at her, confused.
"It's Abigail," she said.
Abigail wasn't her real name; it was a name
I had given her in the story.
But with those words, I realized
she had read the story.
She knew she was Abigail,
and she knew how I once felt.

We joked about it for a few moments.
I asked her how her life was.
She said she had quit writing and had
became a wife and mother.
I said I was still writing, and my years as a wife
and mother were for the most part over.

Resentments are such silly little things.
Envy is silly, too.
But those silly little things can
eat away at our hearts.
Sometimes, people are put in our lives
to teach us about what we're capable of.
Sometimes, the people we perceive as enemies
are really our friends.
Is there someone in your life you're spending energy
feeling envious of or resentful toward?
Could that person be there to teach you
something about yourself that you don't know
or to inspire you along your path?
You'll not know the answer to that question until
you get the envy and resentment out of your heart.

God, thank you for the people I resent and envy. Bless them richly.
Open doors for them, shower them with abundance. Help me know
that my success doesn't depend on their failure; it's equivalent to
how much I ask you to bless them.

Melody Beattie


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


Never does the human soul
appear so strong as when it
forgoes revenge, and dares forgive
an injury.
--E.H. Chapin

When something or someone makes us angry and we deny it or ignore it, the anger can become resentment. Resentments hurt us because they make us suffer. They make us angry, negative, and short-tempered.

The key to preventing resentments is to start expressing our feelings either verbally or in writing. We do this not to change the other person, but to unload from ourselves the poison of resentment. We can let go of it. We can be grateful that as we empty ourselves of negative things, the space will be filled with positive.

Today let me express my feelings in a way that feels safe and then turn them over to my Higher Power.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&


AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AAOnline.net)

December 22, 2004

Resentment

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment
leads only to futility and unhappiness. . .
But with the alcoholic,
this business of resentment is infinitely grave.
We found that it is fatal.
For when harboring such feelings
we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit.
The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again.
And with us, to drink is to die.
c. 2001 AAWS, Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 66
With permission, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.





Thought to Ponder . . .

Resentment is like acid,
eating away at the vessel it is stored in.


AA-related 'Alconym' . . .

Q T I P = Quit Taking It Personally.