Our world supports resentment time as sacred time. To interfere with the narrative and the internal nursing of someone’s resentment is seen as a violation. We hold that not only are people entitled to their resentments, but that resentments are honorable. We hold that resentments give a forbearance to us, an internal fortitude; a backbone where we are otherwise weak. We hold that entire classes of people are made more powerful from collective and individual employment of resentment. In the same way living with stress weakens the immune system, living with resentment weakens our resilience. Resentment is a powerful hiding place rife with airtight rationales for why we can be excused from our part in reality.
This is true no matter what the target of resentment is: external with others—people, institutions, convictions—or internal with ourselves—expectations, beliefs, even our own bodies. What we most cling to as a protector is killing us.
There are prepackaged hiding places that need to be rooted out by Eros if we are to have the dynamic flow inside that is freedom.
Resentment calcifies our perceptions and experiences of other people, to the point where we are no longer relating to them, but to our idea of them.
As painful as resentment is, familiarity breeds comfort; we can take up residence in the nest of repeating thoughts. It is predictable pain so it is the preferred brand of pain for our tumescent mind, as opposed to the pain of learning, which can be destabilizing and unfamiliar.
Eros says, “You deserve better. I’ll provide the power, but you have to do the work.”
We can get to the point where we are so filled with resentment we cannot digest anything that is not laced with resentment. We are either attempting to provoke others through our actions or inactions into behaviors that will justify our resentment, or we are nursing resentment. It is an empty calorie we cannot stop eating.
