How to fight resentment and resolve conflicts effectively: tips

A person is offended when they feel that their identity, feelings or values have been hurt. This can be caused by the words, actions or disrespect of others. Resentment can affect our well-being, relationships, and psychological state, so it is important to understand how to overcome these emotions and communicate with others in an understanding way. Almost none of my counseling sessions are complete without this topic. As a rule, the resentments that clients want to work through are related to their closest people: parents, partners, children, or friends.

The fact is that we usually don't hold grudges against people who don't matter much to us.

So what is resentment?

Without delving too deeply into psychology, I will say that it is a reaction to unmet expectations or to an injustice. And sometimes the injustice is absolutely real, and sometimes it is more in our heads. Very often, we expect more from people than they can give us, and then we get very offended. But is it worth it? Is it the person's fault that we made up things about them and believed them? Or is it their fault that we live in our own very comfortable illusion? Do they know about these expectations and should he justify them if they are not even aware of them?

I think the answer is obvious...

We draw the desired pictures, guided by our "right" and "good", our behavioral patterns, our values and attitudes, trying on the situation exclusively for ourselves. We forget that the other person has a completely different vision of the situation, their duties or responsibilities. It is normal that priorities may be different. Because of this, we face the fact that close people cannot give us what we need because they do not have the means or even the plans. It will be easier for you to live if you remember that expectations are something you will have to deal with later.

Not the people you expected something from, but you. ⠀

It would seem that resentment is familiar to us from childhood, and the reason for its manifestation is very clear. Although a child is not born with the ability to take offense, he or she actively learns to do so as they grow up.

Most often, this skill comes as a result of restraining negative emotions that the child is forbidden to express, or when expressing them is useless since no one reacts or pays attention to them anyway. The child learns to hide feelings, and when the resentment is hidden, it becomes stronger, and a global resentment arises for all those times when the child did not get what he or she wanted.

This pattern of behavior is transferred to adulthood, and instead of adequately assessing the situation, understanding it, drawing conclusions, and stating what is bothering them, they simply take offense. This leads to the emergence of strong destructive emotions such as anger, pain, fear, indignation, anger, and pity.

Sometimes resentment also becomes a way to manipulate loved ones to get them to do something or to attract attention. Interestingly, this habit also has its roots in childhood when a child feels loved and reacts to insults in exactly the right way. If the insult works once and the child gets ice cream or extra time in front of the TV, then in the future he or she will use this technique for manipulative purposes.

Resentment is a shift of responsibility and an opportunity to do nothing in a conflict situation. It is a way to use guilt and make your offender feel it. But resentment has no effect on the situation itself and does not help to resolve it.

There are many reasons for resentment and scenarios for its development. And it is important to understand that this is a destructive feeling.

There is only one way to get rid of it: work on yourself.

The main tips for getting rid of the habit of resentment are:

1. Say goodbye to high expectations.

2. Don't be silent during a conflict, talk about your feelings and emotions.

3. Do not accuse the person without understanding. Think about what made the person say or do what they did.

4. In an unclear situation, do not speculate but ask directly.

5. Always take responsibility for everything that happens in your life and do not blame others.

6. Remember that there are more effective and friendly ways to draw attention to yourself.