3 Strategies to Stop Harboring Resentment

It’s common to harbor anger and resentment at others in your life, especially your partner. The problem with this is that anger eventually leaks out, and creates other problems. For example, we can become passive-aggressive towards our partner or loved ones, through sarcastic remarks, actions that might be perceived as aggressive, or saying or doing other things out of spite or unconscious desire to hurt or offend. Instead of doing these things, and harming your relationships, let’s consider 4 strategies to help you better communicate yourself clearly and effectively.

Realize that you’re angry or frustrated, and name it for yourself

Many times, we don’t even know that we’re holding onto anger, frustration or resentment at all. Just identifying those things is quite relieving, and putting a name to it helps us identify those feelings to ourselves when they might be out of view for us most of the time. You may not see it for yourself, but others can, or they can feel it from you even if they’re not fully aware of the extent of it. This may be a “blind spot” for you, so really spend some time with yourself considering what resentment or anger you might be harboring. Write it down, or start to help yourself get in touch with it better.

Communicate your resentment instead of harboring it

When we harbor resentment or anger, it only eats away at us inside. It also deteriorates our relationships with friends, family, children and relationship partners. Identify the barriers to communicating your anger or resentment that you’re holding. Ask yourself questions like these: Who am I angry at, and why? What might be preventing me from saying what I need to say to get this off of my chest? Am I afraid of conflict, or afraid of my own anger? What are the best times and opportunities to communicate my feelings to the people that need to hear them?

Identifying the barriers to communication and anger expression are very important. Many times, we know we’re holding onto resentment or anger, yet we choose to not do anything about it at all. Why? For many people, the prospect of conflict is of putting. They’d rather stuff it and harbor it themselves than risk getting into conflict with others.

The irony is that conflict does ensue, typically because that passive-aggressive behavior comes out in other ways, usually causing more damage and destruction than would clear, direct and proper communication of anger and resentment to those that need to hear from you.

Many people think that with the prospect of conflict, that the relationship will end, and they’ll lose the person and that relationship. That might happen, but it might not. You need to be mindful of your fantasies and assumptions, because if you do risk communicating your resentment instead of stuffing it, you might be surprised that the receiver can try well hear you and that the conversation would open up instead of shut down.

Speak your needs and feelings, and don’t attack or criticize the other person when you are communicating your harbored resentment or anger. Talk about the situations that you hold onto that carry your anger or resentment, and be clear about them. Talk about your own experience, rather than focusing the conversation on the wrongs of the other person. This will help the other person be less defensive and more likely to hear you without shutting down or attacking you back.

Don’t get into self-destructive behaviors

Harboring resentment or anger, we can quickly get into self-destructive behaviors, such as negative self-talk, beating up on ourselves, alcohol or marijuana abuse, or other damaging behaviors to ourselves. We may not take risks and put ourselves in situations that we should get into, because we’re limiting ourselves rather than allowing ourselves to move forward with our lives.

Resentment, depression and childhood experiences

We might fall into depression, as depression can be an inverted form of anger turned against ourselves. Learning proper anger or resentment expression, it’s possible to free ourselves up of lingering or repressed feelings that have morphed into depression or anxiety.

This can be tricky, because in therapy, those resentments and anger may have been lingering for years. Working with a trained and professional mental health counselor, you can dig up those deeply harbored resentments, even if they date back to childhood. Many times, this is the inner “onion layer” of our experience, which underlies other resentments that we have with the people and situations in our lives now. Getting in touch with, and working through, those deeply harbored resentments allows us to free ourselves up to happiness and clarity, rather than continuing to be weighed down by them.

We can help you if you’re harboring anger and want to relieve yourself of it. To find out more about our anger management services, click here: anger management.