Resentment isn't just a concept.  It is a pathological obsession with events that festers like a rampant infection.  It is born of a personal injury, slight, trauma, or event that we take personally.  As resentment develops into a pathology, it becomes familiar.  That familiarity becomes similar to a stinking, ratty blanket that we've held onto throughout our lifetime.  I knew how I was going to "feel," each day, and that I could always use that resentment to excuse my anger because that person had been cruel, or done something deliberately to harm me.

Recently, I was in session and this subject came up.  Doing the work involves recollecting childhood traumas, and I recounted my experiences with my brother's ex-wife.  She had been cruel, disdainful, dismissive, and treated me with absolute contempt from the day that we were first introduced.  That pattern of treatment continued for 40 years, and I believed that I despised her for her deliberate cruelties.  I held such a deep resentment against her that it was like a cancer, and I was simply not going to let that go because I didn't want to - it was familiar to me.

In the course of my counseling therapy, childhood traumas have been the focus and it finally occurred to me that the ex-in-law had actually been raised in dysfunction just as I had been.  And, her perceptions of me, who I was, and what kind of life I was living were based upon her own traumas.  This was the greatest "Ah....HAH!" moment that I have experienced in my lifetime, I have to type.  At that moment, clarity gave me a terrific "dope-slap" in the back of the head and said, "She would have behaved differently if she had been raised in a nurturing, caring, supportive, and loving environment.  Even if her behaviors were intentional, she was't capable of doing anything else."  Oh, MY!!!

To get to the point, years ago, she sent me a card and note that was her attempt at an apology.  When I received that note, I thought, "How dare she?"  Well, with the understanding of my own childhood and lifetime of traumas shaping faulty beliefs and perceptions, I was finally able to apply this to her after 40 years of infectious resentment.

I took the moment on an impulse and sent her an email telling her that I forgave her for her cruelties and that I finally understood that she had endured abuses and traumas of her own, and I asked for her forgiveness for things that I had said and done during our association.  It was sincere.  It was heartfelt, and it was an incredible relief.  I didn't expect her to respond, and I wrote to her that a response wasn't necessary unless she felt the need to do so.  She did respond - with an understanding and outreach of kinship.  We're both free of our individual resentments, and there are no words within my vocabulary to describe this event.

It is my most fervent hope and wish that I will be able to shed every ounce of resentment, even for the second exspath's horrid betrayals.  One tiny step at a time brings me further down my Healing Path, and each step may seem frightening, but they're just steps.  Like walking on a mountain path, there are rocks, ruts, and obstructions to get to the summit.  I have a choice before me.  I can either stop in my tracks and bemoan the obstacle, or stare it down and meet the challenge.

Today is a very good day for me.  And, I wish for all of those who are experiencing their own personal pain and resentments to find a way to let go and forgive.  Not so much for the person who hurt them, but for their own healing.

Happy Holidays, Peace, and Light to everyone.

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