The most important emotion

Pay attention to this potent messenger

me getting grass-stains in central park ~ 📸 @estherscanon

This past Monday was a new moon, and with the themes of it still lingering, my wise astrology friend told me that this one centers all around communication — within our relationships and with ourselves. It’s a time to reflect on how we outwardly express what’s happening internally. Does it feel authentic? Does it feel right? Does it feel true?

For today’s letter, as I was sifting through your thoughtful inquiries for the second segment of Ask Me(g) Anything, surprise surprise, the major theme that popped up centered around communication. More specifically, an emotion related to communication.

Resentment.

IT IS SO IMPORTANT. Here are a few of your inquiries:

“Sometimes I feel like a fake person because I’ll say yes to something, even though I don’t really want to do it, and then I’ll feel resentful toward the other person even though I’m the one who said yes! And then I’m resentful toward myself, haha. It’s a whole cycle.”

“I have this issue and I am sure I am not alone, where I do an action and then later experience the anger or sadness from it. An example: I have a friend ask me something to do for them, at the moment I realise this is not convenient for me and I turn it down, politely (I have worked A LOT on my people pleasing). But later on in the evening or next day, anger bubbles up in me over it. I won’t get into details but this person should not have even considered asking me to do this…”

For those of who have learned to silence our words, suppress our needs, and nod along with what everyone else wants — whether it was learned in childhood or through socialization as an adult surviving in society — resentment is one of the most important emotions to notice. I talk about this at great length in my book and even have a section entitled, RESENTMENT IS SO IMPORTANT, IT GETS ITS OWN SUBHEADING. That’s how serious it is!

Resentment is what happens when our needs have gone unmet, again and again. I think of it as an emotion that builds overtime. Little instances of self-neglect and anger that snowball and fester into resentment. Resentment is what happens when we repeatedly say yes when we want to say no, when the care we’re giving isn’t being reciprocated, when we’re bending over backwards and breaking ourselves in the process, but with a smile on our faces.

There’s a tense secrecy to resentment. Because we’re not allowing those feelings to be expressed outward, they go inward, manifesting as a clenched jaw, shallow breath, fake arguments in our heads, swallowed words.

For many of us, that resentment goes inward because we weren’t modeled how to have hard conversations where our honest emotions could be expressed. We were taught that our needs are too much and that we need to deal with it ourselves. We didn’t witness conflict being handled in a safe, regulated way, so we avoid it all costs. That makes sense.

a snippet from my my book!

And let’s be for real. We can’t always express our resentment. We can’t always have direct conversations, whether because of the social context or because the other person isn’t willing to have it.

And sometimes, we can.

In safe, healthy relationships, the remedy for resentment involves the practice of expressing our needs and our emotions. It involves having the hard conversation knowing that you can survive the temporary discomfort of it. The greatest irony is that in an attempt to “keep the peace” in our relationships, we end up keeping people at a distance because we’re shutting them out from what’s happening internally.

Practicing direct, open and clear communication in our safe relationships allows resentment to breathe, to allow our needs to come to the surface be seen, and have the opportunity to be met. And if they can’t be met, at the very least we have more clarity than we had before.

In communicating the need beneath the resentment, we give the relationship the chance to encounter more closeness, because true emotional intimacy happens when both people can see, really see, each other.

In relationships that are less steady, where there’s resentment but not much room for open dialogue, perhaps the practice isn’t always having the conversation but instead allowing yourself to acknowledge the resentment, and to validate it, even though no one else is. Perhaps the practice is looking at the resentment and saying, you’re allowed to be here. Your needs are not too much, and relating to the emotion in a way that was never modeled for you.

Affirmations

This resentment is allowed to be here. It’s a human emotion.

Having needs doesn’t make me needy.

I am capable of tolerating the discomfort of hard conversations.

It is safe to acknowledge my uncomfortable emotions.

Feeling angry doesn’t make me an angry person.

Journal prompts

Recall a relationship or situation that you feel (or felt) resentful in. What happened?

Is there a need of yours that isn’t being met? What is this resentment telling you?

If you were to express how you feel, what would you say?

Now, what’s possible for you to say/do, given the context/relationship?

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Thank you for being here, exactly as you are. Working with resentment is challenging, and it’s normal for it to bring up agitation and discomfort. The takeaway is: your emotions are allowed to be here, and pushing them away doesn’t actually make them disappear. When we can practice holding them, that’s where the healing happens.

If this newsletter resonated with you, it’s just a sliver of what my book explores. I fiercely believe that everyone deserves access to the information that’s within these pages!

Don’t hesitate to share your reflections on resentment in the comments. Let’s let these feelings OUT. They’ve been stored in our bodies for too long!

Until next time,

♡ Meg