I have noticed a lull in communication and internal entrapment with a side order of resentment coming up a lot for people lately. It’s easy to feel this way, especially when you’re feeling trapped, not only in your mind but in your physical space – particularly here in Philly with the snow that kept us curled up in doors. So how can you release feelings of resentment and entrapment in your body and free yourself?
The other day I messed up what I was trying to say and ended up creating a new word: ‘gladitude’. The word made perfect sense to me at the time and hit home quite a bit, particularly around the theme of letting go of resentment. If you’re able to take a look and see all the things in your life that you’re grateful for and be glad that they are there, your mental walls will automatically be expanded and the resentment will loosen its grip on you.
A client of mine shared that she was feeling very defensive every time someone talked to her about her profession. What people were expressing to her was that she is lucky to be in the profession that she is in, especially only having to go in to work 3 days week. Her responsive was a frustrated outburst that she works 10 hour days and works 7 days a week, even if she is not going into work every day she is working ALL THE TIME. Her response was from a place of defensiveness. She holds this belief that she ‘should’ be getting more work done. For her, that belief that she should be getting more work done was like a thorn in her finger. Every day she plays with the thorn thinking that she should be working rather than watching Netflix for example. By now, playing with this thorn every day, it is bound to be infected. So when somebody else ‘insinuates’ that she is not doing enough work, it feels like somebody is squeezing and irritating the thorn. Even if the other person didn’t mean anything by their comment, she got upset because she had been irritated by this thorn for years. Then somebody else just came along and irritated the wound even more. Why didn’t she just take the thorn out?
The thorn represents a belief about yourself. When you become conscious of this belief (usually limiting), you can pluck the thorn out and shift this belief about yourself. Thanking the thorn for the time it served and saying ‘I am done with you’ and getting to a place of ‘gladitude’ can be liberating. In a space of ‘glatitude’ my client might respond that her job is great and she is happy to work from home and watch Netflix once in a while. Coming from this space of excitement and ‘gladitude’ is a thornless way of being.
What I did with my client is that every time a thought came up where she was tempted to play with the thorn instead of picking it out, she would change her ‘I should statement to ‘I would like to…’ statement. For example, rather than saying ‘I should be doing more…’, ‘I should be going to a networking event or working out more’, change it up to – ‘I would like to do more’, I would like to go to a networking event or work out more’. Try it! You will feel lighter because saying ‘I would like to… [Fill in the blank] takes a whole lot of pressure off of you and gives you space to feel ‘gladitude’, releasing the cloud of resentment or irritation.
Have you caught the resentment bug recently? If you feel defensive and uncomfortable more times than not, it's time to book a complimentary session with me. During the session, we'll talk about where you're at, where you're going and what's getting in your way (those darn thorns).