Do you ever get caught up in resentment? Many of us do, especially after a major reality slap. We may resent others because they let us down, they treated us badly, they didn’t care about us, they achieved more than us, they’re ‘better off’ than us, or for dozens of other reasons. Resentment is a particularly sticky version of the ‘not good enough’ story; a version heavily infused with anger, righteousness and a strong sense of injustice.
When we get hooked by resentment, it almost always pulls us into self-defeating struggles. In Buddhism they say: ‘Resentment is like grasping a red hot coal in order to throw it at someone else.’ At Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) they say: ‘Resentment is like swallowing poison and hoping the other person dies.’ What these sayings have in common is the idea that when we get hooked by resentment, all we do is hurt ourselves even more than we already are.
Resentment comes from the French word resentir, which means ‘to feel again’. This makes sense: each time resentment hooks us we feel again our hurt, our anger, and our sense of unfairness or injustice. The events that happened are now in the past, but as we dwell on them in the present, we feel again all that pain. And as we stew in our anger and dissatisfaction, all our vitality seeps away.
A somewhat similar story is self-blame, which we can think of as resentment turned on ourselves. Again and again our minds remind us of all the things we did wrong, then we get angry and judge or punish ourselves. We feel again all our pain, regret, angst, disappointment and anxiety. And, of course, this does not alter the past in any way, nor does it enable us to learn and grow from our mistakes. Again, all we achieve is to hurt ourselves more.
So what is the antidote to resentment and self-blame? Forgiveness — but not forgiveness as we commonly think of it. In the ACT model, forgiveness does not mean forgetting. Nor does it mean that what happened was okay, or excusable, or trivial, or unimportant. And nor does it involve saying or doing anything to someone else.
To understand the ACT notion of forgiveness, let’s consider the origin of the word. ‘Forgive’ is derived from two separate words: ‘give’ and ‘before’. So in ACT, forgiveness simply means this: giving yourself back what was there before the ‘bad stuff’ happened. At some point in the past — and it may have been recent, or it may have been a long time ago — something very painful happened. Either you did something that you now blame yourself for, or others did something that you now resent them for. And since that time, your mind has repeatedly pulled you back to those events, getting you to feel all the pain, again and again.
So what was your life like before those events happened? Were you getting on with life and making the most of it? Were you living in the present? Even if your life wasn’t very good before all these events took place, at least you weren’t lost in the choking smog of resentment or self-blame. So how about giving yourself back the clarity and freedom of life without all that smog? You see, in the ACT model, forgiveness has nothing to do with anybody else; it is something you do purely for yourself. It’s giving yourself back what was there before: a life free from the burden of resentment or self-blame.
How do we cultivate this type of forgiveness? You already have all the knowledge and skills you need. When our minds generate stories that tend to feed resentment or self-blame, our first steps are to notice them and name them. We could say to ourselves something like, ‘Here’s my mind beating up on me’ or ‘Here’s a painful memory from the past’ or ‘Here’s my mind judging other people’ or ‘Here’s my mind pulling me into a struggle’. At the same time, we hold ourselves kindly. Whether we believe that we are at fault, or others are at fault, the undeniable fact is we are hurting. So let’s be kind and com -passionate and hold ourselves gently, then make room for our feelings and get present.
We will often need to drop anchor repeatedly. Our mind will carry us off to those old events and we will have to bring ourselves back and get present: to engage and re-engage in the here and now. Then once present, we can act in line with our values and infuse our ongoing action with a sense of purpose. We can then take a stand in the face of this reality gap.
For example, if we genuinely did do something ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or ‘careless’ — and it’s not just the mind being overly critical — then we could now take a stand to make amends. Michael, an alcoholic and Vietnam veteran, told me that in his case this was impossible: he had killed several people in the war and there was no way to make amends for that. Well, it’s hard to argue with that, so I didn’t even try. Instead I said, ‘Beating yourself up and drinking yourself into the grave isn’t going to alter the past. And yes, of course you can’t make amends to the dead; you can’t do anything for the dead. But you can do something in the present that can contribute in meaningful ways to the living. If you waste your life away, then nothing good has come from those horrors of the past. But if you use your life to contribute to others, to make a difference in the world, then something good has come out of those horrors.’
For Michael, this was a revelation. It took him a lot of practice, but eventually he was able to unhook himself from those self-blaming stories and treat himself kindly. And over the space of nine months, he joined an AA group, quit drinking, and started volunteering for two charitable organisations: one for the homeless and the other for refugees. Now this wasn’t easy for him. It took a huge amount of hard work, and he had to make room for enormous amounts of pain. But it paid off handsomely. Although he couldn’t change the past, he found he could make a useful difference in the present — and as he did so, his life became far more fulfilling.
While most of us get entangled in self-blame at times, our stories are probably not as dramatic as Michael’s; after all, most of us have never killed someone! However, that doesn’t make our stories any less of a burden. The key thing is to practise being kind to yourself (even if your mind says you don’t deserve it). It’s often useful to say some kind words to yourself, such as: ‘I’m a fallible human being. Like every other person on the planet, I make mistakes, I screw things up, and I get things wrong. This is part of being human.’ Then place a com -passionate hand upon your body, breathe into the pain, and acknowledge it hurts. And remind yourself that self-punishment achieves nothing useful; vitality lies only in taking a stand. If there is something you can do to make amends, or repair the damage, or turn the situation around, then it makes sense to go ahead and do it. If there’s nothing you can do along those lines (or if you’re not yet willing to do it), then you can invest your energy in building the relationships you have: connecting, caring and contributing. To do this is an act of self-forgiveness.
But what if someone else did the ‘bad stuff’? Well, we could respond in many different ways, depending on the specifics of the situation and the outcomes we are looking for. We might choose to take decisive action to ensure, as best we can, that something like this doesn’t happen again: to take that person to court, or lodge a complaint against them, or cut off all contact with them. Or we might choose to learn new skills that equip us better for dealing with such people in the future; this could include anything from self-defence classes, to assertiveness and communication skills, to attending a course on ‘dealing with difficult people’. Or we might choose simply to ‘put it behind us’ and focus on rebuilding our life, here and now.
Forgiveness, then, consists of these three steps: hold yourself kindly, drop the anchor, and take a stand. And the beautiful thing about it is . . . it’s never too late.