Comments on: Esther Lederer: “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.”

By: Hurt needs healing

Hurt needs healing — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:06:48 +0000

I let someone into my life some years ago. He seemed vulnerable and lacked self-esteem. I gave him confidence now he’s a high flyer. We have hurt each other without knowing sometimes and at others it has become cruel manipulation. The damage we have done is immeasureable and we fight and make up and always I have to compromise. And we can’t let each other go. He will never tell me he loves me and I need to hear it because i tell him often. Though he isn’t worthy at times. I am chained to someone I cannot reach. He lives in my head, heart and occupies my thoughts and takes up too much space. There are times he shows he cares and times he shows nothing. He is cold and immersed. I feel i’m drowning with him at times but is never here to pick the pieces as I’m left alone feeling mentally tortured wondering where he is and who he is with when we are apart. I need to break the cycle. Friends tell me I am a good person and worry about me. And i worry about me. I make excuses for him hoping one day he will say the words I want to hear but the only changes in his life he is making seem to be for him. He sometimes tells i’m part of his plans for the future but maybe i’m just a crutch to help get him where he wants to be?. Again these are all unanswered questions i never have answers to. More space occupied in my head. I’m not living i’m “on hold”. I need to pluck the courage to leave but that’s the hard part.

By: Bodhipaksa

Bodhipaksa — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 18:58:55 +0000

You wrote: “There are some people that you should forgive and others that you need to avoid.” But forgiving people doesn’t imply that you start hanging out with them! It just means that you stop obsessing about the hurt they caused you and then get on with your life. Forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily have any effect on them, and if getting involved with them in the past was a mistake then getting involved with them in the future is probably also a mistake. So, yes, do avoid people who are very harmful.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:45:49 +0000

Resentment is a toxin that can kill you over time. Sadly there are some really evil people in this world that take pleasure in hurting other people. In my case I have a sister who is an attorney that is a true sadist and receives death threats from many people. She is incredibly viscious and puts me in a terrible mood becuase she knows exactly how to create the greatest amount of pain with her super toxic workds. She has a gift of pain! I have made a choice to walk away from this person and let her do her damage to others. There are some people that you should forgive and others that you need to avoid. Forgiving a sadist is good for your mind but the evil person will still be a sadist. You have to get the anger out of your heart and soul and find a way to be happy. Evil does exist and it is toxic. Stay away from it and try not to let it enter your heart and mind. Go to church and ask God for help and know that there are good people in this world and spend your time with them. Nice people do not want to hurt others and there are lots of nice people in this world.

By: 4 New Year’s resolutions you should make | The 36-Hour Day | Work It, Mom!

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:39:49 +0000

[...] Let go of resentment. Esther Lederer — better known as Ann Landers — once wrote: “Hanging on to resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free [...]

By: can relate

can relate — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:40:48 +0000

I chanced upon this article and read it because it is so relevant to me and perhaps I needed to see it…whatever. I am responding to “in pain” His ability, or method…or inability to deal with the situation the way you would like to see him deal with it will not happen. And it is no reflection on you. And I can guarantee that no amount of your time and energy will change the way he deals with this…and you cannot “own” how he feels or reacts. Trust me…I am someone who has tried in what sounds like a similar situation. It was like my (ex) became a reptile….attack and defend were all he seemed to know when he was hurting. Can’t change brain stem stuff. Good luck.

By: Sunada

Sunada — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:12:46 +0000

Dear InPain,
The pain of your dilemma is coming through loud and clear! You’re describing a situation that’s obviously very complicated, and far beyond the scope of one brief exchange in a public forum like this. But let me offer you a few thoughts.

I think the first thing I’d suggest is that you really ask yourself what YOU want. And I mean what you want for yourself, independent of him. By this I’m not implying that you should break up and go off on your own (unless that’s what you want, of course).

My point is that we can’t control what other people do or think, and much less depend on them for our happiness. So the more you’re clear about what YOU want (whether or not he’s in the picture), the better prepared you’ll feel about navigating through the rough waters of this relationship. And by clarity, the key question isn’t whether or not you stay together. It’s about that wound — what’s the need underneath the painful feelings that are compelling you to speak with such an emotional charge? Strong feelings like that don’t come up in a vacuum. They’re there for a reason, and a perfectly legitimate one at that. So what is that need, and how can you meet it?

It’s only when we can be completely clear and honest with ourselves that we can then be clear and honest with another person. We can’t do the latter until we’ve done our homework on the former.

Do you think it would help to have someone work through this with you? As a Buddhist life coach, I work with people like yourself to find what they really need to feel fulfilled in the midst of difficulties like this. You can learn more about my services at http://www.mindfulpurpose.com. Please contact me if this is of interest.

Best wishes,
Sunada
http://www.mindfulpurpose.com

By: InPain

InPain — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:36:21 +0000

This expresses my conundrum perfectly. My relationship of 6 years is falling apart, and I feel paralyzed by my resentment, not to mention, fear of honest. I want so much to reach out and open up to my partner, because it seems like it would be a tragedy to have this relationship die because we were both too scared and too wounded to pull ourselves out of our respective trenches to really give love and trust a shot. But, basically since the beginning, since we touched on each other’s sensitivity, abandonment issues, anger, possesiveness, and hostility, we’ve been sitting in separate home-theaters, watching and re-watching these self-directed home videos. We sit, respectively, convincing ourselves that we are the more wounded one – we are the victim, we are helpless. It doesn’t help that we literally spend most of our time together watching TV, since we don’t even know how to talk to each other anymore.

It all feels like a terrible Catch-22.

This is a wonderful article – but tell me, how can I, in my wounded state, really reach out and tell him that I want to try, when I can’t even trust that I want to?

And, what do you do when you fear that your partner has no desire for self-transformation? When you fear that he really sees himself as a victim, with no power? When you fear that he would rather blame you for the rest of his life than admit to you how much he just hurts? When he is so afraid of the pain, he lashes out at you when you try and open these issues?

By: Bodhipaksa

Bodhipaksa — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:23:31 +0000

Hi Gabriella,

I’m glad to hear that you found the article helpful. I just wanted to say something about your comment about the sense of relief you felt upon reading the article. It is wonderful when we come across information that’s helpful and we can feel instantly much happier because finally we have a better idea of what’s been going on with us. Finally we have a sense of why (at least in part) life is unsatisfactory. But a diagnosis is not the same as a cure, so the sense of relief and perhaps also faith confidence that we experience isn’t going to last unless we take the next step and start on the cure. The cure for our emotional woes can include many things of course, but I always come back to lovingkindness and mindfulness as the main ingredients. I’d strongly suggest that you take up meditation in order to help you develop more awareness of your mental processes and to help you develop the habit of positive emotion that gives rise to more helpful thought patterns.

Good luck with your practice!

By: Gabriella

Gabriella — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 03:31:55 +0000

Thank you so much for this article. It comes at exactly the right time for me. I spend so much of my life replaying the anger and past hurts that I am actively seeking relief. My life has been on hold “healing” from the past, but there is this bitterness left that I can not seem to get rid of no matter how much I tried to understand it, analyze it. I need to embrace my pain, envelope empathy, practice loving kindness towards myself. It is not “out there”. My self is crying out for compassion! I physically felt relief the moment that I read the article. The other comments were lovely to read. I am not the only person on this journey. Thank you.

By: John

John — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:58:21 +0000

Thank you for this inspiring and mindful article. I’m just trying to deal with rejection from someone I had very strong feelings for and I keep playing it over in my head. It’s fitting that I turned to the metta meditation and acceptance meditation to allow myself to breath and to feel pain. Meanwhile the Other is walking down someone else’s street and while I want to be generous with my metta, I need a bit more back for myself right now. And it’s hard to remember it’s a forward journey when I keep playing back the tapes. If I may, I’d like to recommend the Annie Lennox lp ‘!Bare’ to your readers. It’s a very moving journey through rejection, acceptance, hope and rebirth.