Episode 011: What is Underneath that Resentment?
Feeling resentful or angry all the time or even some of the time?
Tips on dealing with that resentment in a healthy way.
+ Read the Transcript
About a month ago, Brené Brown came out with her fourth book called Rising Strong. This book is specifically about what happens after you have entered the arena. You have dared greatly, and it hasn't gone so well. And I think that affects many of us where we enter the arena, and something goes wrong, and it doesn't go very well. The book has several strategies, and it's packed full of wisdom.
If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. A piece of the book that got to me was about resentment and boundaries. In the book, Brené tells a story about a time when she failed to set boundaries and felt like she was getting taken advantage of.
The resentment came out at a later spot. Even though she failed to set the boundaries with one person, the resentment came out on another person, and that little piece of wisdom, that little paragraph of a story, really stuck with me. It resonated with me a lot. I think it's common for people who are the people pleasers of the world, who don't want to make anyone feel bad, who don't want to set boundaries, who are just really kind and want to see the best in other people to struggle with this.
What happens is we go along, and we live our lives being kind and generous and over-giving to people, and we lose ourselves. And when we lose ourselves, the first place, it shows up is we start feeling this little level of dissatisfaction and unease, and we start feeling a little questioning is this all there?
Is this could be like a malaise around life and then eventually grows and expands into this resentment that happens to eventually it gets to this full out anger. And I see it a lot in clients. I've seen it in myself where that progression happens. We move from feeling good and happy and over-giving to a place of anger and bitterness and tons of causes for that from childhood issues and control, freakisms, and perfectionism, and people-pleasing..But today, I specifically just want to talk about the power of boundaries and how a lot of times when we're feeling that resentment, it's a chance for us to stop and look and say, okay, where is my life getting a little out of control?
Where do I need to go back and set a boundary and say, okay, enough's enough? I can't give any more here. So that resentment and frustration is a great sign for us to be like Whoa. I have over a given someplace along the line here. I have given too much. And so I need to back up the bus.
A great example of this: let's say you have a friend and you and this friend get together maybe every few weeks. And whenever you get together, it's all about them. And all they do is talk about them. You are taking time away from your busy life to spend time with a friend, and they're just nonstop talking about themselves. And so your resentment builds, and you get outraged, and you come home, and you take it on your spouse, and you start screaming at your spouse about the fact that the kitchen's a mess. When in reality, you're mad at this friend because they're taking advantage of you. You haven't set a healthy boundary around the fact that your time is valuable, and spending all of that time with the friend, when they're just talking about themselves isn't helpful situations like that happen all the time. Or you're at work, and you get called in on a project. You're already overworked and overwhelmed. A co-worker takes one of your ideas as one of their ideas and gets all the credit. And you get home, you yell at your kids, but you're annoyed at this co-worker who didn't give you the proper credit.
So examples like that happened a lot in our lives where we haven't stood up for ourselves, we haven't shown up in the world. We haven't set a boundary and said, Hey, I'm worth this. My work is worth being acknowledged, or my time is worth more than just sitting here at a restaurant that I didn't pick hearing you talk about your ex-boyfriend for the millionth time. We need to get better at standing up for ourselves and setting those boundaries that say, this is what I'm worth. When we start feeling that malaise and that kind of is this all there is. And that level of frustration, sometimes it's important to pay attention and look and be like, okay, where in my life am I just going along mindlessly and not paying attention and not showing up and setting a boundary.
A lot of times, when we are just going along and not showing up. We don't want to speak up for ourselves. And so boundaries are such a rich topic and way longer than my 10-minute podcast. I could do many hours on boundaries because it is a rich and complex subject. That for the people pleasers in the world is very triggering. It's easy to say set a boundary, you speak up for yourself, but the nuance of that is challenging. So today, I'm just going to touch on two pieces around setting boundaries. And so let's take the example of the friend who always speaks just about herself and you like this friend; it's just gotten to this habit where she's in this crappy relationship right now. Now when she's in this cycle of constantly talking about herself and so you want to help her, but also be able to show up yourself. So the two big concepts around boundaries are one is holding the boundary. So just saying it one time isn't going to always work. And the second concept is you aren't responsible for their reaction. So telling your friend, Hey, I love going out with you. I love seeing you once a week, but can we talk about something else this time? Let's do a spouse-free zone. This time, we're just going to talk about work, or we're just going to talk about politics. I don't know, something other than who we are dating right now.
That's a soft, comfortable way of setting a boundary and saying today, let's do it differently. Your friend may plow through that boundary like nobody's business. And so she may jump from politics into something about her ex-boyfriend, and you can lovingly remind her with the holding phase of the boundaries of, Hey today, we're just talking about politics. We're not talking about boyfriends. Let's give that arrest. One of the most challenging conversations I ever had to have was with a friend of mine, and I had to say to her, I can't hear about you. Boyfriend anymore because it just it's ruining our friendship.
I was very point-blank because I had just hit my maximum capacity for that. And I said I love you. And, to keep this relationship going, we need to take a break from talking about this. I may, we may be able to come back to it, but right now, we've just been repeating the same stuff over and over again, and I'm not helping you anymore.
That friend was fortunately very receptive and understood and realized that she was. Beating the subject to death, and we were able to take a break from it. And then we came back, and we talk about our boyfriend all the time now. Once she got over the hump of, okay, I'm just repeating this in cycles. She was able to unhook, and we could come back and be, talking about all kinds of things. In this friendship, the first thing is that you're going to have to hold that boundary and be firm with it. Often, we feel resentment towards something we realize we need to set a boundary, we go and set the boundary, and then they run right over it, and we let them. The boundary never gets set.
First, it's holding the boundary. Then the second piece, as I said, is realizing you can't control their emotional reaction. And this is hard for the people pleasers out there because we want to set the boundary and have them be like, okay, got it. Totally. That's great. No problem. And rarely does that happen now and then it does, like I said, with my friend, but rarely does it happen. And a lot of times, if you say to the friend who talks all the time about her boyfriend, Hey, can we just talk about politics? And she's sure, that sounds great. And then she plows over your boundary, and you bring it back and say, okay, no, we just said, we're going to talk about politics today. She might say, why, what is going on? You hurt my feelings. I'm really upset. She may start to cry because she wants to talk about her boyfriend and continue the same. That's where we need to recognize, they can have their emotions, and I can still have my emotions too. So your friend could be upset. She can be upset about the fact that she wants to talk about her boyfriend. She could be upset about the fact that you're calling her selfish. She can be upset that these meetings aren't going to go the way she wants them to. In the moment, she can have that reaction, and you can have the reaction of, I love you. And I just can't keep doing this. Both reactions are fabulous. Both reactions are fine and wonderful.
When you leave the restaurant, and you go home, She may have a different reaction. So she may be like, she's right. I am stuck on this ex-boyfriend. I can't get past him. I do need to move on. And I don't know what's going on in her life because all I do is talk about this ex-boyfriend. She may have the initial reaction to being upset and then come around to totally understanding.
That's where it's important to recognize your resentment towards this friend is not helping the friendship. The only way to help the friendship is to set the boundary; if you want the friendship to continue without resentment, you have to set a boundary. You have to speak up and tell your friend. Many times, we just coast along and accept the unacceptable because we're afraid that the other person will get upset. Or we're afraid we're going to hurt their feelings, and feelings come and go. We have an initial reaction to a feeling, and then we may move along and grow from that.
So people-pleasers, a lot of times, we assume in our control freakness ways that the other person can never get past it. But if they have a negative emotion, they will never move beyond it. And that's not always the case. That's right. We move and grow, and we can change all the time. We need people around us that lovingly push us along.
That is my brief lesson. As I said, I could talk about this for a very long time about resentment and boundaries. I think paying attention to when resentment shows up in your life. Checking in to see, okay, do I need to set a boundary here? And then when you go to set the boundary, recognizing that you probably are going to have to hold it and set it repeatedly. Then to recognize that the other person is allowed to have a reaction that's unpleasant around you, setting a boundary and you are allowed to have the opposite reaction. That's okay. There is room for growth.
+ Weekly Ritual Challenge
One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.
This week's ritual: Taking a Vacation from Electronics.
Pick one evening and just go on an electronics vacation, put your phone down, turn off your computer, put away the iPad. Just be present without your electronics for one evening. If that's too easy, try it for one day of your weekend or one day when you're off work.
I don't want to get you in trouble with work, but I want you to see life without constant electronics. I am amazed at my own life, how addicted I am to my phone, and how ever-present it is in my life. When I get anxious, the first thing I reach for is my phone. So it's a great ritual challenge.