Daily Question, November 20 What would letting go of anger or resentments change? 32 Reflections Share Click here to cancel reply.Please log in or Create a Profile to post a comment. neocitybi1 year agoneocitybiThey would change everything. they would take stress off of your chest, and they would also make your life a lot easier 1 Reply Antoinette1 year agoAntoinetteEverything! Anger and resentment are the true enemy. Uprooting anger by the roots would be a completely liberating life! Anger is the true enemy. 1 Reply Malag1 year agoMalagBoth emotions have their value, showing a perceived barrier crossed. If I can see the barrier I may leave it there, move it or remove it. Noticing gives me choice. Allowing the emotion to go through and do its thing also lets it go on its way. That makes my vision clearer to examine the barrier. My practice on this is a work in progress; I expect so for the rest of my days. 2 Reply Hilary Oleta1 year agoHilary OletaIt is amazing to me how somethings are easy for me to accept and let go and others are so hard. My 4 month old daughter died and many people asked me why I seemed to accept it so easily. I accepted it because there werenʻt any other options that I knew. It wasnʻt anyoneʻs fault to blame. Due to her genetics, it happened and we all did the best we could to give her the best life we could. Other things in life have been harder for me to let go. When I have been hurt by other people in a m...It is amazing to me how somethings are easy for me to accept and let go and others are so hard. My 4 month old daughter died and many people asked me why I seemed to accept it so easily. I accepted it because there werenʻt any other options that I knew. It wasnʻt anyoneʻs fault to blame. Due to her genetics, it happened and we all did the best we could to give her the best life we could. Other things in life have been harder for me to let go. When I have been hurt by other people in a malicious way I have a very hard time letting go. My anger and resentment comes from them having a choice and they chose to hurt me or someone else. I have a hard time forgiving those actions. I have listened to the art of forgiveness and I know that it is better for my own well being if I forgive and move on. I am needing to gain more practice in letting go. Breathe. Read More5 Reply TR1 year agoTRMy dear brother sent me an email because he knows my shadow side is anger. It isn’t deep or philosophical but it gets me through some rough patches. ” Sometimes, the first step toward forgiveness is realizing that the other person was born an idiot.” Hope this helps! 1 Reply Jim1 year agoJimThank you for sharing. Sometimes people confuse forgiveness with forgetting. They are very different. Some of my greatest life lessons have come from those very painful experiences you described. Forgiveness does not mean we open ourselves up to be hurt in the same way but allows us to move on and be the wiser. Be well. 3 Reply Michele1 year agoMicheleMy sympathies to you on the loss of your beloved daughter. 1 Reply Jim1 year agoJimLetting go is one of the hardest lessons one can ever learn. It is something that may take many years. It make take a great deal of reflection or counseling or both. What ever it takes it is worth it. Letting go is a source of freedom. The hard part is that letting go is not natural. We want retribution, we want to believe that life is fair, we want to believe that good will overcome evil. This is one of those truly difficult conflicts that we each much confront in some way in our own lives. Let...Letting go is one of the hardest lessons one can ever learn. It is something that may take many years. It make take a great deal of reflection or counseling or both. What ever it takes it is worth it. Letting go is a source of freedom. The hard part is that letting go is not natural. We want retribution, we want to believe that life is fair, we want to believe that good will overcome evil. This is one of those truly difficult conflicts that we each much confront in some way in our own lives. Letting go is one of the most powerful act one can take. Through out life we are all injured or damaged either by the acts of other, acts of God or by self. Act by others may be abuse or rape. Acts of God may be any number of tragedies from natural disasters to a fluke accident. Acts by self may be the injury you created when you were driving drunk and hit a tree and the accident left you impaired. The reality is that holding on to the pain. and anger that these actions promote only keeps your wounds open. it allows them to fester. It is like a cancer that eats into your soul. You may have been abused by someone either physically or mentally. That was not your fault. How you choose to handle it ultimately becomes your responsibility. Each time you replay the insult is now something you are doing to yourself. The only way to free your soul is to “let it go”. Sometimes time heals, sometimes we need help. What ever you do seek to let it go. “Letting go is a source of power” There are hundreds of example of people letting go of great personal tragedies and moving forward with their lives. From Rhuwanda to Amish/Quaker (?) community in a small town in Pennsylvania. Learning from these tragedies and moving forward can also create great power. I have had more than one student who took their anger and pain and turned it into something positive. It all boils down to our choices and willingness to move forward. It is never easy. I could write a great deal more but I think I have said more than enough. Thank you for your patience. Be well and take care. Read More3 Reply Dusty Su1 year agoDusty SuI'd say anger and resentment can be great or terrible storytellers. Great in that if paid attention to you can explore traumas, pain, mistreatment, and then address issues, work through them, achieve healing, resolve, and tools to move on. Bad in that if you live them out again and again without reframing and owning them. You stay in a very unproductive victim passenger seat. Time to take the wheel, own the story, possibly use anger as an impetus to change, and also transform resentment into ...I’d say anger and resentment can be great or terrible storytellers. Great in that if paid attention to you can explore traumas, pain, mistreatment, and then address issues, work through them, achieve healing, resolve, and tools to move on. Bad in that if you live them out again and again without reframing and owning them. You stay in a very unproductive victim passenger seat. Time to take the wheel, own the story, possibly use anger as an impetus to change, and also transform resentment into self-compassion and compassion for others. Read More6 Reply Don Jones1 year agoDon JonesCarrying anger and resentment around is like walking around with chewing gum on the sole of your shoe. You just know nothing good is going to come from it. 6 Reply Dusty Su1 year agoDusty SuYep, and you make a mess everywhere you go. Love it… 4 Reply Linda1 year agoLindaI find it easier to let go of anger when the person who hurt me apologizes. It is hard to shake the ongoing resentment of someone who knows they hurt me and yet chooses not to apologize. I can’t change their behavior, but I also have to accept that my feelings towards them will never be the same. It makes me very sad. 4 Reply Michele1 year agoMicheleI relate to your response. Thank you:) 1 Reply Zenith1 year agoZenithEverything. There would be peace. Not only personal peace, but relational peace. But here on Earth peace will not happen. Humans are far too fickle and stubborn to stop hurting each other. Our very humanity demands the need for a savior. 4 Reply DeVonna1 year agoDeVonnaWow, such a powerful question… I have struggled my entire adult life with letting go of the resentment I feel toward the people who raised me. I have learned that there is an incredible freedom in “letting go”. I can’t change my past, I can’t control what other people did to me, I can’t change how I instinctively view the world, BUT I can choose to forgive. That is the first step toward regaining control of my life experiences. 11 Reply pkr1 year agopkrBeautiful response. Bless You. 🙏 5 Reply Patricia1 year agoPatriciaIt always helps the state of my own spirit and soul. When I let those resentments go, they don’t define my life any longer. That’s not to say that they are always completely gone – they rear their resentful heads now and again. So I breathe and let them pass and go on with my life. 6 Reply Javier Visionquest1 year agoJavier VisionquestRelinquishing anger is presently the focus of my life, to purge an entrenched generational venom. What we heal in ourselves is what we heal for our ancestors and, more importantly, frees our children and their children from corrosive thought forms that degrade health and destroy relationships. Godspeed! 6 Reply Journey1 year agoJourneyI needed this question today as I’m struggling to forgive some family members for being mean to me. Their meanness was petty and did not cause me and my family any harm but it was very hurtful. I realize I’m being even more petty by holding onto these grudges. I don’t show it at all to them but I feel it every day. I’ve been trying hard to ‘let it go’ without success. 5 Reply Michele1 year agoMichelefeelings need to be validated. you will let it go. give it time. virtual hug to you:) 1 Reply Trish1 year agoTrishI feel so light & nimble after a healthy purging of anger. It’s freeing & allows me to embrace all the positive little elements always within my reach. If everyone was able to let go, our entire world would change. 5 Reply devy1 year agodevyLetting go of anger brings peace to oneself. It wasn’t until after a year from my fathers death that I have come to peace with myself. He was an away dad who left an alcoholic mother alone to look after his kids. He never tried to show support for his wife and try to help. As for his kids he was very regimented, hardly showed affection, was demeaning at times and never gave praise. I understand now that my mother and father both had their problems when growing up. My father was a military man ...Letting go of anger brings peace to oneself. It wasn’t until after a year from my fathers death that I have come to peace with myself. He was an away dad who left an alcoholic mother alone to look after his kids. He never tried to show support for his wife and try to help. As for his kids he was very regimented, hardly showed affection, was demeaning at times and never gave praise. I understand now that my mother and father both had their problems when growing up. My father was a military man and I am positive that PTSD compounded his behaviour. My parents behaviour affected me, but I am on the path to not let it define who I am. I feel more compassion for my parents now that I understand the whole picture about them. Read More8 Reply kimthompsen1 year agokimthompsenIn short, letting go of anger & resentment changes ME. I grew up having an alcoholic mother, so I was ripe with anger & resentment. As I worked some steps to get through all of that, anger, resentment and a whole host of other feelings faded away. In their stead, compassion and understanding rise to the top. As a result of that work, I came to have a good relationship with my mother in the years before she died. My mother didn't change; for all but the last 3 years of her l...In short, letting go of anger & resentment changes ME. I grew up having an alcoholic mother, so I was ripe with anger & resentment. As I worked some steps to get through all of that, anger, resentment and a whole host of other feelings faded away. In their stead, compassion and understanding rise to the top. As a result of that work, I came to have a good relationship with my mother in the years before she died. My mother didn’t change; for all but the last 3 years of her life she drank. I was the one who changed. I held her hand as she passed from this life to the next. Read More9 Reply devy1 year agodevyI can totally relate to your situation. Living in an alcoholic home affects those who live with it. Praying that you will continue on your journey in peace and contentment.. 3 Reply sunnypatti1 year agosunnypattiAnger & resentment keep us from experiencing peace of mind and happiness. While I don’t feel like I’m holding on to any anger or resentment, I know there’s some tucked away as I have thoughts sometimes that surprise me. Practicing metta and allowing those thoughts to be real and then releasing them always brings me back to a centered state, and that not only offers peace, but growth. Onward! 5 Reply Gregoire1 year agoGregoireI heard an anonymous quote ones summer priest during the homily, harboring anger and resentment is like you drinking the poison and expecting the other person to die. I have done my best to live that quote all of my life. The sooner we forgive , the sooner we return our own state of joy 8 Reply Kevin1 year agoKevinLetting go of anger and resentments would change everything! Knowing the answer to today’s question is easy. Living that answer, where resentments and anger are forbidden to take root, is the work of our lives. 7 Reply EJP1 year agoEJPLetting go would open our heart and soul to true gratefulness and endless possibilities. 4 Reply 1 2 Next » My Private Gratitude Journal Write an entry in your private gratefulness journal Get Started This site is brought to you by A Network for Grateful Living, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. All donations are fully tax deductible in the U.S.A. DONATE https://gratefulness.org/content/uploads/2015/03/GX-Gold-Participant-L.png Community Engagement Guidelines Privacy Policy [email protected] Connect with us on Social Media: © 2000 - 2022, A Network for Grateful Living Website by Briteweb