- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Sam posted the following from Nelson Mandela, and I thought it would be good to start a thread about it. It’s a tough, tough, tough concept to live, but it’s worth discussing: Quote:Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.
It’s perfectly true. There are, unfortunately, times when we must stand up and fight, but resentment in itself is often just a cancer within us. Not only does it stop us winning these battles, it stops a resolution after they’re finished. How many times have we heard of great friends/relatives not speaking for years?
Often it is the pettiest thing, and we don’t resolve it quick enough.
Yes – I agree. It’s an area I need to work on. I resent far too easily. I was thinking today of Job’s lessons and comparing them to my faith crisis. As a once very traditional practicing member, who had a sincere heart – I have found this faith crisis/transition very unfair. I really wasn’t a discord creator, I wasn’t a kick against the pricks, or challenge person. My obedience and effort were from a huge hope and trust that I was participating in a plan that had an authentic outcome. I felt horribly betrayed, broadsided, and robbed. Though I was by no means perfect – I feel like a Job.
Here I am sincerely trying to be good, for a good cause – and then this. Like Job – it affected my entire life, my families life, our livelihoods, our harmony, everything. Why me?
I still don’t have an answer, I have ideas that carry me along, hopes that are deeper than the hope I previously had, and agony like I never imagined. Like Job – I pray no judgement comes upon my mother for my failure, etc.
As I proceed with the Job analogy – I see many parallels in life. Friends who assume I have sinned and pray I repent before God. People who say, “We could see it coming. We’re not surprised.” Family that feels all is lost. It would be better if I laid down and died – etc.
I have prayed more than I ever have before, and I was a good prayer before, today though, every time I pray I hear the words, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The book of Job ends with a similar adjunct. For the lessons Job learned to be complete, he must forgive his friends and any other’s he resents. Maybe, just maybe, this entire faith transition has nothing to do with religious doctrines or practices – Maybe it is all a spring board to help me have a less resentful and unforgiving heart.
Sam – Thanks for the quote.
Resentment is a vice of mine, one I struggle with mightily. I really don’t know how to overcome it. Ideas/advice from my friends here will be appreciated. Quote:I have found this faith crisis/transition very unfair. I really wasn’t a discord creator, I wasn’t a kick against the pricks, or challenge person. My obedience and effort were from a huge hope and trust that I was participating in a plan that had an authentic outcome. I felt horribly betrayed, broadsided, and robbed.
It is so amazing to see how many of us have the same feelings. It seems to me that the more sincere and trusting we are, the harder that makes all of this. I hope that there is a reason out there somewhere, that it is a stepping stone to more growth, because for now it just feels bad to me. And this is just with my husband and I in the loop, with no one else really knowing how we are feeling. There are just so many sides to this faith crisis, and I certainly do have some resentments.
Thanks for the quote. I will try to remember that and try to leave the resentment behind.
I have heard resentment as a refeeling of negative emotion. Sometimes things happen and they hurt us. We might rehearse the story to our selves to keep us justified in our negative feelings. The negative emotion handicaps us from being able to act from a position of our “highest selves” in the future. I struggle with it too…but conceptually, I can understand how I would be a more effective and charitable person if I could let it go.
Harmony wrote:Quote:I have found this faith crisis/transition very unfair. I really wasn’t a discord creator, I wasn’t a kick against the pricks, or challenge person. My obedience and effort were from a huge hope and trust that I was participating in a plan that had an authentic outcome. I felt horribly betrayed, broadsided, and robbed.
It is so amazing to see how many of us have the same feelings. It seems to me that the more sincere and trusting we are, the harder that makes all of this. I hope that there is a reason out there somewhere, that it is a stepping stone to more growth, because for now it just feels bad to me. And this is just with my husband and I in the loop, with no one else really knowing how we are feeling. There are just so many sides to this faith crisis, and I certainly do have some resentments.
Thanks for the quote. I will try to remember that and try to leave the resentment behind.
I agree with both your sentiments Mom3 and Harmony. I have several resentments, I have resentment toward the church (however it can be described), and toward some members of the church, and toward God himself, and toward others who I don’t even know and who don’t know me. I’m pretty pathetic.
DJ – You are not pathetic. I used to work with AA patients in a 12 step program. Everyone of them felt pathetic, but over time, as they learned to be candid with their feelings or truths -they found power and strength to let go. It’s a weird concept, but the act of frankly stating what you feel can be a catalyst for letting it go. Maybe you should make a list of the resentments – then begin addressing them one by one. Mandela used Invictus as his inspiration poem, AA recoverers use the Serenity Prayer, others practice the Buddhist meditation of Loving/Kindness. Expose the hurts, then fill the void with positive power, you are not pathetic. The God I believe in made nothing pathetic, especially a person. I’m sending a hug.
I struggle with it too. It’s thought control, it;s learning to feast on wholesome thoughts rather than negative ones. Negative thoughts provide their own kind of payoff, – like candy — but like candy are not healthy over the long term. Positive thoughts also have a payoff, but I find it takes a lot of discipline to find such thoughts. I have been intimate with a theory of personality by Gallup — and one trait some people have is positivity. Their minds reject prolonged negative thinking. They withdraw from me if I dwell too much on things that are negative, or give to many negative statements in a row.
I think we could all learn from them….
This is a personal plea, from a personal experience. Please understand and read it as such. I was commenting in a Facebook thread yesterday, before posting this quote, about the “Race and the Priesthood” explanation, and there was one person who was over-the-freaking-top with every comment simply oozing resentment and bitterness. It was so bad that he was saying objectively inaccurate things and throwing out insults left and right at everyone who expressed anything except the most hyperbolic criticism of anything related to the LDS Church.
I finally sent a private message to the person who had started the thread and told him I had to step away. I found myself getting to the point where I snapped just briefly at my wife – and that doesn’t happen. It shook me – hard.
I know he was an extreme example, but, still, I re-learned something I have know for a while – and it reinforced the point of the quote. It was the primary motivation to start this thread. Resentment isn’t just poisonous to the person who lives in it; it also poisons people who associate with the person, depending on their immune systems and the dosage to which they are exposed.
Please, if you find yourself swimming in a sea of resentment, don’t excuse it – and don’t spend energy blaming others (even if that would be legitimate). Don’t keep drinking that poison. Recognize it and work to get back to dry land, which you want to do or you wouldn’t be here. It might not be the exact same land from which you launched, but at least it will be dry land. You can work on getting to whatever land will make being you peace and joy at that point; first, please, get out of the sea.
If Nelson Mandela could do it after what he experienced, and if we are asked to be more Christ-like, I think we can try to do it in our own lives.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.