Month: February 2021

How to master the emotion of Resentment

When you perceive  that you have been mistreated, slighted, wronged, or victimized and taken advantage of by someone and you were not in a position to do anything about it (emphasis added), the emotion you experience is resentment.

To put it another way, resentment involves the perception that someone has taken advantage of, or victimized, you because they have an “asset” such as power, position, or influence that you do not have.

This is the message of the emotion of resentment.

By contrast, if you were focusing only on the issue that someone has wronged or victimized you without the element of some unfair advantage, this action on their part would represent a threat and the emotion you would be feeling is anger.

I will address anger specifically below.

Resentment can be accompanied by other emotions including frustration, hostility, bitterness, other “hard feelings” and, of course, anger.

The downside of resentment is that your self-esteem, self-worth or value can be diminished if you put yourself down relative to the other person.

On the upside, however, short-term resentment can bolster self- esteem by allowing you to blame others for what may be your issues.

“Blaming others” is not, however, using your emotions either adaptively or strategically.

Adaptively and strategically deploying your emotions is the approach advocated by the Emotions as Tools Model which focuses on mastering one’s emotions in order to improve your life and your relationships.

Let’s unpack this approach from an Emotions as Tools perspective:

How do you master resentment?

In order to answer this question, I need to revisit the emotions cycle.

Remember that you constantly scan your surroundings for any “threat”.

When a threat is perceived, the amygdala in your brain reacts, generates an alert which triggers the sensation of an emotion and prepares your body to take action consistent with the emotion and the perceived threat.

This reaction happens unconsciously and is what you are referring to when you say “I resent (whatever is your target)”

At the same time as this reactive message goes out, a signal is sent to the cerebral cortex which is the thinking part of your brain.

Emotional mastery engages the cerebral cortex to assess the situation and choose how you want to respond to what is happening.

Remember the message of resentment.

When you resent another person, you have perceived them as hurting you by utilizing an advantage that they have over you.

Thus, there are two parts to this interaction.  One is the wrong that may have been done to you and the second is the use of an unfair advantage.

From this perspective, you need to question your perception which elicited the emotion.

And, so that you can do this as objectively as possible, you need to take a psychological step back from the situation to create some “space” between you and the other person. This is not easy and you may have to get some help to do it. But, it is doable.

Mastering an emotion involves…

  1.  Accepting that no-one causes you to feel anything.  You create what you feel by how you perceive what is happening to you.
  2. Questioning the message of the emotion in terms of the extent to which it informs you about…
  • what is actually happening in your situation
  • what actions, if any, are needed to bring about adaptive changes in your situation and
  • the energy you have access to in order to facilitate taking those actions.

Let’s apply this to the emotion of resentment…

An important element in the Emotions as Tools Model is the awareness that, while you may or may not have been victimized, wronged or taken advantage of, you are not “powerless” and may have options available to you to deal with the situation you are in.

Here are the questions you need to ask and get answers to:

  • What is actually happening in your situation?
  • What did the other person actually do?
  • To what extent was I wronged, slighted, insulted or denied my “fair share”?
  • To what extent did the other person take advantage of me? If they took advantage of me,  what was involved (position, power, gender, my situation)?
  • Was I actually “wronged” or is there some other explanation for what they did including a possible misunderstanding (by you or the other person),  poor communication skills, inadequate social skills, etc.

If there was no “wrong”, you may only need to clear up any misunderstanding.

If there was a “wrong”, then you need to ask and answer several additional questions:

  • Given that there was a “wrong” which led to my being “taken advantage of”, what are my options for “making the situation right” ?
  • What options do I have available to me which won’t put me at greater risk including office policy and power differentials between me and the other person? (This acknowledges the “advantage” the other person may have.)
  • Can I approach this situation directly or do I need to take a more indirect approach?

If there was, indeed, a “wrong” then you will need to engage the emotion of anger and you will need to “forgive” the other person.

WhileI have addressed both anger and forgiveness in other posts, let me give a quick overview…..

Anger is a primary emotion which serves as a primitive threat detector.  Anger subconsciously alerts you to and prepares your body to engage with and eliminate a perceived threat.

The message of Anger is that you perceive another as a threat and you are ready to go to war to eliminate the threat.

In the context of resentment, anger is important because it provides the energy to pursue your plan to “right the perceived wrong”.

The concept of forgiveness is NOT that it absolves anyone of any responsibility for their actions.  Forgiveness is for YOU and involves the process of stepping away from and disengaging from the other person so that you can focus on your options.

So, you experience resentment, assess that you have been both wronged and taken advantage of, and use your anger to develop and carry out a plan to make things right.

If you were only wronged but no unfair advantage was utilized, your resentment resolves into anger and you can pursue your plan.

A reminder..

When you experience yourself feeling resentful toward someone, keep in mind that resentment is often a compound emotion which includes anger.

Because anger is both a very powerful emotion and a very familiar emotion, you may identify your anger before you identify your resentment.

I am not saying that one feeling is more predominant over the others.  In fact, they are all mixed together.

Dealing with mixed feelings is often difficult because you may only be aware of one feeling and may not recognize that others are present.

So, you may have to ask yourself, when you are angry or resentful of another person, if there are other feelings present.  If so, label each one accordingly and attempt to “master” it as best you can.   As anger and resentment are the strongest emotions here, once you master them, the others may just resolve themselves.

And, I NEED TO EMPHASIZE, if you believe that the situation you are in represents a risk that you do not feel you can safely handle alone, seek help from a professional.  Dealing with emotions such as resentment in any context in which someone is taking advantage of you can be dangerous so proceed with caution if necessary.

 

 

Asking Questions: A Critical Tool You Can Use to Master Emotions

I have discussed the Emotions Cycle (EC) in numerous previous posts.

This cycle describes both how the emotions we experience are elicited and how we can strategically deploy those emotions as tools.

Recall that the EC involves our constantly scanning our surroundings.

This unconscious process is:

  •  protective in that we continuously  and automatically scan for any threats,
  • informative as it alerts us to any situation which requires that we quickly take action to insure our “survival” and
  • energizing as it automatically prepares our bodies to take the necessary action.

There are at least two basic categories of emotions: Survival based emotions and Engaging emotions.

  1. The “survival” focussed emotions are primitive threat detectors and include emotions such as anger, fear, disgust, anxiety.  These primitive threat detectors prepare us for “fight or flight”.
  2. The “engaging” emotions such as happy, anticipation, and excitement prepare us to enthusiastically interact  with what  is going on.

Once we experience an emotion, the conscious part of our brain kicks in and provides us with the opportunity to validate the emotion.

Validation involves:

  •  accepting that the emotion is giving us information about how we perceive what is going on
  • examining the extent to which our initial perception matches what is actually happening and
  • matching the emotional response to the “reality” of what is going on in the situation.

Once, we determine the degree to which what we think is happening matches what is actually happening, we can choose how we want to respond to the situation.

The process of validating our emotions involves asking questions.

The Process of Asking Questions

While it sounds easy to “just ask questions”, the process of asking the right question in order to elicit useful answers isn’t easy as it involves:

  • lowering your arousal level so that you can…
  • focus on the situation at hand and
  • remaining both mindful and somewhat objective, or detached, from that situation, so that you can…
  • understand the nature of the informative answers you are seeking.

Indeed,  if we don’t ask the “right” questions, the answers we get won’t be of much use to us in generating an adaptive response to our situation.

The “right” question is the one that focuses your attention on, and attempts to gain insight into, what is actually going on in your situation that elicited the emotion you are experiencing.

So, let’s take a closer look at both the process of asking questions in the context of gaining insight into your situation by validating your emotions and exploring some examples of questions you might ask.

Step 1: Create safety.

Before you can effectively deal with any emotional situation, you have to create some “safety” in that situation.

So, the first step, which prepares you to ask questions, is to take a step back from what is going on and the second step is to take a deep breath.

The first step creates physical safety and the second creates psychological safety.  If your situation only involves you, then taking a deep breath, or two, is all you need to do.  The deep breath has a calming effect on the body and provides an opportunity for you to  increase your objectivity.  The more intense the emotion, the more problematic it will be to remain objective or “detached”.  But, it is doable and the more you work at maintaining some detachment, the easier it gets.

(Note: Remember that emotions and feelings are, in this context, the same thing.)

Step 2: Identify your initial feeling.

You can gain some insight into your emotional reaction by asking:

What am I feeling here?

The emotion you initially experience is elicited by your subconscious perception of what is going on.  It is influenced by the present environment, the other person’s behavior, perceived differences in status between you and the other person, your own past and any emotional “baggage” you may bring with you into the present.  This baggage can involve previous situations which seem (but may not be) to be similar to the present, your insecurities or doubts, your interpersonal skill sets, etc.

The important issue here is to remember that your initial emotional reaction may, or may not, be accurate.

It’s nice if only one feeling comes up but sometimes you may experience several (or mixed) feelings.

You will need to accept whatever answer comes up and avoid judging (in any way) what you are feeling.

Accepting the feeling is the first step to validating it.  You do this by remembering that:

  • you are entitled to feel whatever you feel
  • you may not be entitled to act on the feeling
  • this is your initial reaction
  • you will be exploring this feeling to see how well it fits the situation
  • you can change the feeling.

Step 3: Clarify the situation.

You can gain some insight into the situation you are facing by asking:

What is actually happening here?

This is where you attempt to be as objective as you can.

This question encourages you to look at both what appears to be happening (your initial perception) and what might be happening (other ways to view your situation).

Other questions include:

  • Could I be missing something here?
  • What interpretations or judgements am I making about the other person and what he/she is doing?
  • What is the other person trying to accomplish here?
  • Could his/her actions be the result of a lack of ability to express his/her needs in a more appropriate way?

NOTE:

  1. It is important to note that you are not excluding the possibility that your initial perception is accurate and that the other person’s behavior is both inappropriate and represents the actual threat your feeling is telling you exists.
  2. By asking the above questions, you are either redirecting your thoughts so as to change how you perceive what is happening and your feelings about it or you are confirming your initial perception as a precursor to taking action.

Step 4: Bring your feelings in line with the situation.

This step involves aligning what you feel with what is going on.  Alignment will help you choose an adaptive response to your situation (Step 5).

Alignment asks:

To what extent does what I am feeling match what is going on?

Here, your intent is to bring what you are perceiving and feeling in line with what is actually happening.

Other questions you might ask include:

  • Does the intensity of my feelings match the situation?
  • Do I have several feelings I need to consider?

Now, that you have decided what is going on and how you feel about it, the next step choose an adaptive response.

Step 5: Choose an adaptive response.

The question you need to ask here is:

What is the best way for me to respond to what is going on?

What often happens when someone reacts to an emotional event is that they overreact, get a response from others they later regret, and blame the emotion for “causing” them to do what they did.

They might say, “If I wasn’t so angry, I would not have (done something stupid, acted out aggressively, hurt someone, etc.).  While it may be true that if the emotion were not present, the inappropriate action would not have occurred, it is NEVER true that the emotion CAUSED the inappropriate action.  What we do is ALWAYS our CHOICE!

Other questions you might ask here include:

  • What are my options for expressing my feelings?
  • Are there “display” issues I need to consider?
  • What actions do I want to take?
  • What are the consequences of each option?
  • What result am I hoping for?
  • What if I do nothing?

This 5 step process uses questions to move you through the Emotions Cycle.

Final notes.

You have now  completed the Emotions Cycle starting with your initial unconscious perception and ending with your conscious choice of what actions you want to take.

You did this by asking relevant questions, paying attention to the answers to those questions, changing your perceptions as dictated by those answers, and choosing an adaptive response.