I've noticed recently a similar tone in some blogs and response posts regarding resentments and anger.
I personally have a very hard time "letting go" of my resentments. I've have been in therapy for a very long time. If my actions and reactions to any given situation are the meter in which I evaluate my progress, I can tell you that I will be in therapy FOREVER.
TRUE STORY
When my second husband left me, for the second time, (not the last), I was overwhelmed with every feeling from fear to suicidal thoughts. I obsessed. Why didn't he love me? Why am I so pathetic. I called a friend at 4am one morning and actually asked her if someone could truly die from a broken heart. I hadn't slept in DAYS, lost more weight than Anna Nicole, and could not fathom how I could live without "him".
I couldn't let it go....... I thought my attempts were honest and my failure to let go was because of my love of drama....... I was wrong.
How do you let go? Of a person, a feeling, a resentment? Especially when the exact thing I am trying to let go of keeps rearing its ugly head?
A girlfriend of mine once told me that she had a little box she kept on her nightstand. When she had a resentment towards someone/something, she wrote the issue and person's name on a piece of paper, and put it in the small box. It was her way of sending her issues up to God. She would say, as she was placing the paper in the box, "Okay God, I cannot hold onto this any longer. It is destroying me. Therefore, in attempt of letting it go, I am giving it to you."
I guess it was her mailbox to God.
I tried her suggestion. After a few days I called her and asked her the following: "Uh, Tammy, I am trying your suggestion and I need to know something......exactly how BIG is that box on your nightstand?" You see, mine was already full. She suggested I use smaller pieces of paper!!!! When that didn't work, I got a bigger box. I am now using the actual drawer IN the nightstand as the box!!!.....LOL!
Okay, that last part was exaggerated just a wee bit.
Anyhooooooo......I didn't need to get over that specific resentment and obsession. The assh*ole came back to me. And this assh*le took him back.
Now, we all know if I had only learned HOW to let go, I would have been better off. After all, had I let it go, I would not have taken him back....again. The lesson learned was that by not being able to let it go, I only harmed myself anyway.
So, in order to let it go today, I consider this:
Whatever I cannot let go of only ends up dragging me along.
This is not to say I am any better at letting go of things. But now it doesn't take me quite as long to realize that Letting Go is a lot less painful than being dragged........
I did eventually go back into that box of resentments. Ya know what? Even though there were some of those resentments still lingering, I didn't even recognize the majority of them. I guess when I forgot to obsess over them, I forgot to hold on to them.
So is it better to TRY and LET GO, or best to try and forget? Or is the solution to just stop trying?
This post is in no way a solution on to how to let things go. It is a blog from a woman who's insanity sometimes needs to be written in order for her to realize just how insane she may be.......
J
"Either let it go or let it drag you along"
God bless you, Janice...
Oh, Biomom I think you and me is cut from the same cloth. I know you follow my posts just like I follows yours. I'll probably be in therapy forever, too.
I like the idea of "forgetting to obsess" over your resentments. It seems that it is a learned behavior, no? Can't focus on the POSITIVE things in our lives, we gots to find something to bitch about.
What if there was nothing to bitch about?? What *would* I do?? That's probably why I kept trotting out the same #(*&*$ resentment out over and over again when it reared up its nasty ugly head. Because it was something comfortable to bitch about, so I can avoid certain OTHER issues that are going on in my life that I really don't want to look at.
Ladies, I may be on to something here. Possibilities? Also, I've noticed a pattern with myself, I'll keep beating that tired old horse skeleton until it's dust OR until someone tells me KNOCK IT THE HELL OFF, IT'S TIRED, LET IT GO. Then my feelings get hurt but the wheels start turning, and then I get angrIER at myself for LETTING myself go on and on about tired old mess.
I wonder if I can't make an ONLINE (well, on the computer, anyhow) Box of Resentments. I've TRIED journaling other than here...I feel soooooooooooooooooooooooooo stupid writing stuff out just for me.
TODAY I will try to focus on the positive. (I feel like I living an AA meeting lately.
)
More insanity to join yours, Janice,
Fearless
It's far from easy
Janice, it took me years to stop obsessing over the fact things did not work out between my Daughter Father and I. Like you, all I could do was focus on what did I do wrong? What COULD I have done to make him happier? Fact is, I worshiped the ground the guy walked on. I made it easy for him to hurt me.
I'm not sure how or when it happened, but I realized, I wasn't that far off. The day I laid eye's on him, I saw something that was forever, I saw a future, I saw love. It overwhelmed me. My belief that there was a destiny with him. IT WAS MY DAUGHTER, not him.
It truely is how you look at things. no, you can't wear rose colored glasses all the time. But I definately try to see the positive in things and situations.
For the record, I am so happy I found this site. It brings me peace to know I'm not alone in this new world of step life. Grant it, our situations vary. But so much of the same bullshit.
And Fearless, you have a great sence of humor. Yeah, you are a tough girl, but like most tough girls, you have a side that is equally as sensitive.
Hang in there and keep on venting.
I have no trouble writing it down..
My problem is I have written much down to get those feelings out. I have written in journals, on scraps of paper, in small books in my purse, in my PDA, and on my laptop. Then I think, What if anyone was to run across any of it? At times I sound homicidal, then suicidal, agressive, depressive, and oh what is that small one....happy? I've been doing a gratitude journal for years, you know, balance me out. That actually made me know what I truley appreciated because it became a reoccuring entry. I also destroy the negative stuff occationally too. If I run across it, read it and feel that it's done I destroy it. Shred it and take it to start a beautiful fire with friends.
Do whatever works for you.
What I have found...
...is that it's a whole lot easier to let it go when it's not a constant reminder. When we lived in the same state as the skids/BM and had visitation fights bi-monthly and on every holiday and school break, it was impossible to let go, not even for an afternoon, an evening or a weekend. Because it was a constant fight, it factored into just about every single aspect of our lives every single day. Since we moved to another state (14+ hour drive away) and cannot get the kids every other weekend, on holidays or school breaks, letting go has been a piece of cake. There's no more fighting and we can all breathe easier, relax more and actually enjoy life. The only problem lingering is the kids not seeming to want any contact with their dad and how he handles (or doesnt' handle) their rejection... that's something we're working on and it is getting better.
My big fear is that in less than a year, my husband will start the relocation process. His company will be sending him back to our old state for two weeks, then home for one, then back to the old state for two weeks, then home for one until they get their new plant built and operational. Then as soon as the school year ends up here in June 2008, we will be relocating back to the old state... back to within a 5-hour drive to the skids/BM. This means the visitation fights will begin again and I am wondering how we will be able to maintain the tranquility we've found up here when we go back next year. I can let go of the old stuff, I HAVE let go of the old stuff, but I'm afraid of the new stuff destroying what we've worked so hard to achieve during the 1 1/2 years since we moved away. Sigh. I just don't think they make a box big enough for what we'll be facing when we move back south.
~ Anne ~
Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice! -M*A*S*H (Sidney Freedman to the OR staff on dealing with stress)
Instead of a box.....
Maybe we could build a coffin, throw all of our "resentments" in it, and meet somewhere.....with shovels!! Then we can bury all of them together!! I'll bring the rum!
Hugs,
Janice"The truth hurts but the b*llshit kills"
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