The Poison of Resentment

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

—Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

I have a little yellow square of paper stuck in the frame of my bedroom mirror. It bears this quote. I look at it every single day.

I like to think that I am a generous, kind, loving, empathic person. I have rarely used the word hate and truly meant it (I don’t really hate hot sauce or roller coasters or even people who litter, but I  sometimes say I do). I commit random acts of kindness. I strive for understanding over quick judgments and connection over clique-ishness.

But a few years ago, I went through some experiences that poisoned me deeply. I felt betrayed. I cried a lot. My health suffered. I lost a job that I deeply loved. And I was angry.

So angry. So full of rage, resentment, and bitterness.

The exact circumstances don’t matter. There was nothing I could do to retaliate, even if I wanted to. Even if that person deserved it.

So I sat. And I stewed. And I cried. And I ranted. And I resented.

In between bouts of misery, I tried all sorts of self-talk. “This is an opportunity, not a loss! This is a chance for a new adventure! I get to choose how I feel about this! Find the silver lining! Blah blah blah blah!”

None of it worked.

Then one day a few months past the height of my crisis, I stopped in front of a bulletin board at my favorite local coffee shop. There it was. A whole stack of little cards thumb-tacked to the board under a note saying “please take one”.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

I took one.

I brought it out to my car and stared at it.

And I started crying.

All the anger and rage I harbored had been eating me up from the inside out. The resentment was rotting away inside me. And it wasn’t doing one single little thing to my “enemy”.

That was the day my healing began.

For a long time, whenever the situation came up, my brain and body would react instantly: adrenaline and cortisol surged through my system, my blood-pressure sky-rocketed, my palms began to sweat, and a veil of angry red flashed across my vision.

My resentment was very literally poisoning me. The horrible health effects of the chemicals and hormones associated with stress and anger are staggering. I was soaking in them daily.

Starting that day, whenever the pain and anger came, I would breath deeply and evenly, silently reciting this quote to myself.

It helped. I started to teach my mind and my body a new way to deal with stress markers and triggers. I refused to give my “enemy” any vicarious power to do me further damage.

A year and a half down the path, I can still get worked up. It’s still something that I have to tiptoe around a bit. I can’t dig too deeply, or talk about it too much. But I’m not drowning myself in poison anymore. And every day it gets a little better, and a little easier.

Every day I read those words. Every day I get a little closer to the next step: forgiveness.

I’m not quite there yet. But I’ll get there.