Letting Go of Resentment: A Path to Healing

There’s a particular kind of weight that can greet you in the morning before your feet even hit the floor. For me lately, it’s been resentment. It sits heavy in my chest. It’s a bitter mix of anger and disappointment directed towards the very people I love most: my adult children.

Embracing the Journey of Recovery

My journey in recovery is about becoming a better man. I am healing from an addiction that caused me to betray trust and inflict deep harm. My inappropriate online behavior didn’t just happen in a vacuum. It exploded into the lives of my kids, causing them pain. They had to question who their father truly was. The shame of that is something I carry every day. Rebuilding trust is a mountain I’m committed to climbing, one step at a time.

Understanding Resentment

Part of recovery is learning new tools for living. A big one is understanding how to handle difficult emotions healthily. Resentment is a major obstacle – "a poison we drink ourselves, expecting someone else to suffer." It blocks us from serenity, connection, and the sunlight of the spirit. Intellectually, I understand this. But knowing the theory and living the reality are different.

Recently, I found myself stuck in a painful cycle. I wanted to reconnect with my kids. I hoped to show them the changes I’m making and, admittedly, I sought some validation. Often, I would send texts checking in and telling them how proud I am. Silence often followed. In that silence, my mind would race. I would assume the worst – rejection, proof they didn’t love me. From that fear, resentment would bloom towards my own children, the ones I hurt.

Lessons from Suffering

This specific, gut-wrenching resentment became my unwilling teacher. It forced me to take the general principles I was learning about releasing resentment and apply them to my aching heart. The process includes several key steps:

1. Acknowledge and Identify:
   I had to stop pretending I wasn’t resentful. I had to name it: "I am resentful towards my kids because they aren't responding, and I'm interpreting that as rejection." Feeling anger and disappointment without letting it consume me was challenging.
   
   
2. Understand the Cost:
   I reflected on how this resentment was hurting me. It stole my peace and soured my mornings. Ironically, holding onto it blocked the very love I wanted to feel and express. It drained my energy for recovery.
   
   
3. Shift Perspective & Seek Understanding:
   This was tough. I needed to acknowledge my expectations. Was I seeking their validation to soothe my shame? Was my outreach truly about them or subtly about controlling their response? I also tried to understand their perspective without needing them to tell me. They are processing their own hurt on their timeline. Their silence might have nothing to do with a lack of love, but rather their own need for space or healing.
   
   
4. Acceptance:
   I had to accept the present moment: I cannot control their feelings or responses. I cannot undo the past. Fighting this reality only fuels resentment. Acceptance means acknowledging, "This is where things are right now."
   
   
5. Make a Conscious Decision to Let Go:
   Forgiveness comes in here, primarily as a gift to myself. It means choosing to release the burden of anger and bitterness for my well-being. It doesn’t mean forgetting or condoning, but simply deciding I don’t want to carry this poison anymore.
   
   

Journaling as a Tool

Working through these steps isn’t just a mental exercise. Integrating them into my journaling practice has been incredibly helpful. Writing down the specifics of the resentment – the who, what, when, why – brings chaos from my mind onto the page. Seeing it in black and white helps me confront it more honestly. This very blog post started taking shape in my journal as I explored these feelings. There’s power in placing thoughts and emotions on paper; it feels like another way of releasing their hold.

Even with journaling and understanding the steps, doing this work felt like lifting something impossibly heavy on my own. I could analyze it, understand it, even decide to drop it, but the emotional weight remained. This is where the spiritual dimension of my recovery became essential.

Seeking Divine Support

My program teaches reliance on a Higher Power, a source of strength beyond my own. I realized I couldn’t just think my way out of this resentment; I needed help. So, I turned to prayer, incorporating that spiritual surrender into the process:

• Surrender the Burden:

I started praying specifically and honestly. "God," I'd say, "I'm filled with resentment this morning. I know it's hurting me and blocking my connection with You and my kids. I am willing to let it go, but I need Your help. Please, take this feeling from me."

• Ask for Healing and Strength:

I prayed for strength to accept the situation, patience, and divine help in healing my quickness to feel rejected.

• Request a Shift in Perception:

I asked my Higher Power to help me see the situation and my children through a lens of love and compassion. "Help me focus on my actions and recovery, and trust the outcome to You."

It wasn’t a magic wand. There was no lightning bolt. But by acknowledging my powerlessness over resentment on my own, expressing willingness, and asking for divine help, something began to shift. It felt like handing over the heavy, jagged rock I’d been clenching. My grip loosened. The act of surrender, powered by faith, made the release possible in a way my own willpower couldn’t achieve.

The Ongoing Practice of Letting Go

Releasing this resentment is still a daily practice. Some mornings, I consciously choose to hand that rock over again. The practice creates space. The space that was once filled with anger and disappointment is now filled with the quiet, steady truth of my love for my children, independent of their response. It allows me to feel self-compassion for the difficult journey I’m on.

Letting go of resentment doesn’t change the past or guarantee a specific future for our relationship. What it changes is me. It lifts the weight, allowing the love I genuinely feel – for them and increasingly for myself – to shine through. This shift makes for a much brighter, hopeful start to the day. It's grounded in my own recovery and faith, not in the validation I once desperately sought.

In this journey, I am learning to embrace not just the healing, but the beauty of letting go. The phrase "letting go of the past" serves as my guide.