*October 7th*

We hear many warnings against harboring resentment. It is a rare person who does not yield to resentment when he or she feels wronged by someone. We can resent our fate, our bad luck, our lot in life.

No amount of self-discipline can heal us of resentment. Sometimes it seems the more we struggle against it, resentment gains its very strength from our struggle. Resentment sneaks up on us, surging like a dark sickness into the mind, plunging our emotions into turmoil.

We know it's destructive; we may earnestly want to free ourselves from it. What can we do?

First we think of our own personal good. Does it hurt the person we are resenting? Or does it hurt us? Then we reflect that this damaging combination of emotion and bad logic, comes from "not understanding its cause." Let's dissect it and find out what, inside us, gives resentment its overwhelming power.

Today's Reminder
I have no room for resentment in my life. I will not fight it with grim determination. Instead I will pull back from this impulse, "Easy does it", and give no place to resenting one day at a time in God's strength. ... The best antidote for resentment is the continual practice of gratitude."

"Nothing on earth consumes a man more completely than the passion of resentment." (Friedrick Nietzsche)

[Taken and fashioned from "One Day At A Time In Al-Anon"
for general family relationships by Jim Hogue, MA, MFTI]