Break the re-sent part of resentment

November 9, 2021 | 31 comments

If you were to break down the word resentment into three components, you would have:

RE-SENT MENT

Resentment is bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly. When feeling resentful, there’s often a temptation to send negative emotions toward the person or event one resents.

To live happier and healthier, it’s best to not RE-SEND anything negative in any direction!

Resentment is the product of ego, pride, self-justification, self-righteousness, believing one is better than another, and woe-is-me thinking. There isn’t anything good about resentment. It’s best to have none of it.

So, if it feels like something evil has come to you, be a healer, not a victim, and let it stop with you. Don’t let it become RE-SENT to someone else. Send love instead.

31 thoughts on “Break the re-sent part of resentment”

    1. I just want to remember the people who are really struggling with resentment. There is so much injustice and it just keeps on coming. I want to say to all of you, “You are respected, accepted, and loved.” I attended a branch church that used that message on Zoom as soon as the video started. This was a healing church because of their compassionate understanding that watching horrible instances of injustice isn’t something easy to overcome. Let’s have more compassion for people who live with the inanity of injustice every day of their lives.

  1. Thank you Evan! This came just before what would have been a confrontation yet turned into a very harmonious discussion. Thank you again.

  2. Thank you Evan for this idea to ponder and put into practice.
    Thank you Angie for the eye-opening article, proof positive that when we don’t barb the the arrow that is shot at us, we won’t feel resentment to shoot back because forgiveness based in spiritual love will prevail.
    I am a work in progress practicing this concept!

  3. If Jesus can say “Father forgive them..” I can certainly start my journey of understanding and forgiveness..
    Man is a generic term and if I see someone else capable iof unkindness I have opened the door to seeing myself as unkind.
    Love is the royal and only way…

  4. An adaption to Peter Ramsbottom, C.S. Christian Science Practitioner, original poem

    I see myself as God’s own child
    As perfect in His sight
    I see my fellow man, as well
    A perfect child of light
    Then to complete my prayer
    I see him seeing me aright
    I see him, seeing me, seeing him aright
    As a perfect child of light.

    1. Oh, Josef, what a perfect poem for me to work with. I have been feeling very hurt by a loved one and avoiding her for fear she will misunderstand and attack me again. I have been praying, but haven’t been able to get beyond the idea that she has poisoned the minds of the rest of the family-5 others-against me. Even though I have reached out none of them have responded to me. This poem/prayer is perfect. Thank you so much.

      1. Dear Beatrice, I think the poem Josef shared will surely help lift up your thought. I know how painful and isolating this type of situation can feel. You and your family members are filled and surrounded with and able to put forth only Love. That is the truth of each of you in your holy nature as God made you. Each member is on a spiritual journey and can only be influenced or affected by God. There is only One divine Mind, not many minds that can be “poisoned.” This is already true and there’s nothing you can do to make it less true or more true. Love and Peace to you, your Peace is undisturbed.

    2. Josef thanks so much for sharing this poem. It really brings things full circle: As we see ourselves in the true Light, we then can see others that way and then we can know that they see us that way and they can feel us seeing them as perfect children of Light. That covers every base!

      I looked up Peter Ramsbottom CS just out of curiosity and found a Facebook page where he posted a version of this poem, attributed to Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB. Looked up Carpenter and found some interesting things including this article on the Plainfield CS Church website entitled 500 Watching Points.
      https://books.plainfieldcs.com/gilbert-carpenter/500-watching-points/

      Grateful to all of you, Evan, Angie and everyone for sharing from your heart and just being here.

      1. Rose thank you for doing that. the adaptation actually came out from my wife’s memory of her father teaching that to her when she was a child. I thought to keep the adaptation as it just felt right. But knowing the real origin is very valuable. Thank you so much.

        1. Josef, I didn’t discover CS till adulthood, so to me it’s very sweet to think of a parent teaching a poem like this to a child, a gift that can last a lifetime.

      2. Rose, thank you so much for the link to the Watch series of works. I particularly found the one on “joy” helpful. I intend to return to this often and have bookmarked the pages for easy reference ♡

  5. Thank you all for your contributions and Evan for your insight and launching pad for their responses. This message is extremely timely for me and now I have the tools to work through the suggestion of resentment.
    Love to all!

  6. I praise God, our Father-Mother Love, for being reflected in love, and for being All-in-all! I pray for divine Love to give me grace for today, to forgive and to love all unconditionally, to see “one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love.”

  7. That’s very helpful. Also, in French and its Latin roots the root “sent” means feel. Found this: “The Latin root sent and its variant form sens mean to ‘feel. ‘ Some common English words that come from these two roots include sensation, sensible, resent, and consent.”

    So, as Evan says, we don’t want to re-send negative feelings toward us back to the other person or re-feel their animosity toward us. We want to feel what God is feeling – joy, delight, affection, fearlessness, Love’s All-in-allness, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniaction.

    So, what is God feeling towards this person? Love, feeling His-Her own perfection reflected in other individual, rejoicing in their innocence.

    One supposes that’s why Jesus wants us to pray for our enemies, and forgive them 70X7 because it aligns our thought with what God feels and knows about them as image of God.

    1. Linda I appreciate your comments. I too have heard resentment defined as re-feeling, over and over again, negativity you believe was inflicted on you and your negative thoughts back to them or to the situation. In the One Mind there exist no negative thoughts so resentment, in reality (spiritual reality), is impossible. I loved hearing that God is “rejoicing in their innocence.”

  8. Thank you so very much, Dear Evan.! You really hit the nail on it’s head for me this morning.. Did you sit on my shoulder, to know what I needed today? HA! And Thank you to all the commentors for your very helpful thoughts!!

  9. The original by Gilbert C. Carpenter, CSB

    I see myself as God’s own child,
    As perfect in His sight.
    I see my brother-man as well,
    A perfect child of light.
    Then to complete my prayer,
    I see him seeing me aright —
    I see him seeing me seeing him
    As perfect in Love’s sight.

    This is a beautiful poem and its original version is complete and perfectly expressed. Although our memory caught it essence, it is not the original, nor is our version better, they just both express a very important idea which we all can rely upon.

  10. An excellent topic Evan – and really great comments, articles, song, and poem – thank you all! I’m also a work in progress practicing this concept too, as Linda D. mentioned. And it is very helpful to see that resentment is a distraction, as Angie’s article points out. When thinking gets off track, it helps to remind myself that I wouldn’t walk around my home or office carrying around a 50 lb. suitcase all day long. Carrying around resentment feels just as heavy and burdensome; especially if I’m constantly hitting the “replay” button. As Evan pointed out in yesterday’s blog: “It’s important to remember how much easier it is to pray than to suffer. Suffering is hard. Prayer is not hard.” Love this thought!

  11. Oh , so lively and inspired comments up her; thank you all an Angie for the wonderful metaphysical article!
    As I understand “resenzment as a German, it means if I am treated unfair. So the remedy really is “not reacting” but stay friendly and loving. Wow, am working ob it. But if we know prayerfully that we a l l are “the image of Love” as MBE says in SH “what is man”, it is clear that everybody can only express divine Love and therefore resenzment is unkbown by God and His loved child!♡
    Thanks Evan for letting us ponder the Truth about the nothingness of error!♡

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