RESENTMENTS & A NICE STORY

RESENTMENTS AND A NICE STORY

Once upon a time a older monk and a young monk were traveling together. They came to the bank of a river and found the bridge was damaged. They had to wade across the river. There they found a pretty lady stuck at the damaged bridge who couldn't cross the river on her own. The older monk offered to carry the pretty lady across the river on his back. The lady accepted.

The young monk was shocked by the move of the older monk. "How can elder disciple brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?" thought the young monk. But he kept quiet.

The older monk carried the lady across the river and the younger monk followed unhappily. When they had crossed the river, the elder monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her. All along the way for several miles, the young monk was very unhappy with the act of the old monk. He was making up all kinds of accusations about the old monk in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the older monk had no inclination to explain his situation.

Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the young monk could not stand it any further, and he burst out angrily at the older monk. "How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite."

The old monk looked surprised and said, "I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?"

This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today.

We encounter many unpleasant things in our life; they irritate and make us angry. Sometimes, they even cause us lot of hurt or make us bitter. But like the young monk, we are not willing to let them go away. We keep on carrying the baggage of the "unpleasant memory" with us. We let them keep on coming back to hurt us, make us angry, make us bitter and cause us a lot of agony.

Why? Simply because we are not willing to put down or let go the baggage of the "unpleasant memory/feelings". We should let it go immediately after the unpleasant event is over. This will help in removing the agony of resentment.

HARBORING OF RESENTMENTS IS DETREMENTAL

The power of resentment far exceeds any conception we had of negative thinking. Are you aware that:

• A life, which includes deep resentment, leads only to futility and unhappiness.
• The hours in which we allow futility and unhappiness in our lives are not worthwhile. Resentments waste our lives.
• Resentments shut us off from the sunlight of the Spirit, thereby preventing the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience.
• When shadowed from the sunlight of the Spirit, the insanity of alcohol returns, we drink again, and we die.
• There is striking evidence that resentment creates a physical poison in our bodies, in addition to the mental and spiritual maladies it feeds.

RESENTMENTS INVENTORY:

1. Who do you hold a grudge against?
2. What did they do that you found offensive?
3. How did you contribute to their action?
4. Why did you react with resentment?

The first lesson is that resentments cannot be cleared up until we know we have them and why. The second lesson is that we have made ourselves vulnerable to the outside world to an extraordinary extent. Our entire self-concept has been molded by the opinions and actions of others and our old thinking as to what we ought to be and what we were.

Next, it is necessary to be willing to let go of the resentment. Moreover--we must forgive the person we resent. Just accept right now that you are going to have to do it! There is no other course that your life is now on a different foundation of trusting and relying upon God.

We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame?

If we are sorry for what we have done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience. [Big Book, page 70, line 8]

The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. It may be he had done us more harm than we have done him and, though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us and we go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. [Big Book, page 77, line 18]

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves, which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflections, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves, this is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done. We avoid retaliation or argument.

TURN AROUNDS:

Selfish: (our Thinking): I wanted her to act the way I wanted her to act // I wanted her to think I was the greatest// I wanted her to depend on me // I wanted her to work more // wanted her to be a willing partner// I wanted sex only when I wanted it//. These statements of selfishness describe our personal thoughts.

Dishonest: (Analysis): I was copping out by drinking //Irrational to think I can not be happy if she leaves me // I did not have effective communication skills. // Irrational to think that it was her fault // Not realistic to think I can sleep around without arousing suspicion. Consider all else written on this page as we list.

Self Seeking: I drank that night // I hit her //I slept with Suzy Q // Now I am sober // I'm putting into action my decision to work the 12 steps // I don't cheat on my beloved bimbo // I take care of the kids first after my sobriety // I treat my wife as if she is a sick- (page 452, BB).

Questions to ask one’s self:

1. Did we drink, etc. over this resentment?
2. What would a recovered person do today in a similar event?
3. We probably don't accurately know up to this phase of recovery?
4. Should we become willing to accept advice and guidance from others who have surmounted similar difficulties?
5. Were we afraid of our emotions?

Why do we have fears? It is because self-reliance failed us? Self will and self-confidence did not solve our problem. Now we depend on God’s Will. We trust the infinite God rather than our finite self will. We are supposed to do his bidding and humbly rely on Him. We have to do our part in following His direction for us. We have to place importance to the spiritual side of the life rather than material. It is the action rather than the philosophical reflection of the faith. We can have faith but still we can deny the entry of God in to our lives. “Faith with out action is dead.” We should not let personalities over ride the principles.

Thought philosophy that "God is the only power, and that evil is insubstantial; that we form our own destiny by our thoughts and our beliefs; that conditions do not matter when we pray; that time and space and matter are human illusions; that there is a solution to every problem; that man is the child of God, and God is perfect good.” Pray for the understanding of love of God, and meditate upon it daily. It casts out fear.

Forgiveness was an integral part of the Pathway of Love, "which is open to everyone in all circumstances, and upon which you may step at any moment - at this moment if you like - requires no formal introduction, has no conditions whatever. All it does need is that you should begin steadfastly to expel from your mentality every thought of personal condemnation (you must condemn a wrong action, but not the actor), of resentment for old injuries, and of everything, which is contrary to the law of Love. You must not allow yourself to hate either person, or group, or nation, or anything whatever.

Love will illumine you, to live but one day at a time, to be responsible for one’s own thoughts and to clear up resentments, just as AA was to teach that "resentments are our number one cause of slips." Now, one of the most important rules for growth was to live in the present: "Live in today, and do not allow yourself to live in the past under any pretense. Living the past means thinking about the past, rehearsing past events, especially if you do this with feeling…train yourself to be a man or woman who lives one day at a time. You’ll be surprised how rapidly conditions will change for the better when you approach this ideal."

Thoughts are real things, and that one cannot have one kind of mind and another kind of life and if we want to change our lives, then we must change our thoughts first. Many of his simply stated profundities have contributed to an AA philosophy that has transformed the lives of literally two million recovering alcoholics. Thoughts lead to action, which in turn lead to the formation of habits and the later result in the formation of character, which in turns leads to destiny.