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Key points
- Wishing things were not the way they are, instead of improving them, gets people stuck in resentment.
- The urge to justify an emotion or behavior can tell someone that it’s probably not good for them.
- Escape from victim identity requires self-compassion, with the motivation to heal and improve.
My last post discussed three ways to get stuck in life and how to free yourself. This post covers two increasingly common ways to get stuck. It’s easy to get trapped in self-defeating resentment, and that eventually leads to victim-identity.
It’s so easy to get stuck in resentment because the world is unfair. Resentment results from a judgment of unfairness; you’re not getting the help, consideration, praise, reward, or affection you deserve.
Resentment is, to borrow a phrase from the psychoanalyst Karen Horney, a tyranny of the should:
“Things should be the way I want them to be. They shouldn’t be the way they are.”
Wishing things were not the way they are, instead of improving them, gets us stuck in resentment. What keeps us stuck is justifying resentment by ruminating over all the reasons we’re resentful:
“I have a right to be resentful because she did this, he didn’t do that, and they should have been more considerate…..”
Justifying resentment is like justifying hunger; you never need to do it. But then, some people seem compelled to justify even their hunger: “I’m really hungry; I didn’t have lunch.”
Your resentment is justified, but it’s so unpleasant that you probably don’t want to feel it. Justifying resentment strengthens and prolongs what you don’t want.
There’s a neurological explanation for this. Repeated focus forms mental habits. Justifying resentment strengthens the neural connections underlying it. It becomes automatic, the default judgment of the brain; we expect unfairness and look for signs of it. Resentful people complain and criticize out of habit.
The urge to justify an emotion or behavior tells us that it’s probably not good for us, or else we wouldn’t want to justify it. You don’t have to justify an emotion that’s more conducive to health and well-being, such as compassion. You don’t go to work and say:
“I had a right to do what I did. I was under so much stress, and my partner pushed all my buttons. She drove me to it; I lashed out with compassion. I took her perspective and cared about how she felt and acted humanely.”
Once again, you have an absolute right to your resentment. And you have a more compelling right to live a value-filled life, which is impossible with chronic resentment.
If Stuck in Resentment
Replace blame, denial, and avoidance with improve, appreciate, connect, or protect. This requires practice, if not at the occurrence of the impulse to blame, deny, or avoid, then as soon after as possible. Time doesn’t cure bad coping habits; practice does.
Acknowledge your feelings, but use your adult brain to analyze the present and probable future and then decide which course of action is in your best interest.
Focus on how you want to feel, and your brain will load into implicit memories of past instances that evoked similar feelings. You’ll likely select behavior from those more desirable memories, which were encoded when you were more open, flexible, kind, loving, or compassionate. You’ll shift mental energy toward achieving the desired feeling and away from justifying undesirable ones.
Resentment constricts perspectives. Chronic resentment produces a narrow and rigid outlook on life. Recognize that it’s not the strength of conviction that makes us rigid; it’s fear of chaos, confusion, inconvenience, or discomfort. Building confidence in your flexibility strengthens your convictions by making them more nuanced and complex.
Reflect on changes you resisted in the past that were beneficial once you accepted them. Recognize that in business, families, and sports, the teams that adapt are the teams that win.
View uncertainty as your friend. It drives us to learn more, appreciate more, and connect to one another emotionally. It can make us smarter and more compassionate.
Identify with your ability to “make the best” of everything that happens. The best will never be chaotic or rigid.
The Buddha said that most of the suffering in the world comes from wishing it were not the way it is. Think of the enormous amounts of emotional energy wasted on railing against the way things are. That’s energy and mental focus that should go into improving the way things are. What we do not accept, we cannot improve. The mantra of building a happy, meaningful life is:
"Accept and improve!
Stuck in Victim Identity
Victim identity is identification with the harm we’ve suffered. It makes us focus on perceived damage at the hands of someone or perceived weaknesses exploited by someone. Perceived damage and weakness become hidden elements of identity, shaping thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
When we’re stuck in it, victim identity becomes more about blame than hurt. It’s preoccupied with devaluing, not raising self-value. We devalue those who hurt us, anyone who reminds us of those who’ve hurt us, and ourselves for being hurt. We assume the worst about people’s intentions, look everywhere for slights, insults, and offenses, and respond to perceived “microaggressions” with overt aggression.
Victim identity makes us overlook ways to validate and empower ourselves. Instead, it centers on getting others to validate and empower us. Ironically, those who suffer victim identity want validation, if not approval, from those who oppressed, hurt, or abused them—the very ones who are least likely to validate or empower them.
Victim identity undermines personal power by making us highly reactive. The saddest lament I hear from clients with victim identity is:
“I don’t like the person they’ve made me.”
If you feel stuck in victim identity, develop a healing identity fueled by the desire to improve your life. Appreciate your strengths, resilience, and capacity to heal your hurt. Focus on self-compassion—non-judgmental sympathy for your hurt, with motivation to heal and improve. Be guided by Carl Jung’s famous statement:
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
