How Do I Get Over Resentment and Anger?

How do I get over resentment and anger?  There are many ways to release anger and resentment.  You can exercise, meditate, find a hobby, or find a safe place to scream.  You can also write down your feelings, listen to music, or call a friend and vent.  To get over resentment and anger, you have to find what works for you.  It’s like a mental skill that cannot be developed overnight.  It takes time but you can learn how.  This article has many tips to help you. 

Bad stuff happens to everybody.  It doesn’t help you grow and mature as a person to keep dwelling on the fact that stuff happens to you.  You are not alone.  What happens is not important, but how you react to it is very important.

Negative feelings will add stress to your body and make you ill.  So, it is imperative that you take charge of your emotions and mental attitudes and don’t let negative emotions ruin your health and life.

Physical Actions

Physical things that you can do are:

• Exercise:  This can be everything from walking to running, riding a bike or motorcycle, swimming, or working out at a gym.  
• Relax:  This can be done a number of ways.  You can meditate or pray or do both.  They will both help you to relax and focus on positive things.  Sitting in a hot tub or hot bath is a great way to relax.  Add a glass of wine, candles, and soft music, and you will feel your anger and resentment fade away.
• Call a friend: Friends can really help.  Make sure the friend is giving positive feedback, and not just agreeing with you.  
• Write down your feelings: James Fallows said, “Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them."  It can be cathartic to write down your feelings and then throw the paper away along with your anger and resentment.

Mental Actions

Mental things that you can do are:

• Be Grateful: Make a list of things you are grateful for.  You can write them down or just do them in your head.  Think of positive things that have happened to you recently, like another car letting you in when traffic was heavy, a favor someone did, or a stranger that smiled at you.  
• Positive Attitude: Make a big effort to have a positive attitude.  Smile at people, compliment them, do a favor for them; all these things will add to your positive attitude.  This positive attitude is a big part of getting over resentment and anger. It can help you get over it or help you not get those feelings at all.   
• Turn negatives into positives.  You can learn something from every bad thing that happens to you, even if it is not to do that again or put yourself into that situation.  Looking at bad situations from an educational standpoint can help the feelings of anger and resentment not even begin.
• Forgive: Try to see a situation from another’s viewpoint.  Everyone makes mistakes, gets frustrated, or gets distracted.  Trying to think of why someone is rude or mad can really help you not resent them or get angry.  Some reasons for bad behavior could be: a loved one is ill, they had a big fight with their spouse, they just got fired, they are very sad about a loss, or they are just not thinking clearly.  You get the picture.  Forgive others and don’t forget to forgive yourself, too.   

Increasing Love and Fear

Here are some things to think about when considering how to get over resentment and anger. One school of thought, endorsed by people who believe in the Law of Attraction, says there are only two emotions: love and fear.  All emotions can be categorized into one of these two groups.  Positive emotions, like caring, thoughtfulness, compassion, empathy, go with love and all negative emotions like hate, anger, resentment, and prejudice, go with fear.  Living a life with love brings friends, health, and happiness.  Living in fear brings separation, disease, sadness, and bitterness.  

Ascension Gateway quotes Alex Patterson as saying, “There are really only two emotions in the Physical Universe - those being LOVE and FEAR. All other emotions are just variations on these two primary states of emotion. LOVE is the emotion associated with a 'knowing' that everything in the Universe is an expression of a singularity (i.e. God) and is therefore interconnected, whereas FEAR is the emotion underlying the perception (i.e. illusion) of being separate from God.” 

There have been studies that showed when people either give, receive, or witness an act of kindness, their immune system is strengthened.  Kindness.com  has a list of the health benefits of kindness from the book The Healing Power of Doing Good written by Allan Luks and Peggy Payne.  Benefits include: stronger immune system, better weight control, pain reduction, better cardiovascular system, faster recovery from surgery, and reduction of stomach acid.