If you haven’t read Part 1, start here..
Recognizing that I had unintentionally become the archetypal angry, bitter, resentful discarded woman that none of us ever want to be, I resolved to do something about it.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to do, but without realizing it, I already had done something about it. I had put myself on a “time out”, interrupting the steady source of fuel that stoked the flames of my bitterness and resentment when I went to church and exposed myself to the people that had unknowingly gotten under my skin week after week. By changing to a congregation where I didn’t know anyone and the demographic was so different, leaving me very few people to compare myself to, I got a break from being around the people that had made me feel “less than” in my “less than ideal” family situation. No one in my new faith community really knew anything about me, so they welcomed me with warmth and without judgement.
I took my “time out” further, and completely removed myself from social media for several months so that I wouldn’t have to feel “less than” looking at everyone’s “perfect family highlight reel”. I just didn’t need that when I was struggling so much with focusing on what I DIDN’T have.
I started to feel better almost immediately, but I knew I had more work to do. I was holding grudges against many individuals for specific hurts and harms leveled against myself and my children. I knew that if I was ever to get any peace, and freedom the anger and bitterness, I needed to find a way to let these things go, to forgive and move on.
I turned to journaling. I started out by making a list of all the people that had tried to help me and my children since my first husband had abandoned and betrayed me. Then, I made a list of all the people that had done or said hurtful things to myself or my children during the same time period. I needed to see that the list of those that had offered us compassion and caring was much longer than the list of those that had behaved with insensitivity and judgement.
Next, I began to write down, for each of the people on the “hurtful” list I’d made, every gritty detail of how they had harmed myself or my children. I wrote down what they had done, how it made me feel and why I was so angry at them for how they had caused harm. It helped to really think through and get down in words, exactly how their actions had made me feel.
This took several months, not because there were so many people or so many hurtful incidents, but because it was painful work, and these were long journal entries. I struggle to find enough time in my day to write, and so usually, I didn’t do these journal entries until I found myself up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, ruminating on some of these negative interactions and memories. My sleepless nights were the perfect time to write.
As I wrote, I instinctively began to understand that the only way to let go of the harm others had caused me, so that I could forgive, and find peace, was to see myself in their actions. I needed to understand that I was just as capable of harming others in a similar way. I needed to see their humanity and that I’m just like them. I needed to think of a time that I HAD harmed someone else in the same way.
This is Shadow Work. Shadow Work, conceptualized first by psychoanalyst Carl Jung, is all about focusing on our “shadow self”, so that we can get to know our own hidden self – the part we don’t want to see.
And lucky me, I found my shadow self in every single hurtful interaction I was holding onto with anger and resentment. In every case, I could think back on my life to a time when I had perpetrated a similar harm on someone else in judgement, condescension and criticism.
These realizations were powerful, cathartic and healing. One-by-one, each person that had done or said hurtful things, were transformed in front of me on the pages of my journal, and I was able to see them through a different set of eyes. Eyes of understanding and grace. It’s not that what they had done or said was no longer wrong, but that I was just as wrong in all the same ways that they were. I understood that I could forgive because I’m just like them, and I also hope that others will look past my flaws and understand that when I step on the toes of those around me, I too am doing my best as I fumble along in life. If I want grace, I have to give it.
After these journaling activities, I happened to hear someone (I wish I could remember who, sorry) say in a podcast that the antidote to resentment is gratitude, and I realized that I had long ago fallen out of the habit of listing 5 things every day in my journal that I’m grateful for. I used to also habitually think upon waking, “I have everything I need in this moment.” I’d had some good habits around keeping myself cognizant and aware of how great my life really was, despite the losses and re-directions. Somewhere along the way, I’d lost track of how much those good habits were doing for me. So, I picked those up again. And by the time I re-joined the social world, I was on my way to feeling gratitude and peace for the beautiful life I have instead of comparing my life to others and allowing their missteps to result in my own resentment, anger and bitterness.
What a relief to get off that crazy runaway train.
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