If you are interested in improving your attitude, psychology explains how to change feelings of resentment to positivity. Trading your resentful thoughts to a positive outlook has a sound scientific basis.
In the dark recesses of your brain, you have places where you lock away past negative emotions. Each time you have a terrible experience, it may turn into a resentment that you bury deep. Does that sound familiar?
When was the last time you rattled open the rusty lock of the hidden storage spaces of your mind to take inventory? As you rummage among the tattered boxes of burdening bitterness, do you even remember the offenses that caused it?
While it is reasonable to get angry at a person or negative situations, you needn’t let the emotions weigh you down forever. As you go through the stagnant collection of negativity, and the process of freeing yourself from bitterness, be kind to yourself. You didn’t get these emotions overnight, so disposing of them won’t be instantaneous.
Get Rid of the Resentment NOW
Maybe now is the time to open that menacing door in your mind and flood the room with the light of positivity. As the brightness dispels the resentful darkness of resentment and depression, it will be more comfortable, to be honest with yourself. In the end, storing away unforgiven offenses only destroys you, not the offender.
Sorting through the bitterness of your past may stir many feelings. When you can finally let go, you will feel revitalizing energy. The sooner you start getting rid of these negative emotions, the sooner you can know the freedom that positive emotions can offer.
A Scientific Approach to Positivity
While it may be easy to chalk up the power of positive thinking to pseudo-science, it’s not the case. For years, psychologists and other medical experts have studied the effects of positive and negative energy on the brain. They have noted how both ends of the spectrum influence our emotions.
Did you know that even animals are affected by negative energies? Studies have shown that even Cows won’t produce sufficient milk when they are under stress or have experienced negative things. Having traumatic experiences can affect both man and animals.
Most fascinating are the numerous studies that involve the high and low frequencies that surround us perpetually. They demonstrate a correlation between how these frequencies affect our moods. Positive thoughts tend to have higher vibrations, while negative ones are typical of a lower frequency.
It stands to reason that if you have years of penned-up rage and bitterness, it will lower your body’s cell vibrations. The results can be a distorted sense of reality and a rampage of negativity. It’s not surprising that repressed bitterness can destroy self-worth, relationships, and cause disease.
Scientists studied how people’s lives and health change when they replace resentment with a positive attitude. Countless studies with terminally ill patients suggest that those with a more positive outlook can live a little longer than those who are negative.
Clearing your emotional storage space requires honest work in your body, mind, and spirit. Nobody progresses at the same speed or copes with their baggage the same way. Here are some suggestions that can put you on the right path.
Approaching Your Emotional Storage Space
Who doesn’t have a junk drawer or spare closet that is bursting at the seams? You tell yourself that you will clean and organize the space someday, but someday never comes. The more you dread doing a chore, the easier it is to procrastinate.
Since your earliest childhood, you have stored events that affected you positively and negatively. Your brain processes these events and their accompanying emotions. Nobody enjoys feeling negative sensations, so you pack the hurts and offensives in a bleak closet of your subconscious.
The problem is that these resentful feelings don’t go away. Instead, they fester in your emotional storage space and cause rot and contamination to your soul. Sometimes, an event will happen in your life that triggers negative memories, and you will experience the raw emotions as if it were happening again.
Have you ever felt angry and gloomy, and didn’t know why? Maybe it is a day when everything is going well, and you should be happy. Stored negativity represses your spirit and will not allow you to experience joy when it’s right in front of you.
Procrastination and ignoring the issues will not make them disappear. Instead, resolve that you will tackle the resentful emotion and baggage crowding your mind. Approach the mental door with the keys of determination and self-compassion.
Tips for Replacing Resentment with Positivity
1. Taking the First Step Inside
You don’t need to make this monumental effort alone. Call on your spiritual strength, higher power, or the universe to be at your side. As the stagnant air rushes past you, imagine that you are confronting these harmful apparitions and watch them fade into oblivion.
Remember that nobody forces you to hold a grudge. If you cling to bitterness and unforgiveness, it is your choice. Today, you will see your emotional hoard for what it is, and you will work with your higher self to make positive changes.
2. Be Honest with Yourself
Confronting your past indignations isn’t easy. Often, we want to place the blame on others or our circumstances. When it comes to embracing resentful emotions, dare to point at yourself.
Look at your stored emotional baggage as if they belonged to someone else. Are there some grudges you continue to nurse that you have even forgotten the details of the offense? Have these negative feelings done more to harm you than be of benefit?
Honesty doesn’t mean that you must be self-loathing. Allow your higher power to envelope you in mercy as you sort through past bitterness. This liberating feeling makes room for positive emotions and healing.
3. Learn to Forgive and Resume Life
Apart from having a dementia disorder, humans can’t forgive personal offenses. The adage of forgiving and forgetting is a falsehood. It is much easier to store trespasses than it is to forgive them.
While sorting the rummage of your secret room, do you see decrepit boxes and containers labeled Unforgiven? Only you have the power to cling to this emotional trash and allow it to overcome your life with bitterness. You also have the ultimate power of forgiveness.
When you forgive an offense, you return the negative forces to the universe, which replaces them with positive ones. It’s not forgetting, nor is it letting the offender off the hook. Compassion is a powerful flame that disintegrates your bitterness and allows you to go on with your life.
Weed through your pile of resentful rubbish and see where your forgiveness and grace are needed. Unite with your higher power and finally forgive others and yourself. The positive lift you receive will empower you to tackle other latent issues in your life.
Open those putrid jars of wrath that you have painstakingly labeled with your blood and tears. Call on your higher self to help you release the long-stored anger, bitterness, and guilt and allow them to be swept away with a positive light.
4. Refreshing and Restoring Your Mind
Give yourself patience as you clear away the last of your emotional baggage. Open your soul’s windows and embrace the rays of positive energy. Allow mercy and understanding to wipe away years of grime, dust, and sediment that have suffocated your joy and dreams.
Just as you would clean out your junky garage, the key to cleaning your emotional storage space is to do it and keep it that way. Enjoy the satisfaction of clean, organized shelves of memories that uplift your positive nature. Let this be your soul’s sanctuary, and refuse to let it pile up again with bitter resentment.
Do you watch the home improvement reality shows? It’s fascinating how a few minor changes can create an entirely different room. Apply the same principles to your mind-clearing process.
If you allow a newly remodeled room to sit empty for too long, you risk the temptation of junking it up again. Replace the negative clutter in your soul space with positive splashes of emotion and joy. If a knickknack of bitterness tries to find a home on your shelves, throw it away.
5. Maintaining Your Soul Space
Bitterness is like leprosy as it gradually eats away at your soul until you die emotionally. And like the ancient disease, negativity is alarmingly contagious. Have you ever noticed that when you spend time around a negative person, you soon experience the same sour emotions?
During and after your process of eliminating negative power in your life, be selective of who influences you. If you discover that a relationship is toxic, don’t hesitate to part ways. Misery may love company, but you don’t have to offer it your time or energy.
Final Thoughts on Losing the Resentment and Enlisting Professional Help
If you find this process too overwhelming, and you are experiencing depression or anxiety, seek professional help. You may have traumatic events in your life that require a therapist to help you sort them out. Your mental health professional can use therapies and techniques that are right for you.
Bringing more positive light into your life takes determination. While you can’t change the past resentments or predict the future, you can control your attitude. You must trade negative feelings for positive ones. Not only will it make you a better person, but you will give you a happier life.