How have you gotten past resentment towards someone?

The best way I have found to get past resentment is to write down what my part is in it. Why am I resentful? What damage did it do to me and why did I let that happen? What was my part in it?

Sharing anything a bout a resentment with the other person is flat out wrong and only escalates the division. And as we say in AA, holding a resentment is allowing somebody to live in your mind rent free.

You can nurse a resentment for years and the other person may have absolutely no awareness of your resentment or memory of what ever caused it.

Yep, gotta examine your OWN contributions. Resentment is usually based on assumptions about how others should behave, and often it also has to do with you doing, giving more than you want to with an expectation of some sort of payback, praise, acknowledgment. If you are doing, giving, more than is asked for that is your own problem.
One cannot be resentful if they take full responsibility for their own actions.

If someone is mistreating you, taking advantage of you and you allow it, that is your problem.
It also helps to live with this mantra….

” If you had the same background and level of consciousness as the other you would be exactly the same way.”
Unconscious ( meaning not self aware ) people act on rote programming not conscious choice over their behavior.
Don’t “should” on yourself, nor others.

Time has always helped me the most.

Look out, marinelife !! Look out for the “thwap” !!!

Nah, I can’t thwap @marinelife. She’s just being her own honest self. Plus, she has helped me before, so all I can do is chuckle about her braving the potential thwap. :-)

It’s such as waste of time. I suggest getting involved in something useful could help.

I am with @YARNLADY
When you find yourself indulging in negative emotions, like resentment, jealousy, envy etc. you should divert your attention to something constructive, like exercise for example.
Entertaining destructive feelings are quick and sure way to an unhappy (and probably shorter) life.

What great timing for this question. I have recently gotten over an older resentment. I usually don’t resent people, but there are a handful and those are hard to give up.

I have no idea how I did it. Maybe it was a combination of things. Meditating, exercise, talking about it constructively with the person, letting mself be heard even though I felt I already knew their side.

Allowing myself to be angry about it. I was just simmering under the surface. I always knew there were wrongs on both sides and it was a perception thing…. So I never really allowed my anger and hurt to manifest. It wasn’t dramatic I just expressed it..

Then took a few days to regroup doing creative projects and spending time being good to myself.

What a load off. : )

Resentment grows from the frustration of not being able to resolve things the way I would want. So, to put myself in control of the situation I have to look at what I believe I’m owed and choose to give that up. The person no longer owes me because of a decision I made; I’m not being slighted because it was my choice. Forgiving a debt is much easier than forgiving a person, and it becomes easier when you no longer feel you are owed something.

I’ve gotten over things by dreaming about them. It usually starts off with me yelling at them. Releasing any anger I might have. Then we talk.

Long, drawn out, deeply honest conversations. Sometimes this happens over the course of years.

You might wonder why I don’t choose to do this with them in real life. Besides the obvious time constraints, these are toxic people. Any possible resolution we might come to isn’t worth letting them back into my life.

Oops, sorry I didn’t read the thwap threat before I posted that. I wrote that because it has been true for me. When I became very disillusioned with my mother’s behavior as she aged to the point where after spending several weeks taking care of her with no gratitude I felt that I didn’t love her anymore, it was only distance and time (almost a year before I could see he behavior in some kind of perspective and make peace with it and my feelings for her.

For a long-standing resentment I usually take an honest look at how or if it affects my life now. It usually doesn’t. Realizing that makes it easier to let go.

Over time, I can turn the resentment into acceptance with the understanding that the characteristics that annoy me are something the annoying person has to live with. I don’t. Acceptance takes over at best; pity, at least.

When I realize I am powerless over people, places and situations. That helps.

I also visualize good things happening to them.

I’m with @marinelife. Time. Many of the suggestions mentioned here are very useful, but for me it is usually after time has passed and the initial anger and hurt has subsided enough for me to look at the situation with a more critical eye, then I can move on and let go of any residual resentment. Even if I still feel the person was out-of-order, I can let the pain they may have caused go and with it, any resentment.

I have embraced Self-Loathing. It helps me forgive others for shitting on my life.

My general policy is typically to give someone maybe two dozen chances to stop behaving in a self-centered, scheming, spiteful, sneaky, unethical, whiny, shit-stirring way. After about 24 “second chances”, these people are “fired” from my life forever.

No “getting over” resentment, personal ‘healing’ discussions (for the 601st time), reasonable doubt, bygones-be-bygones, “OH….she’s really CHANGED this time”, or “Oh, you know how he can be sometimes….”

With no emotion or anger from me, and no further stress accepted from you….

You suck, I’m done, and you…are…OUT.

^^^ Well said, and I concur 100%.

Sure. Now don’t get me wrong, this is not because I am a caring or forgiving person. I know how to hate very well, and am as war oriented as the next fucker out there. Thing is, I’m just real lazy, and I really can’t quite give a fuck. Just don’t rape my cats.

Interesting answers thus far! For those who mentioned examining your own role, how would you apply that in a situation like child abuse or neglect? No, I didn’t suffer that. I’m merely asking.

Obviously a child who is abused or neglected is not complicit in their own neglect or abuse. The responsibility lies with the perpetrator. The only way the victim can examine their own role is by evaluating their reaction then and later, and how the abuse has affected their life after the abuse. The evaluation may relate to accepting why they didn’t seek help, or report the abuser and dealing with any residual guilt that remains. If their life has been negatively affected by the abuse, and they haven’t done anything to confront and deal with this, that could also be an area for self-reflection.

A very close relative of mine was sexually abused by a relative. Sadly, I feel she allowed this abuse as a child to ruin her life as an adult. She wouldn’t have counselling and speak about it with someone who could help her. She maintained a close (not physical) relationship with her abuser. I think she blamed herself rather than him. In this case, I do think confronting the damage to her adult life might have helped her to have had a better life. There does come a point when we are responsible for our own actions and reactions and for how those actions/reactions affect the rest of our life.

@tedibear I think resentment has more to do with a slight from someone, not from a major injury like abuse. The feelings of a victim of abuse are at a much deeper level than resentment, and are not an ego-based idea of someone not soothing your feelings.

I don’t know about that @zenvelo. There may be a complex mix of feelings but resentment is very likely to be one of the feelings.

I don’t get over it. I feel it less as the situation gets further in my past, but I tend to hold on to resentments.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s what keeps me from making the same mistake again.

Iam too busy planning longterm goals to subject my self to dwell in old past hurts.
The past is gone, the present is here, and the future is coming.

Realized that I did what I could at the time with the limited resources that I had.
One can do no more than what resources were available at the time.

I got sucker punched in the face one time and I still haven’t gotten over it..childish really, but it still bothers me.