Resentment-

 

Daughters, 

I believe resentment ties in beautifully with my last letter to you both. When we are giving our all without limits or boundaries there will be most definitely resentment in its place. But there will also be times when you will find resentment after simply failed expectations in other people, and that’s what I want to touch on here. 

Brianna goes on to say, 

“When we resent people, it is often because they did not live up to the expectation of them that we had in our minds. 

Resentment in some ways is like a projected regret. Instead of trying to show us what we should change, it seems to want to tell us what other people should change. However, other people are under no obligation to live up to our ideas of them (and vice versa I might add). In fact, our only problem is that we have an unrealistic expectation that someone was meant to be exactly as we think they should or love us exactly as we imagined they would. 

When we are faced with resentment, what we instead must do is reinvent our image of those around us or those we have perceived as having wronged us. Other people are not here to love us perfectly; they are here to teach us lessons to show us how to love them- and OURSELVES- better. 

When we release the ideas we have about who they should be (or who we should be), we can see them for who they are and the role they are meant to play in our lives. Instead of focusing on how they should change, we can focus instead on what we can learn.” 

(Parentheses and emphasis are mine) 

Isn’t this just both beautiful and freeing?! 

My hope for you both is that you hang on to both of these quotes from Brianna, and give yourself permission to do and be everything she talked about. 

Resentment is real; and even in my best attempts at not feeling it, I’m learning that I can always learn from it and you can too,

Mom