Letting Go Of Resentment (Stoic & Buddhist perspectives)

There's something special I would like to share with you today because very recently life taught me another lesson about resentment. Letting go of resentment is actually a lot easier than the mind makes us believe. I would like to share with you what I've learned, accompanied by a Stoic as well as a Buddhist perspective.

First of all, I want to thank Tim for supporting me on Patreon and Waseem for his generous PayPal donation and kind words. I appreciate it very much, guys. The Netherlands has been struck by a heatwave the last few days. Nevertheless, the current liveliness of nature is fantastic to spend time in.

For those who think that Ines L Ghana is some kind of enlightened being residing blissfully in eudaimonia somewhere in a forest shack, I have to disappoint you. Although I do my best to improve my life every day and share as much as I can about what I've learned, I'm still quite a regular guy with flaws and imperfections like most people have.

But no matter where you stand in life, what's most important is that you make progress. The Dutch have a saying which in English would go like this: pulling old cows out of the ditch. This saying includes a ditch and cows, probably because the Netherlands has many ditches and cows, but what it means is bringing up the past.

Now, sometimes we have to bring up the past. We might need the past to solve things in the present or plan for the future. But bringing up the past repeatedly and without good reasons becomes a destructive habit. One thing that often keeps people stuck in the past is resentment.

I've been grappling with feelings of resentment towards a few family members, which has everything to do with an ongoing family drama. Although I've been able to let go of these feelings temporarily, especially of the experiences associated with this resentment, they just kept coming back.

Sure, the Stoics say that we shouldn't worry about things beyond our control, but in some cases, situations require more than simply ignoring them. Resentment is something that we create ourselves because of the position we take towards things. It's grown out of aversion. Slowly but surely, we begin to create a story around this aversion about the past, how people wronged us, and how they will wrong us in the future.

Like Epictetus said, "It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgments concerning them." Being resentful, no matter how righteous, will not solve anything. It's like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. And even when that person dies, you're still poisoned. Thus, no good can come from walking around with a grudge like I have done.

The good thing about engaging in a philosophical journey, as well as the practice of meditation, is that I've become well aware of my feelings of resentment, what triggered them, and what exactly happened in my body because of them. This made it easier for me to let go eventually and not be too bothered by them.

But although I started to develop a more healthy detachment in regards to the whole situation, the resentment still came to the surface sometimes. Somehow my "I don't give a damn" attitude wasn't enough. The Buddhists have a mind hack that deals with resentment in a very effective and almost immediate way, which is called Metta, also known as loving-kindness.

Metta is the practice of loving all beings unconditionally. Love eliminates the most destructive qualities of human life, like hostility, anger, and basically the whole range of aversion. By Metta, I started cultivating a sense of compassion towards my family members, which helped me greatly to let go of my resentment.

Letting go of resentment doesn't have to mean that it completely disappears. Deep inside, resentment may still be there, but by letting go, we choose not to cling to it and not to follow it when it arises. Still, I had a lingering thought that something had to be done, so I started examining my ethics.

Although the Stoics and the Buddhists acknowledged the power of letting go and living in the moment, they also encouraged us to do the right thing. The old Stoics were great apostles of justice.