This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1156.
Can't let it go?
Why you should look inward when you feel bitter.
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Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 50 million times.
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With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
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Today we get a great question from a listener.
What can you say when you're holding on to a lot of resentment?
The key to starting to heal is to be able to articulate it.
We'll show you how to do it today in English.
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Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Hey, Michelle, I'm doing well.
Over the weekend, I went to the zoo, and that was so fun.
So I love going to the zoo.
I love animals.
And we saw gibbon monkeys, we saw leopards, and we saw pelicans, and it was pretty cool.
That is fun.
That is fun.
I haven't been to the zoo in a long time.
You definitely should go to the zoo.
I mean, there's nothing better than going to the zoo and like a brewery.
That is the perfect date.
Zoo and brew.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think in like Colorado they have a brew at the zoo thing where they set up a brewery at the zoo for all the millennials right.
Yeah.
Yeah, really?
Oh my gosh, how funny.
Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, the zoo is great, though.
Definitely take your baby.
That's so fun.
And maybe your nephew.
That's so cool.
Yeah, that would be fun.
That would be a lot of fun.
Oh my gosh.
Good idea, Lindsay.
Okay.
Thank you.
So I have a question that's totally not about the zoo, not related to the zoo.
It's not related to the zoo.
So is it easy for you to forgive someone when they do something that upsets you?
Oh, that's a tough one.
Generally, I think I can let things rub off my shoulders unless it's something that really hurts me.
Then I could yeah, I could keep it in there and it could like rumble around in my heart and mind for a while.
And then I have to like meditate or go work out or work through it.
You know what I mean?
I have to do a lot of personal work to work through things sometimes.
Right.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I know.
It can be it can be so tough.
And we're going to get into into how you talk about those kinds of things today.
Because we have a question from Winnie Winnie us about, about when you know what to say in these situations.
So Lindsay, could you read the question for us?
Yeah, sure.
So she says I've been living in the US for more than eight years, but still I found your podcasts are super helpful.
Thank you, Lindsay and Michelle.
I have a question on how to express the feelings that someone doesn't treat you the way you expect it.
And after that happens, you just couldn't let it go and you think about it all the time.
I'm sure it happens to a lot of people.
At the same time, I wanna say that I especially love the podcast related to American culture, such as the episode on diners.
If you could do more episodes related to American culture and common idioms that you use every day, that would be fantastic.
Thank you again.
And nice Winnie, thank you.
That was a good episode.
Actually we have a whole course that talks about kind of American culture and takes you literally across not literally, but by video lesson across the United States.
And that's called the Connected Communicator.
You can check that out at allearsenglishcom.
Forward slash connection if you want more of those types of lessons.
Okay, awesome.
All right.
So this is a good question.
First of all I just want to say I mean Winnie, I'm not sure what happened, but I'm sorry that if you are going through something tough with someone, whatever it is, I hope it turns out okay in the end.
Yeah.
And I'm glad you're asking this.
I mean, this is kind of a personal thing here, right?
How we deal with these things.
But that's part of life and we need to be able to articulate it in English.
So good question.
That's so true.
I mean, people do go through this all the time.
And it's hard to get over it when someone mistreats you.
You know, so when it sounds like you're asking about a few different things.
So one, you're saying when somebody treats you how you didn't expect.
Not being able to forget it and thinking about it all the time.
So we could do, you know, a couple episodes on this, actually.
But we're going to focus on the on how to talk about when something happens and, you like, can't just forget it, right?
It's like, yeah, it's stuck.
Kind of, right?
And this is so bad for us, right?
Like emotionally speaking, it is so bad.
It's toxic to have something like this in our hearts for a long period of time.
So I feel like this episode is going to be so important for you guys to have the language to articulate and actually have the discussion with someone.
For sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
So we're going to get into that in a second.
But what do we want to remind our listeners to do, Lindsay?
Well, guys, just that every day on this show, you are learning great vocabulary and you're really...
If you have the transcripts, it really ups the game, right?
It ups the level because people with the transcripts are able to learn so much more, because they can actually read the words on the screen as they listen.
So a cool new way to get it is inside the app.
So give that a try.
Go over to allearsenglish.com forward slash bonuses.
Sign up for the free trial.
And then you're going to see those transcripts right on your iPhone screen as you listen.
How cool.
It's so cool.
We're really proud of it because it's a unique way to learn.
I haven't seen too many other language apps.
One student emailed me a Spanish app that does something similar, but I haven't seen too many other ESL apps that do it.
So pretty cool.
That's great.
That's great.
All right.
So, yeah.
So, like I said, so we're going to focus on this feeling of not being able to forget about something when somebody has mistreated you, right.
And we will do follow-ups on these other topics.
Questions really, because this is a very complex topic, right?
So we want to give each part of it our full attention, absolutely so.
A couple episodes that we've done before right michelle, or for example, 892 is one that we did.
That is does someone have it?
Does someone have it in for you?
I like that yeah, how to talk about grudges in english?
That's, that's one.
And then 301, why forgiving puts you on top, Right.
So those ones definitely reminded me of our topics today.
So guys, I think those would be really good to listen to.
Definitely.
Good one, Michelle.
I like it.
Okay.
So...
But first, before we get in, I said that we're going to focus on not being able to forget something.
But I got so excited about one term that I thought we just have to do it, even though maybe we could do it more in a follow up.
But what is that term, Lindsay?
That term is to be blindsided.
Ooh.
Oh, I feel like that's a good one.
So this is going along with the something that you didn't expect someone to do.
Right, Lindsay?
Yeah, completely.
So you always hear the stories of like some dramatic breakup where someone finds out that someone was cheating after like five years crazy things like that.
Right.
So, for example, she blindsided me when she didn't invite me to her wedding.
She surprised me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Surprise.
Yeah.
I think it's mostly thought of in a negative way.
Like I wouldn't say like, oh, she blindsided me when she threw me a surprise party.
Yeah.
I think it's mostly a negative thing.
Yeah, so it's kind of like, wow, I didn't expect that.
So that's one word that is really good for that situation.
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Thanks, guys.
Yeah.
Speaking of surprise parties, we pulled off our surprise party last Tuesday for our friends who were married in Barcelona and they just they never really had a wedding in the US.
So we surprised them.
They thought they were coming to our house for dinner and all of a sudden they walked in and they were, like you know, 25 people in the room.
It was so much fun.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
I want to hear more about that.
Yeah, it was really cool.
Actually, we rent is so weird.
So there's this app called Peerspace.
And we actually rented.
This is kind of strange, but we rented someone's apartment, literally someone's apartment, because they had a lot of space in their apartment.
And we held the party at that person's apartment.
Wow.
Yeah, it's kind of like Airbnb to rent your space, not necessarily overnight, just for a span of time, a few hours.
And we went in, we set up the balloons and the cake and then someone drove them and they had no idea.
I could tell when they were walking in the door.
They had no inkling that they were going to be surprised.
Yeah um, and then all of a sudden they open the door and you know, just like a surprise party, it's just fun.
Wow okay, that is awesome.
Yeah, it was really fun, that's great.
That's great.
Um well, i like this topic.
I'm so happy, but unfortunately we're getting back into this kind of uh, just a side point, just yeah no, i had Um no, I mean, this is an important.
You know guys, you know, expressing yourself in English isn't always about happy things, right?
So I think this is such a good question because, you know, it's truth.
Like, this is life.
So how, what can you say when you just can't forget something, somebody did you know and you can't let it go right?
Okay.
Yeah.
So one thing you could say, for example, is...
You can't let it go.
I mean there's no.
I put this in here, even though we've said it 100 times, because we've been saying it and it's just perfect.
Like yeah, if you, if you are just can't forget something.
It's going like bouncing around Lindsay, so like rumbling around, right.
Yeah.
It's such a great way to say this.
So this is actually I think our listener actually said can't let it go.
But I wanted to bring this up because I think it's a great one.
So, for example, you could say, like, I know you're sorry, but I can't let it go that easily.
Right, Lindsay?
Yeah.
It's also very kind of idiomatic, kind of natural.
It's not boring at all.
It's a good, and if you're speaking to a native speaker, they're going to understand exactly what you mean.
Right, right.
So that one kind of just rolls off my tongue.
So I had to give a shout out to that one because I like it.
Okay.
I like it.
I like it.
And then maybe the next one, for example, is to resent.
So this one's a little more formal, a little different.
It's a little bit different.
It may not be like bouncing around in you, but it's like...
You have a bad feeling because of something.
So in that sense, it's like it sticks with you, right?
Yes, toxic.
Wow.
So here's an example.
She's a nice woman, but I honestly resent her because of that time.
She yelled at me in front of my coworker.
It was so embarrassing.
Ooh.
Okay.
I don't know.
I feel like when we hold on to things, it hurts us more than it hurts the other person.
Yeah, I was going to add that, definitely.
I mean, I've definitely been in situations where you know something goes wrong with a friend for a little while and you know you build up.
It's painful and it's stressful to carry that around with you.
And so, you know, when I've ended the situation and like made up with the person, then it's like oh, it's just like a load off your shoulders, right.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And you know, sometimes it's like coming to an agreement with yourself.
It's more about your own, about yourself, your self-work, than saying this person did this to me.
But it is okay and I am a strong person and it is okay and I can move on, you know.
So Right right, right.
Okay, what's another one, Michelle?
Is there another thing we can say?
Yeah, another thing you could say is you could use the word bitter.
Yeah.
So the other day we did bittersweet.
Today we're doing bitter.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
That's true.
But this is totally different, right?
Exactly.
So yeah, so this is just to have this like feeling like all the time of like anger or hurt or just being upset with someone.
Right, Lindsay?
Yeah.
And I know there is in like, for example, in Spanish, I know there's a direct translation for this.
And yeah, for sure.
It's a lingering feeling of animosity, negative, feeling hurt or feeling angry.
It's kind of a low lying hum of anger below the surface.
Right, right, right.
So you could say like I'm still bitter because he never paid me the rent he borrowed from me, right?
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
That would be bad.
Yeah, really.
Money is probably the number one thing that leads to bitterness.
That's, yeah, very likely.
Very likely, Lindsay.
So yeah, I mean Michelle, do you have any other thoughts to add about just kind of like letting it go?
I just wanted to, you know, it's what we were saying before.
I think that carrying around anger and hurt is just stressful and not worth it.
And you may like.
The thing is, when you carry those feelings, the other person can't feel it right.
So if you're upset with someone and you're carrying it around with you every day and you're thinking about it a lot, it's like the other person doesn't know you're thinking about it that much.
So you're not hurting them.
You're only hurting yourself.
Exactly.
So it's kind of forgiveness that we're talking about here, right?
It's an inside job, as they say.
It's inside work.
It's like inner work.
It's not about that person.
It's not about finding that person and saying, I forgive you.
It's okay.
No, it's about working with yourself and going inward.
Right, right, right.
And you know again, just you know expressing ourselves, though it kind of maybe you know talking about and using some of these words can actually help heal.
If you just like say it, you know, then you can be like, okay, this is what's happening.
I'm identifying that there's this problem.
I'm saying, oh, I can't let it go or I resent.
And when you start to hear yourself saying those words, you might be like, wait a second.
Like, yes, this is not healthy for me.
Right.
Exactly.
So it's kind of the first step is articulating what's going on in English.
Let's say you have a therapist, for example, and it's in native English.
Then you're going to need these words to articulate what's really happening for you.
Okay, yeah.
So, Lindsay, we're going to do a role play to try these out.
So, I'm telling you about how I felt when I had an argument with my friend, okay?
Okay.
Okay.
So are you going to make up?
I don't know.
I still resent her for saying all of those things.
I can't let it go.
Well, I think you should try not to be bitter, even though she did blindside you when she thought you were best friends.
When you thought you were best friends, it's only hurting you in the end.
You're right.
Okay.
That was a quickie.
But yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, so here we go.
I said, I resent her.
I can't let it go.
And then what did you say, Linda?
Well, I said, you should try not to be bitter, even though she did.
So here we did an episode last.
I know that's what I was thinking.
Yeah, our listeners that are just really dedicated listeners are probably catching up, picking up on this right now.
I'm saying, even though she did blindside you when you thought you were best friends, guys go back and look for the episode on using did, with emphasis, to understand what we're talking about here.
But, you know, here I'm emphasizing she did do it as opposed to she didn't do it right.
She did blindside you.
Okay, so that's really interesting, but that's for a different episode that we already did.
We did do that episode.
We did.
Okay, good.
So yeah, you know the takeaway for today.
I guess you know it's just learning how to express yourself and kind of like listening to yourself speak.
And if you're hearing these kinds of words, trying to take a deep breath and let let go, even if you say you can't.
Right.
Yeah.
And having the words which we've given you today are the first step to articulating it and kind of that first step to reaching that forgiveness in our own hearts is to know how to express what's going on.
So for sure, for sure.
Well, this was a great question.
And yeah, we can we can do a lot on this.
So thank you for writing in about that.
Exactly.
Thanks to our listener.
And guys remember.
One last note if you're taking IELTS, go over and subscribe to the IELTS Energy podcast.
All right.
Okay, we're out here for today, Michelle.
I'll talk to you soon.
Bye, guys.
Okay, bye.
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