My name's George and I edit the Imperfects.
I grew up on Ngunnawal Country, studied on Bundjalung Country, and am now living and working on Wurundjeri Country.
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I have a choice as to whether I move into forgiveness or not, but what I want to be very clear about is that forgiveness is not excusing poor behaviour, it's not letting other person off the hook, and it does not require reconciliation.
And I think that feels really important to acknowledge in there that when we're talking about forgiveness, we're not talking about necessarily continuing a relationship with that person.
Quick, is anyone here a doctor?
Yes, her name is Dr.
Emily and she's a psychologist.
Please welcome to the Imperfects our very own psychologist.
Dr. M is back and so exciting to see you.
It's wonderful. I would say your smile is usually 10 out of 10 big.
It's 11 today. Is there a reason you're extra smiley today?
I'm just very happy to be here.
Yeah, yeah. Good answer.
I'm very happy you're here and I love your t -shirt.
Thank you. It's French.
Is it French? Inspired?
It may be. It's French inspired.
Yes, of course. Yes.
I only ask because it's a black and white striped t -shirt which just screams French.
I mean, short of you wearing a t -shirt that says Croissant.
This is the next best thing to being a French t -shirt.
Did you speak French?
Oui. He said shaking his head.
It's quite funny. It wasn't that bad.
Was it? Quite, quite.
So for those who don't know, maybe new to the podcast, Dr.
Emily is our resident psychologist.
She comes in once a month or there abouts and brings in a topic which is connected to an old episode of ours where you'll replay a moment and expand on it in a clinical way.
I have to say I'm like totally naked today as far as not literally, obviously.
Fair enough. And I have to say I'm totally naked today.
Let's start the episode.
I have clothes on. Metaphorically though, like I usually know what we usually get a heads up on what you talk about.
I just realised I'm knowledge naked.
So I really would like to talk about resentment and its associated part being forgiveness or forgiving.
Oh, it's kind of get almost like it makes me nervous to talk about resentment for some reason.
Well, I feel like the second you said resentment, people, wherever they're listening in their cars at home, whenever it is, are thinking a person potentially maybe came to mind or a situation came to mind of like, yeah, I'd resent this person for this.
And I wonder if they're, I'm not stealing any thunder of yours here, but I wonder how long that resentment has been there for.
That's a really good way to start.
Oh, thank you. I think, yeah, I think it really genuinely, genuinely really kind of frames the reason why I want to talk about it.
Not quite a good way to start.
That's what I was thinking.
Not to be resentful.
Yes, it is a good way to start.
And that is to really hold this in mind around the cost of this feeling of holding onto this feeling in particular.
So I'll go into what it looks like, its function, and then look at its cost and then what we do with it.
And what I wanted to do is to bring in obviously a previous episode.
And normally I would bring in a previous episode of a guest that has been either in like the original format or the vulnerability house, but it's with great joy and pleasure that I turn back to Sean Ternell's episodes.
This is just an excuse to listen to Sean again.
I know. I think you guys probably know he, he was one of my most favorite episodes that you've done.
And so for those that don't remember or know Sean Ternell was, he's a and then later went on to marry me.
I don't remember that part of the story.
Oh, I know you said at the start, you'd like to marry him.
Yeah. Oh yeah. So you did get married.
Yeah, we did. Sorry, I didn't invite you guys.
Sean didn't want you there.
No, I didn't marry him.
I just got to get some clarifications out of the way.
Ryan is quite funny.
Weirdly that's the only one I believe.
It's okay. So Sean Ternell and Academy of Imperfection from the, from this year.
And I mean, there was so much in there.
When I was listening to it, genuinely I was like, and this and this.
I was like, this is amazing.
But there was a particular part in there that really resonated around resentment and also the notion of compassionate, consideration and forgiveness.
I mean of the highest level, potentially.
Yes, I think so. Yeah.
Wow. So I thought I might play that now.
You seem to be speaking with incredible generosity about the prison staff and guards and the people who were, whose job it was to keep you locked up and sometimes hit you and all that.
Because it seems like you've got incredible kindness towards them.
Is that accurate or is there resentment or anger?
Have you ever thought about the way you need to think about these people?
So all of that. So I did feel incredible resentment and anger towards them and towards their weakness and cowardice, which was the way I saw it because for the most part, they weren't saddest or anything.
They weren't in this game because of some innate evil or anything like that.
This was their job and they were doing that job.
But I did feel resentment towards them in a sense that they were accepting the money of this regime that was murdering people and all that.
Other people were resisting that regime and yet they were taking the money, et cetera, to do this.
So yeah, certainly resentment, even hatred to some of them came from that.
But then would come a degree of understanding as well.
So the rational brain will kick in and think, well, okay, Myanmar is an immensely poor place.
These guys, and they were all guys, have few options that had almost no education to speak of.
There's not much formal sector employment.
People are immensely poor.
Even as prison guards, their pay was shockingly low.
And in fact, some of them were so poor, even though they were employed at least, that they didn't actually have homes and they lived in the prison themselves in sort of like areas that were set aside for the guards to sort of make little humpies for them to leave.
So their own personal circumstances were pretty dire.
And I realized even then, you know, I was sort of their prisoner, but I thought, you know, I've actually got more options than they have.
Even once the food started to be delivered, I actually had better food than they had.
Wow, it is really, it's like maximum level empathy.
Isn't it? Unbelievable.
What a legend. Yeah.
And I think, I mean, that is obviously an extreme example.
And there is much to his story that is obviously not a normal experience, but the way in which he related to the feelings, I think we can learn so much from.
And, you know, of course, like resentment showed up there.
And I do want to mention at the start of this, that whenever we're talking about an emotion, it is never about not having them or getting rid of them.
These are normal human experiences.
These emotions rise up, and they're information for us.
The biggest question in there is what do we do when we notice that they're here and how do we relate to those unpleasant feelings?
So anything that I'm saying here today is not about demonizing the emotion of resentment, but rather how we can work with it in a way that might be a little bit more helpful for us.
So I think it'll be useful to start off with kind of defining in some ways what it is.
Um, what resentment is.
Yes. Yeah. And it, I want to start off with like the etymology or the, the origins of the word from the Latin and the French, it refers to this idea of to feel again.
And it really like that definition or the origins of that word really highlight maybe one of the key features of the feeling of resentment.
And that is that we continue to feel the same feeling of hurt, anger, disappointment, envy, jealousy again and again.
So it's as though that original pain is kept alive through this feeling of resentment.
For me, it feels like it, um, like a, um, like in a cartoon when a, uh, snowball is rolling down a, yeah, down a mountain.
It also picks up all the other resentments that I've had along the way and grows and grows, picking up all the other times that I failed in to stand up for myself or whatever it is.
And yeah, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Yeah, I think that's really spot on.
And I think a lot of people resonate with this feeling that it's not just the one kind of arrow that hurts.
It's like then this multitude of a history of experiences with a similar injustice, for example, or an unfairness or a jealousy.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's like a repeating or lingering negative emotion that leads to resentment.
Unhelpful emotion, General?
Well, it's helpful.
It is a helpful emotion and I'll tell you why because it's instructive.
So resentment usually arises as a result of some kind of feeling of injustice, unfairness, a feeling of being hurt or disappointed or a feeling of being envious.
And what often gets in the way is that those feelings that we have in response to someone else's behaviors and actions or inaction, our feelings are often not expressed.
And it's as though we've lost the moment to be able to actively express a feeling of anger, irritation, frustration at that injustice that has occurred.
And so instead of us speaking up, we hold it internally and then we rehash it again and again and again.
So someone cuts you off in the traffic, you're driving down the freeway and you are just fused with thoughts of anger and irritation and like, how dare this person do this?
And so it's even though that event has passed, we then could drive for the next half an hour in a full blown state of fight or flight, rehearsing, ruminating, going over again and again this same experience.
Yep. Until you can somehow stop it.
But it doesn't seem like it's something that you should just stop though.
Or I mean, obviously you want to stop it, you don't want to be resentful, but it doesn't.
I'm getting a sense that there isn't like a magic kind of thing.
You go like, Oh, I just actually had to do this and then it'll stop the resentment.
Because you mentioned forgiveness.
Yes. So my imagine forgiveness is a part of it.
It is, it is certainly and compassion and ideas around letting go.
Absolutely. But, you know, I really want to emphasize that it's, it's extremely normal.
And often we don't, and I've spoken about this in the context of truth first harmony, you know, frequently, is that so often in moments when we experience feelings of hurt or disappointment, we don't speak up and we hold it in.
But the holding in.
And we hold it in to maintain harmony.
Yes. So, I mean, this happens in so many different contexts.
In a work context, someone asks you to do something and you say yes, even though you don't have time or capacity to do it.
And then in the next weeks, months, you feel extremely resentful about the fact that this person asked you to do this.
Yeah. But we said yes.
And that person has no idea that I'm sitting with all of this discomfort here.
Yeah. Something that frustrates me is that I I'm not very good with conflict and I have people in my life who are good at it.
And I find that they will do something that I get to me or like, ask something of me or put me in a position that I feel resentful for.
And I'm not able to push back straight away.
It builds a bit. And then I push back maybe in a length of time that is a little longer.
So if it was like a message thread, for example, it might be like a day later with too much annoyance.
And then suddenly they can ridicule you as well on top of the resentment, which reinforces that.
Yeah, exactly. When you're like, but you're you're the one who did the wrong thing and you're only getting away because you're better at conflict than me, not because you're right or wrong.
Yeah. So interesting.
And I think it also highlights a little bit.
I'm getting a little bit worked up here.
This is like interesting how you can notice, like, if you bring to mind now, even in this moment, like noticing an old hurt or an old, like any experiences where it feels like something has been violated for you, you can conjure up this feeling as though it is happening right now.
It is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So the fact that we can conjure this, even though that event has passed, I mean, speaks obviously to the power of the mind, but it also speaks to the stress response that's occurring as a result of reliving the injustice or the violation or the hurt.
So broadly speaking, if we look at the physiological costs of sitting in resentment or holding grudges, that has a big toll on the body's functioning.
You can. It's almost that you can feel it in your, it's in your stomach.
Yeah. It's like, it's like churning.
It's like, it's like there's like a person like pacing up and down in your stomach, just shaking their head.
Like, oh God. That's what it feels like.
Yeah. It's named Roger.
And he ain't happy.
Yeah. And he's, he's asking you to pay attention to it.
And so if we just look at first of all, okay, so what are the costs of being in the stress response?
The constant and chronic activation of the stress response leads us to have a really vulnerable immune system.
So I mean, there's quite a bit of research around this, around the physiological costs of holding onto anger and holding onto resentment and grudges in that it actually physically will cause us harm.
So there's links to, you know, things like really significant illness, cancer, heart disease, and earlier mortality because physiologically speaking, holding onto this feeling is as though there is an internal threat happening.
The body must pay attention to it, which makes the immune system sit there open, exposed, and vulnerable.
Gosh. The other thing that it does when we, when we experience and hold tightly onto resentment is that it often primes us to notice and predict other experiences of hurt, disappointment.
So it's almost as though it generalizes.
So we start to be more vigilant to the perceived negative intentions of other people.
So let's just say, you know, you have a, maybe you have a conflict with your partner at home.
So you're holding all this kind of, you know, really unpleasant stuff in the body.
The mind's really active kind of going over and over again, the things that you should have said, could have said all that stuff.
And then you get into work and you get an email and maybe this email on the surface is really benign.
Would we be able to shift the submission date for this?
And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just another thing.
Roger has lost. Roger's thrown his coffee into the wall.
And so it starts to, and Josh, you alluded to this before this kind of snowballing.
So we start to expect and predict poor intentions from other people.
And almost looking out for it.
I also, I'm sure this is a very common experience for people.
And it's one of the reasons I've tried to get rid of social media is that when I'm in that state, I'll go, well, I want to numb the emotion.
So I'll get my phone out and scroll through social media, but then go, oh, look at this as life and assuming the worst possible intention or motivation or behavior.
All the news. Which then builds it and builds it and builds it.
Because there's no shortage of things to get annoyed about on the internet.
Exactly. So it's as though it's like a lens through which we look at the world.
And that lens is one of almost wrongdoing and unfairness.
I just hope that the people in charge of these social media companies don't know that that's what you're doing.
I just hope they know that's happening.
Yeah. I think if they knew that stop, you would imagine.
I assume so. They mustn't know.
They'd shut it down.
They'd shut the whole thing.
Or they'd change how it works in some way.
Yeah. To be more uplifting and.
Yeah. To create a more positive environment.
They're so great. Well, I hope they listen to this.
Me too. So if we look at like, so why do we have this emotion?
And there's obviously all these really unpleasant outcomes as a result of it.
So there is a really important function to resentment, and it is because it's protective.
So someone hurts us.
And in some ways the reason we hold on to this, or we rehash it, or we kind of stay really hooked and fused with this kind of memory of it, is that it's in an effort to protect me from future harm.
Or to somehow make sure that this same thing doesn't happen again.
To ensure that this person that's caused me harm never does it again.
And if I hold on tightly to this, I'm closed to them kind of getting into my life in some way.
Does that make sense?
It makes sense. But to me, maybe you're going to say this to me, it's had the opposite effect in that I'm thinking of someone in particular I'm trying to make.
I hope there's no way some people can identify them.
Someone in my life who - Let's call him Bach Tuckerberg.
Yeah. So I've known Bach for a long time, and Bach has a real ability to get under my skin.
And many times over my life have had resentment.
But now I'm so anticipatory of Bach getting under my skin that I'll go into a thing with pre -built resentment.
And so it's impossible for me to react in the way that I want to, given an attempt to get under my skin.
It's like an armour.
Yeah, that's there.
And it doesn't serve it.
It doesn't serve to the point that I can't actually function properly.
Yeah. Does that make sense?
Yeah, that's a really great example.
Does that kind of - Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, if we think about the opposite then, so if I let go of this feeling, then I might feel really vulnerable, or I might be vulnerable to this person hurting me again.
And so we hold on tightly in an effort to ensure in some ways, helpfully or not, that I remain as safe as possible.
But ultimately we know that this has a really significant cost to our sense of wellbeing and also to our relationships more broadly speaking as well.
The other thing you mentioned early in terms of like a certain emotion that is attached to resentment is envy.
How is that? Because I really relate to, as I'm sure we all can in certain degrees, but that feeling of envy, and then in my experience, my envy for other people goes down, the better my wellbeing is.
And the more fulfilled that I am within myself.
Like if I'm in a good place, I don't envy people that much.
But if I'm in like a place where I'm not that fulfilled and I don't feel good, that's when I'm envying, resenting, et cetera.
I think that's really spot on.
Renee Brown actually classifies resentment within the envy family more so than the anger family, which I think is really interesting conceptualization.
And she gives the example of the idea that, let's just say in a partnership, your partner or a friend, really anybody, they go away for the weekend and you feel really pissed off about it.
Like really, really annoyed because I'm at home and I'm taking care of the kids or I'm taking care of the house or doing all the things.
Now, if we unpack that, I'm really envious that you're going away when I am so exhausted.
I would like to be doing that.
And I am so exhausted.
It's not that I'm angry at you per se.
It's an envy of the fact that I am so exhausted and I would like to be doing that too.
But does it sometimes lead to an envy of the person who's going away because of the way that they are when they're away?
So if they're like, you know, sharing, you know, they're putting lots of photos up of how perfect their holiday house is or whatever.
And your reality is so far from going away to a holiday house or wherever.
I kind of sense that the less humble that person is about their experience, the more envious I feel.
Yeah, I think that could be really like a very true experience, absolutely.
And I think if you were feeling really well and happy and nourished and fulfilled at home, that would not have the same impact.
Totally. So it comes from a place of almost like a feeling of deficit in your own experience, like whether there's an exhaustion or a sadness or whatever might be there.
But do you often, is it fair to say that people will, because that like from an objective point of view, to kind of like step away from yourself and look at yourself, look at the situation and go like, oh, that's why I'm feeling resentment.
But when you're in the thick of it and you're not thinking objectively, and you're just fully like, loathing, you're loathing, it's obviously much harder to kind of step back and go like, oh, that's why.
You know, it's just like, fuck them.
Yeah, and I'll come back to how we work with that.
Definitely. I think at this point, also, I just would like to just acknowledge or not acknowledge, just talk about relationship, resentment within relationships.
I feel like, so if you're listening to this, it's because Penny has given me the ochre to leave this bit in.
But so when Penny and I first met, I was solely doing the resilience project.
I was talking about four or five talks a day and I was exhausted and I knew it wouldn't be forever.
And I said to her when we first met, I love the idea of being a stay at home dad.
I would just love to do that.
When I was in New York, back in 2013, I saw a guy lying under the Brooklyn Bridge at a park with two twins crawling over him.
And I thought, I want to do that forever.
That's the greatest thing I've ever seen.
Not understanding how hard it would have been to get them to the park in the first place and how hard it would have been to get them home.
And the fact that you couldn't sleep the night before.
Yeah, I was like, I want twins to crawl over me in a park.
And that's what I think parenting is going to be.
So I'll do that. And Penny, very career driven and so intelligent as everyone knows.
And has so much great stuff to offer the world.
And so she was very excited about it and said, I would love to have a career.
And I said, well, I would love to stay at home with kids.
And then as things progressed, the podcast started and we started having incredible opportunities to do great stuff.
I got a realistic look at what parenting is actually about.
And it's not about cuddling at the park with twins.
And I think fair enough, what I wanted to do shifted and changed.
And I am, Penny, I've talked about this.
I know that she has held resentment towards the fact that she's not getting what she signed up for.
Like she, it was quite early in the relationship as well that I said that.
And I did feel that being so naive about what was to come in our lives.
But I, that's what she kind of signed up to.
And then all of a sudden I go away on tour with you guys.
I go to Perth for three days and we go to Brisbane for a couple of days and Penny is unable to do any work because she's got three kids there with her.
But all throughout the week as well, I'm doing this podcast and I'm doing resilience projects stuff still.
And she is unable to work the way she wants to.
She believes in the work that I'm doing, that we're doing, and is so happy that I'm doing it.
But also she's not living the life that right now that she would like to.
And I'm just telling that story because I feel like in every relationship there must be big and small little resentments that build up along the way and probably aren't talked about ever.
It's just like someone will be holding onto something and it's a difficult thing to bring up so you just don't.
And then it means when something goes wrong in another area of your relationship, it's much bigger than it needs to be because there's just this huge resentment lying there.
You know, for an example might be if I leave my clothes on the floor in the wrong place, that is frustrating.
But potentially Penny might get a little bit more frustrated than usual because there's this underlying resentment, which really amplifies the way she's feeling.
And I mean, the position I've put her in is so unfair because I mean, she would never, she sees how much joy doing this podcast brings me.
So I have to put her in a position to say, I want you to stop doing the podcast.
But she would never ever do.
So I've put her in a really unfair position.
So it is completely understandable that she feels resentment about the position that she's now in because of me.
And it's one of the big themes that comes up with our counselling that I am so committed to trying to work out a way to rectify the situation that I've put her in.
I guess, as I say, that I acknowledge that I'm the source of resentment, a lot of resentment in our relationship and it's totally fair enough.
And I just wonder how many other people relate to that very listening right now.
My very strong sense of this is every relationship.
Really? In some, because resentment is a normal human emotion.
It's not one that does not exist.
I can't tell whether that's sad or comforting.
I think it's comforting.
It is comforting. Yeah.
For me anyway. Yeah, it is for me too.
I just felt like I needed to say sad.
It is all dependent upon how we work with it.
So yeah, I really want to validate that here.
I think that this is a really common experience and it just depends to what degree and how we work with that in those relationships.
And it is really, really hard.
The other thing that can often happen in there is that we make decisions 10, 20, 15 years ago with an expectation of how things will be.
And then they don't eventuate.
And then so yes, we'll feel like a sense of being wronged or we change our minds.
And this is part of being human too, is that we might change our minds and that's perfectly valid too.
But that doesn't mean that everyone will like it.
And it doesn't mean it doesn't have a cost in different ways as well.
Because we're all humans and we bring all of our own stuff into a partnership.
We cannot be 100 % on board with everyone's decisions all of the time.
So I think it's really natural that resentments do arise.
The greatest challenge is how we talk about this and how we work with this within a relationship.
And part of that is practicing assertive communication and boundaries and being able to speak up.
But another big part of that is letting go.
From which side? From both sides.
Such a good book on that.
Yes. You should say this one.
I didn't actually took that resentment in the book.
But I will note that one of the interesting things about The Emotion of Resentment is that it very much does build.
And when it builds, it's a little bit like a pressure cooker.
So you can take the first hit and then you can take the second hit and maybe the third and then the fourth and it's building and it's building.
And then you get like the clothes on the floor, for example, actively activates reactivity, hostility, annoyance, frustration, a kind of outburst.
And the thing is that that outburst actually looks disproportionate in the moment, but it's representative of all the feelings of anger and frustration that you've carried within you this whole time.
So resentment is more likely to lead to reactivity and impulsivity more than in the moment expressions of annoyance and frustration.
Yeah. And as far as that idea of letting go, and maybe this is what you're about to go into or talk about, but as far as tools, once you've realised there is resentment, once you see Roger pacing up and down your stomach, it's weird, is the way to deal with it, is it whether it's resentment within a relationship
or resentment to the person at the restaurant because they haven't seated you before the other person, you know, is it the same tools that you use for both or are there different types of ways you deal with different types of resentment?
No, I think that fundamentally they're the same and you're really spot on there.
The first thing is we have to notice we're in resentment.
This recognition awareness, absolutely key.
I need to be able to name and notice here is resentment.
And to be able to even to be able to express it and to say to your partner, to your friend, I'm noticing I feel really resentful.
I feel really resentful that you're going out because I'm so tired, for example.
Such a great thing to say, like to the person, yeah, it's such a hard thing to say.
But like, if you say it, the other person just knows and can deal with it.
When that person, I mean, it'd be a very hard thing to say, but I'm just thinking, I'm imagining Penny saying that to me right now.
And I would sort of stop in my tracks and be very conscious of that and think, yeah, she is staying at home so I can do this.
And I'm very lucky and I need to give her a night where she, that'd be my response of like, yeah, that's fair enough.
And I think we need to give you a night when you go out as well this week or something.
That makes sense. Thank you for sharing it.
I reckon the reason I'm just trying to imagine, like if I'm feeling resentful, the reason I think I would hold back from saying anything in the moment is because I don't have a good solution.
So I go like, so instead of just saying, I totally understand and see why it's just important just to say, I feel resentful because of this.
But I think as in the heat of the moment, my mind goes to like, yeah, but if there's no solution, why even bring it up?
Because, you know, if there's no way to solve it, it just seems like I'm lumping this heavy moment in what, if I didn't say anything, we could just go along having like a lovely morning.
Yeah. And I guess you don't want to, if they're about to head out for dinner with their friends, you don't want to make them feel bad.
I guess there's also, I wonder if there's a way you could just say like, so before you go, just I've just noticed Roger's carrying on a bit at the moment.
Yeah. Yeah. Get a little bit carried away.
Sorry. Just so you know.
Yeah, I just got a call from the resentment department.
Roger's not happy. So says it to me.
Not really. Well, not a lot, but sorry.
If she's feeling it, she'll say it.
How does that feel for you to hear?
It's good. I mean, at the time there's a little bit of like, oh shit.
But, um, you resent her back for saying it?
No, no. Uh, I think the last time it happened, it was probably on one about two days we were away for about four or five days.
If she says it, she'll say some resentment building.
And I'm just saying it now because I don't say now it's going to get worse.
Um, so just putting it out there.
Um, and then, and it's, I'm so lucky that she's so good at that because it gets it really early because she's like Roger called ahead.
Just letting you know, I'll be there in 10 minutes.
And I'm grateful that I feel grateful actually that I'm like, I'm so glad you told me now so I can adjust and we can recalibrate do what's needed rather than it becoming a bigger thing down the line.
Um, it's really, it's extremely helpful because I'm not, I'm not very good at it, but she's amazing.
That's awesome. Yeah.
I want to be honest too that it's really hard to do that and it can also be really hard to receive that, you know, for a lot of people that can really actually activate defensiveness.
Um, it can be, it can feel really unpleasant to hear and it might move you into like, well, I didn't mean for that to happen or like, you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing working so hard, blah, blah, blah.
So, you know, it just, all of this takes such slowing down and awareness to be able to really own how it is that I'm feeling and I need you to know, because you're important to me and our relationship is important to me.
And that I don't want this.
I don't want to keep carrying this in essence.
I don't want to keep carrying this.
Yeah. I just, I realized she also does a thing that she takes some of the blame on herself when she says it, which is quite disarming.
So she'll say, I know I probably shouldn't say this, but I need to say it.
And maybe I should be better and just deal with this, but I feel it's better to say it out loud.
So there's also, it's less accusatory of me that she's admitting that, which very rare, but she's admitting that maybe there's a chance that I'm missing something here, which is rare that that's actually what's happened, but at least it feels less of an attack.
And yeah, and I do sometimes, I might get a bit defensive, but because it's caught early, it's less defensive.
But I also am conscious of the fact that she's always been like that.
And so our relationship has begun on that with that level of communication.
And if we'd been together for 12, 13 years, if she suddenly started doing it out of nowhere, then I might go like, whoa, where did this come from?
It's so much easier to set your boundaries at the beginnings of relationships.
It's much harder as we go along.
It's not that it can't be done.
It needs to be done.
But it's much easier to do it at the beginning.
I wonder in telling someone your resentment, how helpful it would be to acknowledge what they're thinking.
So like, if in that example, maybe if safe sister Josh, I know this has been the calendar for a while, and I know that this is always happening.
And I know that we've got a babysitter coming tomorrow to help.
But I also just want to tell you, I'm still feeling a bit of resentment, like acknowledging what that person is thinking as soon as it's brought up.
She does do that. Yeah.
Yeah, she does that.
Yeah. Like that. That's disarming.
Yes. I know it's work.
I know you have to do it.
But it's still, you're in Sydney having a good time with your friends and I'm here with the kids.
Yeah. And that speaks to the experience of envy.
Because, God, I wish I could do that.
And we can even frame it as I feel really envious.
I feel envious that you're doing this.
And I'm really happy.
You could genuinely be really happy for you.
I know this is really wonderful for you.
And it's great for our family, for example.
But my God, I would love to be out there doing that.
That actually does come.
Now, I hope I'll get permission to say this because a lot of the episodes are becoming about this.
But she does often follow with that as well.
Not all in one go, but that would follow with like, just so you know, I'm really happy for you.
And the most important part in there is that you then really see it.
So like that, when you hear this, that you can go, yeah, gosh, like, thank you for telling me.
I totally get it. We don't need to apologize for the fact that we're doing these things, for example, particularly if they've been discussed in the family or, you know, in your relationship.
You know, this has been pre -planned.
We know this is happening.
But I see you and I hear that this, like, we need to do something differently.
Let's talk about it when I get back, for example, like how we can make this work differently.
But I did want to move on to forgiveness as a bigger piece.
And this could be an episode, like, across many, many episodes.
It's a really, really big topic.
And I really want to say kind of upfront that it's really hard work.
So the idea of forgiving and moving towards forgiveness is very, very challenging.
And that's so often why we stay stuck in resentment.
Yeah. When we think about resentment, there are so many different kind of analogies for this.
But in AA, they use the expression, it's like swallowing rat poison, expecting the other person to die.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Or in Buddhism, it's like holding a red hot coal to throw at your enemy.
It's you that is experiencing the pain, not your enemy.
So resentment holding on to resentment is hurting us more than it's hurting the other person.
It's like the road rage example where it's like you're yelling at someone driving past and they didn't even hear you.
So the holding on of resentment is costing us vitality.
It's costing us noticing all the good stuff that's here.
It's costing us having more expansive open experiences with people.
It's costing us a general sense of well -being.
So the thing that we really need to look at is, okay, so how do I let go of this?
And there's a really interesting, very fascinating researcher called Fred Luskin, who whose main thing is forgiveness.
And he really makes the point that it is really important that we grieve the violation or we grieve the hurt.
This is absolutely appropriate that we feel resentful and that we feel hurt and angry, that at some point, we need to let that go.
We move through that grief and now it's time to let it go because it is no longer serving us.
The example that he uses would be something, this is pretty big, but it would be something like experiencing an affair.
And he's making the point there that, no, absolutely, you should, like, this is very normal.
You experience despair, grief, all of these sorts of feelings of hurt.
But if in two years, post -affair, you're still stuck in this, we need to have a look at it.
So it's normal and adaptive and very appropriate that we really, like, we really grieve this, but then the next step is letting go.
Because the letting go is giving you back your life.
But so often we don't want to move into that next phase because it would feel like we're letting the other person off the hook.
Yes. Oh, it's so true.
Yeah. It's like, no, they don't, because of how they've behaved, they don't deserve me to be okay with it.
Yes. Yeah. And so you, and so that, I guess that this is like classic resentment where you just like, you know, Roger walking around, like shaking their head.
Like, can't believe you did this, like talking to friends, family, talking, telling everyone about how wrong you are.
And they're off doing whatever, like having a great time.
Yeah. Yeah. So you are still stuck in this feeling and you're re -living it.
And it is truly like depriving you of, of life.
And there's a, there's a really interesting quote that he uses and it's forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.
Wow. It's so good. It is.
I get it when I heard it.
It's not hitting for me.
Okay. So it's the letting go of wanting my past to be different.
So I can move into the future and pursue the things I want to pursue basically.
So you'll, you'll know and recognize that forgiveness is very much part of most faiths that we know about.
And in some ways it's seen as a virtue and as seen as almost like a necessary part of living well in the world, I suppose.
And so we have this, you know, forgiveness is a choice.
It is absolutely an active choice.
And that choice lies with us and in and of itself that can feel empowering.
I have a choice as to whether I move into forgiveness or not.
But what I want to be very clear about is that forgiveness is not excusing poor behavior.
It's not letting the other person off the hook and it does not require reconciliation.
So what I mean by that is that in, for example, friendships, partnerships, work colleagues, we can reconcile, but we might not be in forgiveness.
So for example, in an affair scenario, you could have reconciled and, but yet you're still holding on, run, but equally we might move into forgiveness and holding a sense of compassion for ourselves and the other, but also know that this relationship cannot continue.
And I think that feels really important to acknowledge in there that when we're talking about forgiveness, we're not talking about necessarily continuing a relationship with that person.
Yeah, that is an interest.
That's such a, it's really good.
Yeah. I forgive you.
Go live your life someone else.
Yes. Go and live your life.
And I'm going to live my life.
Yeah. Because you're slowing me down.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But not that they are the feelings in you are.
Yes. Gotcha. Yeah. It's honestly, you're giving too much power to the other person.
Yes. So it's literally about like, the forgiveness really is for you.
It's not actually for the other person.
But God, like you said before him, it's like it in certain situations, so hard to do that.
It's so easier said than done in some situations.
Yes. Like, you know, in those big, like affairs is such a good example, but then even like, you know, far worse than that, even where the thought of forgiving, just the word.
I mean, I know the way you're explaining it, I understand what you mean, but just the thought of forgiving, based on what we know of forgiving and how the, the, the, you know, how we've sort of grown up thinking about forgiveness is like, I'm not forgiving that person.
No way. But it makes so much sense the way you're explaining it.
I think, I think we should warm shout out to the forgiveness, but grieving queen in Gina chick in her episode, which we'll put a link in the show notes, but she lost her child to cancer when I think her child was two or three maybe.
But she said she did all the grieving and went, felt it all.
And was screaming at the universe for in anger for taking her child away.
But she said she fully felt all that grief and now is in a position to where she's moved through that and has essentially forgiven the universe for taking her child.
It's a very powerful, listen, it's, it's a different example.
It's a little bit more.
I think that's a really great example though.
Yes. Because potentially, I mean, I really acknowledge very deeply here that this, you know, there's so much suffering that we encounter as humans and some of them are really, really big.
And the thought of forgiving that person or those people or a nation can feel just like absolutely not okay and not possible.
And it might be that we then want to start with the smaller, like the smaller things.
So can I, for example, be open to gratitude for feeling loved and being loving in the good relationships I have, for example, you know, being able to really kind of let go of, of the attachment to that suffering that's there.
As far as, I know it probably differs from case to case, but is there a certain, like if you're holding onto a resentment for like, I don't know, months, years, decades, is there anything to like look out for in yourself to know that, okay, it's now been too long.
This is, it's time to let go or I think start heading in a different direction.
Yeah, I was actually listening to a lecture done by Fred Luskin, the researcher from Stanford, and he was like decades, that is too long.
Oh, decades is officially too long.
Yeah, and he actually was, I mean, there is no clear answer, like to be very honest, but he was really kind of emphasizing, particularly with marriage, six months to 18 months is fairly normal.
And then beyond that, the thing is that it's the point at which it's costing you how I might see it, for example, in practice would be when I'm talking about it all the time, when I'm ruminating about it all the time, when I'm missing out on living.
Yeah. Okay. When it's coming at a cost to me, when it means that I can't be present, that I can't notice all the good stuff.
I mean, these feel like very intangible things to measure.
But I think from an outsider's point of view, if you hear someone complaining about it, or hearing about the same breakup again and again and again, that's a good sign.
Or even on that topic, is it a sign if that relationship has ended and you're dating now, but you're unable to form proper connections with people because you're still, you find yourself on the date talking about that person or the having or about it all.
And that's just stopping you from having meaningful human connection.
Yeah. So really kind of, it's a really hard thing to measure and it's really complicated because it means that we need to actually really feel the feelings of hurt, which is a whole other thing.
And so often we might actually work very hard to avoid the feelings of pain that sit underneath the resentment, particularly grief.
And we cover it up with other things like drinking, like being super busy, like so many avoidance strategies that it actually stops us from really processing the hurt, the envy, the despair that might be there.
And that like keeps this feeling alive for much, much longer.
So we have to do the work first to be okay and to be open and accepting to what's here.
And then it's like, let me get my life back.
Let me start living again, because at some point you will recognize that this feeling is costing me.
And most often it's costing your presence and connection.
The thing, the thing that's coming to mind to me, and I'm the last person at this table who should be talking about this and with, I've got no experience.
I'm not a parent, I haven't got that kind of feeling anyway.
And I'm thinking, oh, how annoying for that person.
And it requires, I imagine when you guys tell me, I guess it requires that there may be resentment there, because your child who you love, but your child is still getting in the way of a peaceful night sleep or whatever.
So is that a resentment that you then have to constantly forgive your own child?
I mean, I don't know, like, am I speaking way out of tune here?
So is that, no, I don't think that's out of tune.
I think that's kind of how it goes.
It feels pretty familiar to me.
It's like the getting else into bed at night takes an hour and hour and a half and it's, it's often full with big, really big emotions.
And I did get through a stage where I was frustrated because I wanted to be downstairs, starting the cleaning up and hanging out with Penny from like 7 .30, quarter of eight onwards.
But she'd be awake, being upset to late 30.
And it took me to go, well, she's just, she's four and she's processing so much stuff.
They're really big emotions that stop her going to sleep.
She's can't help those.
They're just, she doesn't know how to process them.
She's trying the best she can.
And I want to be there for her in a really supportive way to do that.
And I'll lie next to her until she's worked all the way through it.
And then it's yeah, you, that, that's a, I guess it's some, I never, I think I did feel angry at it for a bit.
I was a little bit angry, but it's, but it's now, you understand.
Yeah. I forgive it Adam.
And of course she's four.
Like, so you, yeah.
I don't know with kids for me, it's, it doesn't take much for me to forgive them.
Like they could do that for five hours and then they'd look at me like in one specific way.
And it's all fine. Yeah.
Like it's, it's unique to really to no other relationship.
I can think of like, it doesn't take much for me to forgive there because I know, I think, especially in that example, deep down, and this is for young kids who as you say, Hugh, and it's like, I, I rarely see things online, like a quote that I'm like, Oh, that's good.
But I thought this one was good of like, stop treating your kids behaviors.
Like it's a choice.
And it like was really powerful for me.
Stop treating their behavior, like they're making a choice to be, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. So yeah, anyway, whatever.
Gosh, I think that's so fascinating because it was much easier to do with your own child.
There's like an unconditional love there, but there is something that's important in there.
There are a few actually, but one of them is that you can see in, in a child that there is a whole human here, not just their unpleasant emotions, not just their big emotions, that there's other aspects to them too.
They are not defined only by their mistakes, for example.
But so often in resentment and anger in adults, we, we almost like put a lens over that person as they are all this.
They are all of like, almost like my loathing or my hatred is all this person.
And we, we find it very difficult to see the human that is behind this mistake that they've made, for example.
And also what happens is that we don't recognize that we too individually have hurt other people as well.
And so this is where we're kind of really moving into this compassionate approach to wrongdoing and to harm is to be able to step back and see the human that is here in front of you.
And I think particularly, you know, when, when you move into this idea of kind of compassion, we also notice that the body kind of, like even I just notice as I'm talking about it, like the body actually softens.
We kind of literally like let go of this holding and bracing.
And in that space I can see that I'm not excusing what they did, but maybe I can see that there was a little person in here too at some point in time.
Sometimes I find it particularly helpful.
If I'm getting caught up in my head about something that's happened, is to then imagine them as a little boy or as a little girl.
And to be kind of curious, but I wonder what was happening there for them.
It doesn't excuse them, but it actually softens my relationship to the resentment.
That's so good. Tara Brak, who is a, an author and a Zen Buddhist teacher and psychologist, I'm pretty sure, gives this beautiful analogy of you walking into a forest and you see a dog tied up at a tree and you move forward to pat the dog.
And it suddenly lurches and tries to snap at you.
And the thought that goes through the mind is like, oh, I'm so angry that that dog did that to me.
Like I'm staying away from like never doing that again.
And then as you look more closely, you can see that its leg is injured.
And in noticing this, the mind then goes, oh, of course, of course that's why this dog tried to hurt me is because it is also really hurting.
And in that moment there, when we can reframe, okay, so maybe this is coming from a place of suffering, not excusing, not saying it's okay.
The dog did that, but does it change the lens with which we approach this for ourselves?
Wow. Ray in the Force Awakens, a Star Wars movie, comes across a huge snake that is going to kill her and Finn and Poe Dameron and anyway, and, and C -3PO.
And they're all got their lightsabers out and saw, and their guns.
It sort of sounds like when someone's listening, they'll be like, oh, I've accidentally edited in Hugh's Star Wars podcast.
It's been like a mistake on the timeline.
So yeah, five stars.
And the snake rears up and they're all about to like shoot it.
And Ray says, stops them.
And she walks over to it and she sees that it's wounded badly and she uses the Force and she puts a hand on the wound, which is incredibly scary thing to do, but she heals this snake.
And then it like, it just sort of goes off.
And then all of a sudden there's this opening so they can escape the cave they're in.
So how does the Force play into?
I could do an episode on that from a psychological point of view.
This is like very well known.
Really? Like it's definitely on the Force.
Yeah. Like Yoda actually, I don't want to go into it.
Lots of stuff around in this meta awareness and meditation and stuff.
I won't go into it.
It might not be the Force Awakened, so it might correct me there.
But I remember watching that scene and thinking that is a really powerful moment to remember for my life.
If anyone reacts in a bad way, at any way you approach them, that could be wounded and maybe you could play a part in helping them.
Yeah. Is it the rise of Skywalker or whatever it was called?
I think the rise of, oh yeah, anyway, let's definitely settle this now.
Yeah. Can I shift away from Star Wars to the idea of karma and my very sort of, I guess, pop spiritual, pop psychology understanding of karma and the way that I think a lot of people have the idea of karma in their head.
To me, I thought it was quite helpful, but now when I think about this, it actually doesn't seem like a lot of revenge wanting to happen to the person who's wrong.
That's really interesting.
And it's like, it's okay.
I forgive them because they'll get there.
Bad thing's going to happen to them in the end.
That almost feels like you're still holding on to a tiny glimpse of revenge.
Cypress Hill Resented.
Cypress Hill Song. What goes around comes around.
Kid. Yes. Oh, yeah.
Be real. What's his name?
I don't know. Anyway, doesn't matter.
Yeah. And just to reiterate, that's when I'm talking about karma, I'm talking about the sort of westernised common way it's used in everyday parlance, like what goes around comes around kind of idea, which I'm sure is not really the origins.
I don't actually truly understand what the real definition and idea of karma is, but in common usage, yeah, I think potentially it's problematic.
Yeah. I think you're on to something there and that is that it's an assumption of some kind of universal revenge that will occur to this person, which is an anger response.
So if we look at the desire for revenge, it's coming from a place of anger and maybe hatred, rage even.
So even though it might be kind of like letting it go to over to the universe to deal with it, it's not actually moving into like a genuine letting go of the hurt and the pain that may have happened to you.
I imagine that for, and I actually, we should probably do an episode on this one day because I don't really understand this concept as well as I should, but I imagine that for intergenerational trauma, the idea of forgiveness is very extremely complicated.
It's really complex and it's really hard.
It's full of suffering.
And yeah, look, I think it would be wonderful to do a whole episode on this.
There are a lot of people who experience intergenerational trauma, whether that is on a very big scale of how significant those traumas are, but we can all carry to some degree small traumas through our generations, but for the really big ones, this is really, really hard work.
And I think one of the things that stands out to me in that is really being able to do, obviously to do the work and to have the support of someone to do that is really, really important.
This is, you know, in my opinion, this is stuff that requires a lot of kind of supportive foundation.
Meaning a psychologist or therapist.
Yeah. Or someone that is helping you with, you know, walk through this.
And I totally recognize the privilege that there is to access those things there too.
But one of the kind of questions that stands out to me in there is in the face of all this trauma, of the histories of trauma in my family and in my life, what is it that I want to stand for now?
So it kind of moves into this active place here of, okay, so I can deeply acknowledge all the trauma and grief that is here, but how do I want to show up to my life and to my children and to my family now?
Which would be, I guess for some people would be so, so difficult, but God, yeah, as far as going in the right direction.
Yeah, but absolutely acknowledging in this, this is really complex and complicated work.
And it's, it's much more than like a one line answer, I guess.
Yeah. Yeah. More than an episode answer probably too.
Definitely. Yeah. There's one last thing that I just wanted to mention around, I mean, there's so much, but this thing kind of feels relevant within acceptance and commitment therapy.
They actually view forgiveness as forgiving, as an action, rather than like an emotion per se.
So when we think about being forgiving, then we're really looking at what's an action that would be an example of moving closer towards forgiving.
So would it be, for example, being able to let go of holding, embracing when your partner gives you a hug and you're feeling really angry at them?
Would it be being open to receiving a gift from someone and really, really receive it?
An example that comes to mind, actually, Ryan, you and I did a corporate event like a little while ago and in one of the Q and A's, they were giving an example of someone provided a congratulations gift to another colleague, even though that person was really disappointed that they didn't get the job.
And they were, you know, maybe potentially feeling envious that this other person got the job.
But because this was a value of theirs to show up and be generous and to be supportive, they bought them some flowers or gave them a gift to say, congratulations.
Now they may not be feeling forgiving or they may not be feeling happy, but that action is a forgiving action.
And so it's moving us away from holding so tightly.
So it doesn't have to be 100 percent authentic.
It's just the simple act of moving in the right direction.
Exactly. It's moving in that direction.
So can I think about, you know, this is obviously not for the super big violations, for example, but in the smaller ones, can I gently move in the direction again around my values of really showing up here to that?
What are the actions that I can take?
Does it mean that I can sit longer with this person or can I invite them to do something?
Can I ask for their help?
Things that might feel a little bit safer, but that those are actions that I have free will over and I have control over that are heading me more towards that direction.
It's like you're dragging yourself in the right direction almost.
Yeah. And then maybe the feelings follow.
Yeah, I don't want to go to the gym, but I'm just going to drag myself there and I'll go and then the feelings all, yeah.
Yeah. That's absolutely worked for me in the past.
Yeah. When I've like, someone's done something that's annoying and then I've thanked them for what they did or like the attention of what they were doing, even though what they did was quite annoying to thank them for what, where they were coming from and the attention behind it put me in a position to
go, actually, I don't need to care about that anymore.
Yeah. So the actions actually move us out of the tightness and the feelings of resentment.
And that's showing up to the person you want to be too.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that is a beautiful episode.
Oh, thank you. So good.
It was a beautiful episode.
Thank you so much for that.
It's a real pleasure.
And I should acknowledge Josh as well who's done this episode on a grand total of 11 minutes sleep.
Well done Josh. I know some of the things that have come out of my mouth.
Thanks Sam. Thanks so much.
Thank you. The Imperfects is produced by Hugh van Carleberg, Josh van Carleberg and Ron Shelton.
Our executive producer is Bridget North East.
This episode was filmed by George Martin and edited by Jamison Moore.
