The Binding Power Of Resentment

Resentment is something that comes up a lot in my coaching clients. 

It’s often seen as a right, a justification and often I understand why there is so much resentment in a man because of what he has experienced but ultimately, it is self defeating and keeps one bound to the focus of their resentment. 

Resenting a particular person who has wronged someone is common. It’s identifiable and the focus of it is clearly understood but there is another form of resentment that is not so clear and it’s often hidden and concealed in the background. 

It is the resentment destroying our society. 

I see it in so many angry young men now, full of resentment and rage. 

They feel abandoned, misguided and cast aside. 

This leads to them condemning everyone around them due to their feeling of lack and the void of masculinity, a quality they desperately crave, often without even identifying what it means. 

This disempowerment creates a weakness which manifests in blaming others for their position in life and is made far worse without the guidance or knowledge to overcome their limitations. 

It is important to solve such angst when men are young because if this void of masculinity is ignored, it becomes a toxic force where their limitations are made into virtues, to veil the reality of the weakness and inadequacy they really feel. 

This resentment means they could become a master of deception and manipulation, using self pity, victimhood and disguising weakness as morality and false strength. 

These men find it far easier to find comfort in a narrative of condemning strong men as the villain, than it is to face their own powerlessness. 

The excellent TV series 1883 summed it up with the quote below: 

“We live in a world where weak men would rather guilt the strong than become strong themselves.”

This is highly dangerous to society, as it weakens it as a whole and we end up with an entire culture based on resentment and self-sabotage and using dishonesty as a deliberate strategy. 

This is what we are seeing as a dominant stance in politics and throughout many men in society. 

There is a line running through the decay of our society and the deep discomfort and unhappiness of man. 

We have an entire society based on self rejection instead of self acceptance. 

As men, we must face our limitations and the masks we wear to hide them. We will not escape the suffering it eventually brings to ourselves and those around us. 

Accepting our limitations and having the courage to overcome them creates better men and a better society. 

The so called world of personal development sold a lie about achieving excellence in just one area of life. 

It was always the selling of the small game, the illusion, which enticed and catered to the ego and promised an arrival point of self acceptance which never arrives. 

The real primary aim was to become a man of excellence, a self acceptance, that is then projected into all aspects of life and everything we do.