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Over the past thirty years since I first encountered the 12-step program’s emphasis on the absolute necessity of ‘letting go’ of resentments, I have until this past week always considered that what made resentments tick is anger.  Buried anger, sideways anger, justified or unjustified anger, recognized or unrecognized anger — any way I have looked at resentments from the viewpoint of my interpretation of what the 12-steppers say about resentments is that they carry within them the seed-kernel of anger.

From my recent experiences of having to re-look at the topic of resentments, it is NOW clear to me — from my own inner knowing place — that what I can tell about other people’s continuing resentments is that they do not carry anger.  They carry hurt from deep, unrecognized, undealt with, unhealed wounds.

Looking again at Grice’s Maxims as several of my recent posts have mentioned, I realize that the misinformation being communicated when a person expresses a resentment — the information that is OVERLY focused on in the expression, the irrelevant information that is expressed, and the truthful, powerful, important information that is NOT being expressed all end up pointing toward a wound that is too big to cope with in any other known way.

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Yes, resentments APPEAR most often to be anger focused and anger driven.  Anger holds a very specific (and special) place on the full circle of the stress-not stressed nervous system-brain survival response system.

I see peace and calm as being what we need at the center of this system.  Anger is at the “GO” area of the ‘fight’ stress response.  When anger is connected to good, effective, manageable, known tools for improving the chances of continued survival it is useful.  It is tied to both confidence in known abilities to solve problems and to competence.

In effect, anger says, “I have seen this problem before and kicked its butt.  This is how I did it, and I know if I use these same tools and abilities THIS time it will lead to the same positive results.  The problem will be solved and the ‘threat’ will be beaten.”

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If the stress-calm response system is operating effectively, when it is seen that the anger-fight response was NOT successful, a person automatically moves into the next quadrant of the response system — FEAR.

Fear, of course, can be tied to continual experience of anxiety.  What matters is that fear lead forward into something effective for solving the threat-conflict-challenge.

Fear is designed to give us the information that what we tried before to solve a similar problem was NOT effective this time around — on this particular problem we face.  The fear is the body’s response to the recognition of lack of competence to overcome and ‘beat’ the challenge, and thus to the feeling state of lack of confidence.

Fear says, “Uh Oh!  THAT sure didn’t work!  Now I am in big trouble!  I better learn something new here, and learn it fast or I am Bye Bye!”

It’s great if a person can jump off of the twirly stress-calm response carousel right here by learning something new from the situations surrounding THIS particular trauma.  They can simply take a shortcut back to the anger quadrant of the circle and get to work — and WIN — whatever that entails — so that they can as quickly as possible return to the center point of peace, calm and well-being.

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But what if nothing can be discovered to cope in a new effective way with the immediate challenge?  What if one tries their darnedest and comes up with — ZIPPO?  Oh, dear, and you guessed it!  The person moves on to the next quadrant of this response circle into sadness.  And oh this can be just as big a problem as ending up stuck in either of the previous two spots of anger or fear.

BUT — and this is something I thought a lot about about a year ago.  SADNESS is one of the most positive points on this circle a person can reach because if any particular problem that has not responded to all known attempts to apply what is known fail, this is the most productive spot for learning something very new, very different, very creative — and very productive.

At the same time in our current culture sadness can be the most difficult state to move out of.   It is like finding oneself stuck in a giant pothole or trying to get over a giant hill.  When in sadness, our life force, our energy, our confidence, our sense of competence to solve problems in a great way so we can get back to peace and calm are at its lowest.

And it is at THIS point on the stress-calm response system circle that I think resentments lie — not at the anger spot.

Resentments, though they do not usually seem to concern themselves directly with a REAL problem, only some fantasized version of an irrelevant problem, are actually probably about sadness — hopelessness — despair.  What is lacking at this particular point on this system-wheel is most often the ability to access the needed external support and encouragement from other people.

Tossing resentments around at others does not quite motivate them to step in with warmth and compassion to lend a willing helping hand.

Resentments thrown at others is most often (in non-trauma drama conditions) to bring this response.  “I have no idea where you are coming from and I am not remotely interested in finding out.  When YOU figure it out, let me know.  I am NOT going to join you in THAT misery.”

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I haven’t yet mentioned what I see as the 4th point on this survival wheel.  While it is a response point that is BEST entered FIRST when a challenge appears to ongoing life and/or well-being, it can also very commonly be the LAST point we enter.

But no matter whether we get there first when we receive a challenge, or last if we are faced with something we have no effective first response for, it is the one that benefits us as do no others.

If a challenge does not overwhelm our abilities to respond to it effectively, we simply leave our center point of peace and calm into the quadrant of confident competence — and deal with it.  From there, once the problem has been solved, we can take the very simple and very short step back to our center of peaceful calm.

I used to include joy and happiness in my thinking about this survival response wheel, but I no longer do.  Feeding my suspicions is the physiological fact that our ‘happiness center’ resides in a particular very small area in our later forming LEFT brain, not in our earliest forming, directly-body-connected, more ancient emotional-social RIGHT brain.

All the processes I am describing within the stress-survival wheel happen in connection with perceived threats that are fundamentally challenging our well-being on a deeper level than do those that simply challenge our more peripheral ‘happiness center’.  This state of happy joy is, in my thinking, a more highly evolved condition that relies upon all the other systems in our body to work profitably and effectively.

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If a person has ‘learned’ adequate responses to solve problems and knows how and when to use these responses, the ‘fight’ or anger quadrant of our survival response never needs to be entered.  Neither does the fear one, or the sadness one.

But few of us are so fortunate to ‘win’ in every situation first time around.  We are left in vulnerable bodies feeling vulnerable and have to WORK and LEARN as we go on through life.  Getting stuck in any place around the wheel means that we are deprived of the benefits of spending the majority of our time in the life-nurturing center of peace and calm.

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So, when I think about some of the resentments other people who are important to me tossed in my direction lately, I do agree that their resentments do not accurately follow Grice’s Maxims of reasonable conversation or ‘polite speech’.  The resentments are not ‘on topic’ for the situations that stimulated their appearance.  The resentments are NOT providing enough of the right, accurate, truthful information about what the problem that person is facing REALLY is.  Hence, the resentments are not relevant.

Resentments are fantastic.  They are tied into a fantasy that by tossing out these particular ‘words’ nobody will really detect the true state of hopeless sadness that is, in fact, feeding the real problems.  Resentments are a cover-up for missing confidence and actual competence for solving problems that have created wounds that are not healing.

So, yes, it would appear that genuine empathy and compassion would be the most accurate response a resentment-receiver could make.

Not so simple as it might sound.

Because resentments are themselves signals that there is unresolved ongoing trauma in a person’s life, it can be very difficult to negotiate a non-trauma drama response in feeling, thought, word and action.  How to relate to a person who has just thrown the glove of combat while NOT responding in kind — and while avoiding stepping into the quicksand of ongoing trauma drama?

As far as I can tell the first step is for me to recognize that a problem-challenge has presented itself.  The second step is to try to accurately define what the challenge ACTUALLY is.

These two steps must be taken on some level every single time we are challenged with a problem, large trauma or not.

The third step is for me to assess my abilities to respond effectively and appropriately.  That I am having to stop and do this step AT ALL lets me know I lack the confidence in my competence to immediately solve the conflict-problem for myself (1st or is it the 4th point on the survival wheel?)

Well, in my case this won’t be the first step on the wheel.  I have to work through my anger, my fear, my sadness — and arrive hopefully at the fourth position of appropriate and effective response IN TIME.  It is not happening instantaneously.

I could be stuck in anger at the person, at the situation, at myself for not knowing how to actively cope with it effectively.  I could be stuck in fear that I did something wrong, that I am stupid, that I am going to lose this relationship forever.  Then I could be stuck in hopeless sadness.

OR, I can take the benefit from being in movement around this wheel which is — I am presented with the opportunity to LEARN SOMETHING NEW that will be effective THIS time, and possibly in the future as well.

If I CAN learn something new that works and might work in the future, I can possibly spare myself all this trouble next time!

What I do know is that because there is a problem-challenge (rupture) to my abilities that my known responses did not resolve (repair) I am left NOT feeling peaceful and calm.

While I am not responsible for how other people ARE or for what they DO, I am responsible (by choice) for finding new ways to process my way through life that do not involve me jumping into the quicksand of trauma drama — not my own, not anyone else’s.

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What I suspect is most devastating about not having the RIGHT response to a problem-challenge immediately available (known and tested) is that as we then enter into the stress response wheel we lose our connection to that center place of peaceful calm.  What I want to explore here for myself in this new opportunity for learning that has been presented to me is this:  “Is there a way to allow myself to move around this very natural wheel of what it takes to learn something new to repair a rupture while I STAY CONNECTED to the powers that the/my center of peace and calm provide to me””

Because I have trauma altered development due to growing up from birth in an insanely abusive, traumatizing, malevolent world, I at the same time have two related ‘disabilities’.

(1) I have a disorganized-disoriented (dissociating) insecure attachment pattern built into my physiology — which includes my nervous system-brain-mind-self AND my stress-calm response system.

(2) I have co-occurring emotional regulation difficulties.

So what I want to practice is how to stay in contact with my peace and calm center, which lets me know that I am safe and secure no matter what at the same time I allow myself to feel all the other emotions that exist in my body, as they are processed, and as the information about how I feel is fed to my attention from my right brain.

In other words, how to I peacefully and calmly experience this state along with the other multiple and difficult emotional states at the same time — and ALSO continue to work my way through the stress circle to come out with a non-trauma effective solution?

Good question.  Very good question.  And I don’t yet have the answer but I have confidence at least that my efforts are positive.

I am also aware that I am working on the level of my physiology as I apply myself to this effort.  That alone is great progress for me, to know that I cannot live my life without my body being a part of every experience that I have!  I cannot simply try to THINK my way through this without feeling all of it also.

The other most important point for me to realize is my commitment to working my way through these present conflicts without dissociating.  It seems like a lot to ask of myself — like believing I could pick up 40 gallon milk jugs and begin to juggle them through the air like some imagined pro would.

Nope, wrong information.  Right brain, wrong image.  That’s as silly a thought and as useless and irrelevant as any resentment is.  I cannot resent myself for not knowing how to do everything perfectly.  It is not productive for me to fault myself for not knowing all the answers.

Rather I can encourage myself and think about all the things I have done competently.  And I can know that no matter what the problem-challenge, all of us can always learn something new, useful and effective!  And as we do this learning work we are wearing an ever deepening rut around the stress-trauma-calm response wheel so that every next time we are challenged we can move around it faster (or skip it all together) so that we spend less time in the difficult states and more time in the center state where peace and calmness supply us with our well-being.

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