An Exercise in Exorcism: The Demon of Resentment

It started a couple of weeks ago when I slipped in some mud and injured my knee. What do they say, "Pride goeth before a fall?" There was an element of that in there, yes, but what was more evident to me was a relationship to stored resentment and anger. In fact, I was also having severe gallbladder pain a couple of hours before my fall. Gallbladder; resentment. Since then, I had also injured my right middle finger twice...resentment...and I woke up this morning with a head cold...again irritation and resentment. At least it is moving!

So, I decided to pay attention and work this out (I'm a little slow). First, I signed up for some free healing. Even healers need healing sometimes. Then I sat down with pen and paper and decided I wasn't going anywhere until I made a complete inventory of my past and present resentments. I wrote out about 7 or 8 pages! It was slow at first. I was in a bit of denial, I guess. But I was determined to have it out. After a page or so, the task started to feed on itself. Things were coming to me that I hadn't thought about in years. I decided that even if I "thought" I had released them, I would still write them down. I refused to censor anything. Some things carried quite a charge and other things felt stale. I underlined all the heavily charged ones. Into my 5th page, I realized this process could go on and on.

That's when I realized that I resented resentment. And that was when an interesting shift happened. I started to inventory why others may resent me. It didn't matter if it were true or not. Again, it was a creative act of intention but one that illuminated a things that I never considered before. This went on for a few more pages.

When I was done writing, some personal guidelines for living without resentment glistened out from the shadows between resentments:

• Don't make promises I can't keep.
• Follow through on those I do.
• Speak up if I feel uncomfortable whether or not I understand why.
• Don't be oblivious to others or exclusive in my attentions.
• Express appreciation.

I then went through my list of greivances and began expressing appreciation to each person on my list. I then went through other people's list of possible greivances against me and made up things that they might appreciate about me instead. I know I was doing good work because I was burning up, literally, and feeling rather altered.

By the time I finished, I was crying and feeling a great deal of relief and love. I toned "Shu Eh Eh Jiao", sounds associated with the Liver/Gallbladder and ended with a prayer. May the Divine help me to transform my anger and resentment into keen discernment and respectful action.