https://www.listennotes.com/e/0c256ba1dc844eb2acb28478fdf1c713

There's something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something's around you. Welcome to the Human Intimacy Podcast. I'm Marianne Mikles and I'm here with our host, Dr. Kevin Skinner, just changing things up a little bit today. And Dr. Skinner, how are you today?

Well, you know, I have been fighting either a virus or some kind of flu bug and it has been brutal physically. So I'm going to let you take a big part of the lead today, Marianne.

All right, Dr. Skinner, we're really, really glad to have you here today. And I know we're just coming off the heels of the Human Intimacy Conference, which we had this past week. And anything that you want to share with us about how that went, how you felt about it.

Over the last few months in preparation for the conference, it has been absolutely delightful. There's been so many wonderful clinicians with great expertise. And then the conference itself, so many wonderful presentations. I honestly couldn't be happier with the experts and with the participation. Anyways, it was fantastic.

So much great, great information. And I know you put so much work into that. So as we get ready to start today, So we're going to be talking about resentment. And this is a topic that our listeners might be thinking, well, resentment, why are, what does that have to do with anything? Why are we talking about that? Especially when we're looking at sex addiction, betrayal, trauma, and relationships building healthy relationships. And so for you, Dr. Skinner, when, when, when we say resentment, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?

So when I look at couple conflict, I, what I often see is couples, when they're arguing or fighting, they build a, either spoke or unspoken resentment towards their partner, towards their spouse. And it doesn't even have to be a marital relationship. I could build resentment towards my parent. I could build resentment towards my children. And so resentments are unresolved issues that we start to see our person, our child, our parent, our spouse, and we start to see them in a light where we resent something that they have done and it's not resolved, it's not finished. Recently, I was talking with an individual who grew up in a home that was quite abusive. And the resentments that he has towards specific memories are still with him 30, 40 years later. And so these unresolved issues where I can't talk about it. And when I do, you know, it's either minimized resentment then grows. And when we have unresolved issues in our relationships, we typically form some kind of resentment.

So you're saying that the resentments from things that are unresolved. I want to take this a little further as I was hearing you talk about it. To me, I think resentment kind of falls in a category along with frustration. And anytime my clients say, I'm so frustrated with this, for me, the translation of that is, oh, there's some unmet expectations. You expected something to happen and it didn't happen. And so you feel frustrated because you don't have control over it. But to to me, it sounds like, or it feels like resentment kind of falls into the same category. I resent you because I had an expectation that you would do something or something would turn out this way. I. I had something that I was waiting for, wanting, needing or expecting, and it didn't happen. And I might even feel like a victim. I might feel like you were supposed to do this, or that wasn't fair. This was supposed to happen this way, and so. I feel hurt. It's so really at the basis, there's this perceived hurt that flavors how I interact with you in the future. Am I, does that match with what yours?

I think for sure. So if I look at resentments, I mean, a resentment in, if I feel resentment towards somebody or some event or some experience, say for example, I feel left out. I feel like you didn't include me. My resentment is that expectation as you describe it, the expectation that you would introduce me or in our situation, when we work a lot with sexual betrayal in some version, I resent, and both partners can feel the resentment. I resent, you know, that you weren't there, you weren't warm. So I justified my behaviors in acting out because you weren't warm enough or you weren't sexual enough or you weren't finished the sentence. So I form a resentment to justify the behavior. And from the betrayed perspective, I resent that you lied to me, that you deceived me. I resent the fact that you led me to believe that you were one way when in reality that wasn't what you were doing or who you were even before we were married. So then we carry these resentments that are, we can actually say they're legitimate issues. But when we have resentment, it significantly influences how we interact with each other and we often will hold back or we will show signs of disgust or we will be extra angry because my resentment now comes across as anger. And so resentment is a huge part or a huge barrier to human intimacy. What we're to help couples achieve. And I'll tell you, if we don't deal with resentments, I'm not sure we're going to have the kind of connections we want.

And one of the things that, that I'm really connecting with on this, Dr. Skinner, as you were talking about the person who may be acting out, maybe saying, well, you didn't do this for me, or, or it can serve as that justification. So I think maybe bottom line for whoever it is, it is a justification. something that wasn't met, this expectation of someone else. And so therefore, I will, I think what I'm trying to get at is I often have betrayed partners who feel very justified in, in doing some destructive things. Well, I want him to, I want my partner to hurt as much as I've hurt. And it's really based on this resentment. I resent that you hurt me. I resent that you broke your commitments to me. Therefore, I am going to use that as a basis to validate some revenge behavior or some poor acting out behavior or even behavior that creates walls between us because that resentment can also be, it's really protective. I am going to use that as a barrier to protect me from being hurt by you again in the future. So whether it's just distance, you hurt me, therefore I resent that, therefore I'm going to step away from you. or I'm going to go out and smash this thing of yours that you really care about or do something to hurt you. So it's kind of this like a basis of justification for behavior. Right.

And when resentment is unaddressed, it's going to manifest in a myriad of ways. I might do it through anger, smashing something or being angry towards you. I might ignore you. I might attack you. I might go tell other people. So resentment is going to come out. It's going to manifest. The question is, how is it going to manifest in your relationship? And, and, and maybe even in external relationships. You know, a couple weeks ago, we were talking about the parenting and, and as I looked at, you know, what we, how we parent and even that resentment, the children can pick it up. And, and so resentment then influences this whole system. And it's, it's, again, it's, it may be unspoken and that's a really important concept. This resentment is, maybe unspoken, but when we, as assistant. One of my core things is to help individuals understand their resentment because really that, that is a voice that's probably not spoken, but needs to be in the healing journey.

I have a couple thoughts on that, which I love. And, you know, I share things with my clients so often. And sometimes when we're talking here, I'm like, did we just talk about this recently or was that with a client? So I don't remember how recently we've talked about this, but so Pia Melody in her book, Facing Codependency, she She talks about standing at her kitchen sink. She's washing dishes. She looks out and she sees a whole bunch of cars in her yard in various states of disrepair. And apparently her husband got cars and pieces and things. And she, she talks about looking out and just this resentment looking at like, my yard looks so trashy. And, and why is, why are all these cars out here? And she's just washing dishes or whatever she was doing, but she had these thoughts and fustration and resentment towards her spouse that was building up. She says her son was her sons were in the other room playing. One of her sons came into the room and said, Mom, is everything okay? She said, yeah, everything's fine. Her son left the room and within five minutes he was acting out like, like beating up, teasing, bugging his brother, creating some contention. And, and her point is, is that when we have underlying resentments and we think, oh, I'll just carry this in me. I, it doesn't even need to be spoken. It still impacts our energy. It impacts the energy of the people around us because we pick it up. We pick up the things that are unspoken. We can walk in there and go, oh, something feels a little chilly in here. Something's going on. And so even if it's not expressed, we still are carrying that one of the, and, and so shifting from that just a little bit, one of the tools that I love from 12 step support groups is step 10 specifically talks about dealing with fear, anger, disappointments, resentments. Every day doing a check on yourself, where did fear show up for me? Where did anger show up for me? Where did resentment show up for me? Where did disappointment show up for me? And then reaching out. So connecting with yourself and saying, where is this for me? Where did it happen? And what relationships and what do I need to do? to either share it with somebody. So I'm validating that. So I'm not keeping it bottled up and it's not building. Or do I need to address this with somebody else? Do I need to resolve it? Which is really vulnerable to step into this place of a relationship. When this happened, I felt resentful and owning that that's my feeling, but putting it on the table so that we can work through it. What are your thoughts on all that?

You know, I think it's so common for us to be misattuned to our resentments. So I feel anger, I feel frustration, I feel a myriad of negative emotions, if we wanna call it that. And I don't necessarily call it resentment, but that's really what's driving it. I resent the fact that, finish the sentence. And so that unspoken, unspoken, which I think is really critical, when we don't speak it, but we feel it, then we really act in anger or whatever. But really what's driving this is this internalized resentment that you weren't there, that these needs weren't met, or we couldn't put closure on this experience. So when I work with individuals, one of the things that I try to get them to understand is we have to speak. We really do, we need to speak to our internal, so anger is that what we refer to as a secondhand emotion. And when we look beneath the anger, usually you're gonna find some form of resentment. And as I speak to that and I give it a voice, then it's actually being heard. And so one of the core things, that I tell both of my clients if they've been acting out, if they've been acted, you know, their spouse was acting out or partner was acting out, or if it was a resentment towards another experience in life. I've seen it towards school teachers or somebody who bullied them. I've seen it in situations where it was a childhood, it was a neighbor, or somebody where something happened and this resentment is not spoken. And when you don't speak to those specific things that are driving it, the resentment. When you don't give it a voice, it festers, it grows, it holds you back. Now, some people on the other hand will say, yeah, but if I speak to my resentments, I'll stay there, I'll get stuck there. And that's just not the way our bodies work. When we speak to resentments and then we ask ourselves additional questions, because it's not just being in the anger, it's actually, what do I do with this anger? What do I do with this resentment? And how do I how do I feel heard and imagine with me for a second? And this is one of the things I think is so powerful about therapy is when I sit with clients and I actually encourage my clients, we need to, I'm, I'm a safe place here. Let's talk about whatever it is that whatever that resentment is. And I, I want to hear that voice, that internalized voice that's maybe never been expressed. I hear some of the most painful, sometimes toxic things that have been stored in their bodies. because when you store resentment, it influences your stress levels, your emotions, it physiologically, it creates internal tension which harms your body. So again, unspoken stories, unspoken things that are resentment based, it influences so many areas of our lives.

Yeah, you know, as you bring that up, I had an experience, a personal experience with this just a week ago. I I had some responsibilities and I sent out a text to somebody. And when I sent out the text to them, I noticed that I had texted them probably two times in like the last year and they never responded. And, you know, I kind of had that like in the back of my head like, oh, I texted them previously asking them for some help with some things and they never ever responded. But I texted them this week and like 24 hours went by and they hadn't responded and and I really had some resentment building up. Like, you jerk, like, what's going on? Like, I. And this Narrative of what's going on, what's the conflict between us? Why don't you. Why haven't you responded to me? I I'm expecting, you know, I reached out to you, and why aren't you responding? A simple thing, just a text. And. And what you're talking about, like that, really going in and figuring out what's going on. Most of the time, we just kind of bury it or we carry. I sat down and I wrote down, actually I was just working on surrendering it. I was like, I, I don't want to carry this with me. I'm not sure what's going on with that person. And this is interesting. It kind of seems like it's a pattern, but what I found is I sat down and really wrote through it, trying to make sense of what is it that I resent? And for me, it came up, I feel like, like it, I must not be important to them. But they don't want to give me the time of day. And that hit some of my core insecurities that I might be carrying. But as I did that, what was fascinating to me was I was able just to remove my need for their approval out. And I was like, wait a second, I don't need them. I'm okay without them texting me back. I was able to do some really good work with my higher power. and the reason why I'm sharing so much of this is what I found is as soon as I really let go of that, my body physiologically shifted. And for the next two days, I had so much energy. I was able to accomplish more tasks that like had been kind of heavy and hanging out there. I felt more uncluttered, like just mentally, and I had a lot of energy to reach out to people that maybe I normally wouldn't reach out to. And the funny thing is, is about five hours after I did that work, the person responded to me. And I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting that that happened then. But when they responded, I didn't care. It was like, oh, okay, no big deal. But when we take that time, whether it's sitting in therapy and trying to work through and figure out what's going on, or whether we're writing through it and figuring out why is this impacting me, what is it teaching me? That resentment, that anger, that fear, that disappointment, all of those, these are protectors. They're defense mechanisms that are trying to help us to feel safe and to be able to navigate in our world. So when we stop and slow down and say, what are you trying to help me with? What are you trying to protect me from? What is it that you need to teach me that slowing down? And you called it that attunement, attuning with ourself, what's going on? and what do I need to learn from this? And is it true? Is the story that I'm telling myself true? And if not, what do I really need? So for me, that connection with my higher power that was able to kind of help me reset and, and fit where I need. But I could also do that with another person. He'd say, oh, yeah, help me see it in a different way.

I love the story because what you did is you looked internally, what is this doing to me? And what's interesting when you look at resentments, you earlier we talked about it being an unmet need. I also think that resentments come from a belief. Let's say that because of something that you've done, I resent it because it reminds me that I don't feel like I'm enough. So let me give an example. If I'm a child and my parents weren't available for me or they weren't there, I can form a belief that my parents weren't there for me. So I must not be enough. I'm not lovable. If I was lovable, they wouldn't do XYZ. They would have been there for me. so now I'm an adult. I'm in this relationship, and my spouse does something that reminds me of something that my parents did. And all of a sudden, I'm triggered into a mental space and time that reminds me of my parents not being there for me. And so now I'm showing a resentment in my current relationship that was triggered by my childhood experience. And so now I'm developing a resentment towards my spouse because it's reminding me. of what happened in my childhood. And so the resentment sitting there, it's triggered a core belief, I'm not enough, I'm unlovable, whatever that belief is. And now what comes out? Anger, distance, because it triggered something and your spouse may not even know that they've triggered this. But that's usually what I find when I start breaking down these patterns is these unresolved festering issues trigger core beliefs. Now the resentment comes out and I see it over and over and over again when people are acting out. It's usually some kind of a resentment of some unmet needs, something that occurred, a core belief, and now I'm justifying a behavior. I see that in the betrayed partners. I see this in marital conflict. We could stretch this out into all relationships because if you remind me of something that's unmet, undealt with, then I resent it, it triggers inside of me. And over and over again, if we don't do that work, it just festers and grows.

And, and what I hear you talking about is, this is what Sue Johnson calls attachment wounds. These are attachment wounds in my childhood. When I look to say, are you there for me and you weren't there for me? Yeah, I, I internalized a belief about myself, about my value in the world. And so this attachment wound of, you're not there for me, you're not there for me when I need you. if we're talking about a wound, wounds have to be cleaned out. They have to be noticed. They have to be cleaned out. They have to be cared for and they need to heal. And so if not, we are almost literally, this might be a gross metaphor, but we're walking around with wounds. And when somebody says something, says the wrong thing, doesn't meet the expectation, sometimes it feels like somebody just stabbed something right into that open wound and oh, boy, do we react. Right. There's a real pain there. And oftentimes, as you were saying, we don't even realize that's what's going on for ourselves. We don't. I don't know why I reacted that way. I have no idea why I'm reacting such a huge reaction. We might even feel like we're a little bit crazy. This is a crazy reaction. Why is it so big? And then we maybe Gaslight ourselves or really doubt ourselves because. It doesn't make sense that I'd have such a huge reaction. But seen in this light as an unmet or unhealed attachment wound, it makes all the sense in the world.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a couple things there I want to address. You brought them up. I'd like to come back to a couple of them. One is when we feel the resentment, but we don't know what it is. We haven't done the work to evaluate it. In your story, you had to slow down and say, what is this doing to me? I think just that step all by itself is asking that question. But when we're not congruent, so in our relationships, if I say, no, everything's fine, like, you know, like in that story, you know, she was talking about her son coming in and reading that emotion, are you okay, Mom? No, I'm fine. That incongruency is picked up across the board in almost all of our relationships. People know that something's off, but they don't know why, so they're asking the question. When we're incongruent there or not in truth, not being completely honest, that creates problems. So an accurate or more appropriate response there would be what? You know, I'm thinking through some hard things right now. I'm trying to make sense of them, but it's not about you, son.

Yeah. What do you need?

Yes. And so that congruency, the ability to say, I'm having a hard time right now and I don't know what to do. I'm thinking through this. Let me, you know, I'm going to think through this and then let's talk or whatever it may be. That type of congruency leads to healthier communication and authenticity. But when we are resenting and not speaking to it. That's a form of self-deception and deception in the relationship.

And I think, as you're saying that, I love these conversations because it's like, oh, wait, this, this expands a little bit more. Even as a parent, when a child comes in and notices and asks, what a beautiful space and time to validate for them. Oh, yeah, you could probably feel that, that my energy, that I'm grumpy or that I'm bothered. Thank you so much for being so perceptive to even ask, like, wow, how can we validate that child for his, his spidey senses picked something up. So helping them to validate what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, and then even taking that into a, you know, I am feeling kind of grumpy. Maybe I need to think about how I can, how I can work through this. I wonder if I want to draw a picture and draw a picture of what I'm feeling, or maybe I want to, you know, go play right now or go throw some socks against the wall or what? Like, like teaching our kids. Yep. Pierce this emotion. And now I'm going to find some healthy ways to regulate myself and to honor the emotion because these are essential tools that we need for ourselves and our kids need to have us model for them as well.

I like that a lot because now you were being authentic, real with what's actually occurring inside of us. You know, I don't know. I'm trying to work on this, but you did, you did pick it up well done. I mean, you're reading emotions and then I don't know, I'm gonna go figure this out and maybe I need to go for a walk or I may need to go journal for a second or maybe just need some downtime to reflect on what's happening. And now you're modeling that this is what we do. We go do some self-reflection, some work, and we're teaching our children or teaching our spouse or we're just modeling what's healthy. I need to figure this out. So if my spouse picks up that something's off with me, and I might not know yet, I don't know. I'm feeling something. It's a little off. I'm gonna need to go think through this. Now we're going into a space of congruency, honesty, and truth.

You know, one thing that my husband, who's also a therapist, one of the things I really appreciate that he says is sometimes I have no idea. I don't know the name. I can just notice that I feel uncomfortable. And it's okay just to say, I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now. My cognitive bandwidth might not even be in a place where I can figure out, is this anger? Is this resentment? Is this sadness? But I know that I feel uncomfortable and I feel like something's off and I can start there. And that's a really good starting place because I'm just honoring. that there's something going on. Yeah.

And so as we do this kind of self-reflection, I want to go back into this idea of holding resentments. And when we might not even know it's resentment, but if you find yourself angry at people, hurt by people, if you find yourself holding back from people, or there's certain things that trigger you in what other people do, you probably have some resentments. that need to be explored and, and understanding that internalization, like, I, internalization, personal internalization, like, I don't like people. Well, what has happened in your life that triggers that kind of emotional response towards people? People let me down, people hurt me. And, and then how does that then influence how you interact with other people? And so those built up unspoken resentments continue to grow and build to the point where society doesn't feel safe or people don't feel safe. And when we really explore, we start to see not just resentments, but we start to see the manifestation of sometimes hatred, disgust, dislike. Because what happens in human relationships when we don't trust people, when we don't like people, we resent everything and everybody. And anything that reminds us of being hurt, we will develop that. And that's such an important part. So, Marianne, I think what really what we're trying to get at is, is can you do some self work, some self exploration? Can you do that? And if not, why not?

And if I can add on to that, Dr. Skinner, I think there's a really key tool in here. If we hold on to resentments, we often feel it puts us in a, in a victim Mm-. And Pia Melody says, I'm quoting a lot of Pia Melody today for some reason. I'm not sure why I wasn't expecting this, but one of the things I love that she says is that we oftentimes we are a victim for a nanosecond. Something happened to me that I did not expect. I did not say, yep, I'm signing up for that. I'm okay with it. Things happen. People sometimes do things to us that hurt us. and so we have a nanosecond to say, I didn't choose this. I didn't want this. And. And this really hurt me. And. And then we can move into this other place. So we acknowledge that something happened. That's that nanosecond. But we don't Thrive and we don't heal when we're in a victim place. And so as we're working through resentments, I think it's so important to be able to say, I feel. as you were talking about that, like our experience, we have to be able to own it. Because when we own, I feel when this happened, I felt or this impacted me this way. It's really owning our experience. And as we own the experience, that creates a powerful place where we are speaking to what happened to us. It's not that somebody else has all the power because you made me. or you did this, but it's, I felt this way. I feel this way, which is an ownership place, and that's a place to move through and work through healing. Yeah.

And what you're describing here is probably especially hard when there's been sexual betrayal.

Yeah.

From a betrayed perspective, the resentment of gas being gaslit and lied to and all the deception. and so that element of I resent all of the lies, all of that, even then if we look a little bit deeper, we're going to see a core belief because it made me feel like I wasn't enough or I was unlovable or I wasn't important to you. And that's the spoken part of it that rarely is talked about because what we see is the anger or we see that element of the resentment coming out as self-protection. Of course we're going to self-protect. But the deeper part of this is that spoke and resentment is it made me feel unloved.

Not just made me feel, I feel unloved. I feel hurt.

Yeah.

Scared. I don't know if I can trust you and I don't know what to do with that. And I am so worried about what will happen with our relationship. I don't know what the future feels like.

And that's the authenticity, the realness. So in healthier communication, even through this, being able to do that self work and say, I resented this and I felt this and I feel this way is more direct communication.

Oh, yeah. And I would say, and, and I think it's in that space where we can then begin to look at our needs. And here's what I need. And then we can create boundaries as well. And if you can't meet this need, then this is what I will need to do to take care of myself. Once again, it's, it's a very I don't know if powers is the right word, but it's, it's an ownership. It's a place of ownership where I do have choices. So here's what I need. Because I feel this way, because I'm hurt, I might need some space and time to figure out how to heal.

And, and Marianne, I'm gonna ask you a question here. Do you believe that spoken resentments help solve problems?

Oh, that's a tricky question. I don't know if I can, let me answer that a different way. I'm not trying to be cagey, but I believe that it is absolutely necessary to honor our emotions. And whether I honor that emotion with you initially, you might do something that really, really ticks me off or really, really hurts me. And I might need to address it with you, but I might need to address it with myself to figure out what is it about that that really bugged me and what maybe hasn't healed, like what's the attachment wound or what's the belief or the narrative? I, I think it has to be addressed, but I need, in my opinion, I have to do the work on myself to figure out where it's coming from and what it is, because it probably doesn't have anything to do with you, but it might.

So I think it's a trick question. And here's why.

I, I don't know, right?

Well, it's a yes, yes, and yes, and no. Here's the reality for us. If I have a resentment and I share it openly, I resent the fact that we didn't have enough sex. And so that then justifies, in my mind, I justified my behavior to go do XYZ. I spoke it, but it came across as blame.

-Yeah.

-That'S not going to help.

-No.

-Now contrast that. I realized that I was feeling resentment and I built a story against you that was so unfair. And my resentment, it was something I felt I need to deal with that. That's something I had to deal with. And I realized that I was blaming you for me, for my actions. that was wrong.

So I wanted to have sex with you. And when you said no, I felt shut down and like I was really unimportant. Oh, and, oh, I can remember growing up where I felt like that, too. Oh, hold on a second. Maybe this isn't about you. This is about me not feeling important. And.

And now. Now that spoken resentment is sharing the story rather than it coming across as blame.

And that's the ownership part. I can tell that this resentment is a protector trying to protect me, trying to help me out.

So spoken resentment done properly can help heal, but resentment that comes across as blame comes across as anger and accusation, not going to be effective. Yeah. So it really does require that self work that you were talking about. What is it? What is this resentment? And then how do I best communicate it? And do I even understand I own story enough.

Yeah. And I think that is where we, we need our support groups. We need other people where we can check in and say, yeah, here's some things I was struggling with today. And I think people say, yeah, that sounds really valid. Or, oh, I wonder, I wonder where, I wonder what's underneath that. I wonder what, what come, what, where that's coming from for you. And we might need somebody else's cognitive mental space to help us get to that place where we can see ourselves a little more clearly.

Yeah. So I want to, I want to go through a step-by-step process. If you feel resentment or maybe you wonder if you have resentment, I'm going to go through a step-by-step process just to help our, help you do this to our, to our listeners. So this is kind of like a, if you were in my office kind of a thing I would want you to do. So question number one, do I find myself angry, upset, irritated by someone else, my partner or others? if I find myself in that emotional state, you're probably feeling some form of resentment. So I would encourage you to get out a piece of paper and write down events or things that are frustrating you and then ask yourself, why does that frustrate me? As you identify it, you might have to explore more than just one interaction. It might be multiple experiences where this individual or these people have done something that has been hurtful to you in your mind. let down. They said something, they ignored you in your situation, they didn't respond to a text. That made me feel that made me think what about me? Now that question really is an important shift. Like what did that make me feel about me? I'm not important. I'm not lovable to them or they don't love me or they don't care about me. If they did, they would respond. so when you start to ask these step-by-step questions, right, you're going through this process, right? Irritated, frustrated, what is it? Why do I feel that way? Next step. Then what did it make me feel about me? Third step. And now you go into this, I felt unloved. And then the fourth step, when have I felt this way other times in my life? And now as you go through this process, this step-by-step process, you're going to get more personal awareness. Now think about my ability to communicate. How would I tell this person if I'm going to communicate it with them? How would I tell them? And now you're reflecting this one of these steps is how do I best share this in the most effective way without blaming?

Can I expand on that step four there, Dr. Skinner? Yeah. One of the tools we use in EMDR and I use in my therapy office all of the time. is to do that body check. So, okay, so I'm feeling resentment, frustration, whatever that emotion is. So can I check my body and notice where is it showing up for me? And just really becoming very cognizant of when I'm feeling this emotion, this is how where it shows up in my body and it shows up for everybody in different places. But if I can go from that space and really not use my cognitive thinking mind so much, but I really want to do, we call it an emotional float back, as if I were lying on a river of emotions and say, where have I felt that before? When was the last time I felt that? So if I'm on an inner tube and I'm just floating, floating through, where has my body felt this before? And I just let myself float back to, oh, that time when I was 15 years old, that time when I was eight years old, that time when I was seven years old. And if I can go back to the earliest that I can find, these are all attachment wounds that probably haven't been addressed, but it helps give me a map of things that I need to work on. Oh, here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is. And that really helps me to make sense of, oh, I'm feeling this. And it feels just like all these other times. This is my core. This helps me identify a core belief, a core narrative that I've given myself. And then I can really look at it and say, huh, is this true? Then I can really start looking at maybe with my more adult eyes or a different perspective or a lens, but really just connecting our body stores oftentimes the same emotions in the same places. And so recognizing, oh, every time I have that feeling in my gut, oh, oh, I know where this is from. And here's a whole trail of times where I felt it before.

Because once you've done that kind of self work, you know, what you're feeling like, oh, this reminds me of a night because I've done the work. I have more personal insight, more personal awareness, because that self awareness is just growing and growing and growing. Oh, these are the triggers. And really, then I carry less of that burden because it's not unspoken. It's actually spoken. I know it. I know it. That's incredibly powerful personal work that helps us in not only our own healing, but it helps us be better in relationships.

Yeah, and then we carry that forward. Oh, got that feeling in my stomach. Oh, I have a name for it and now I can start to work through it so much more quickly because it's not a mystery to me.

So as we get ready to close today, I hope our listeners, I hope my hope is that you take away from this the importance of doing self-reflection on your life and your personal resentments. And I'm gonna be giving you a huge caution here. Don't just write down your resentments and go talk with your spouse and say, this is what I resent. Do your self work, look at your story, ask the question, are we in a space where I can communicate my resentments or do we need to work on our relationship to the point where we can share some of these frustrations in an open and honest and a healing way rather than an accusatory or a blaming way? Are we in that kind of a mature space or not? If we're not, then we need to do some couples work because if you truly want a deep intimate relationship, resentments will always hold you back, always. And only when you deal with the resentments effectively, sometimes I might go through a resentment and say, this is on me. I don't even need to communicate it with my spouse because I've resolved this and this is on me, not them. And other times, like we probably need to talk about this and I don't want to do it in a way that's accusatory. I want to do it in a healing way.

So what I'm hearing you talk about is really that, that ownership. My, I can have my resentments, my spouse can have his resentments, but it's really like my junk. It's my stuff that's mine. And he can share with me, Hey, I felt resentful towards that. And if there's a need or a boundary, like that's a place where you can say, here's what happened for me when this happened, and here's how I felt. And Here's a need. And, and that's really a vulnerable place where we attach, where we see and hear our partner's story. And then from that vulnerable place can say, here's what I would really like or really need. Can you help me with that? That's absolutely where, if it's a, in a safe place or relationship where we can be vulnerable, we can say, of course. I had no idea that's what your experience was like. Of course I want to meet you and help you in that space. and so, and so there is that healing that can come through our relationships. And there's also the times where I have to say, yeah, this is my junk that I have to work through. This comes from my childhood. This comes from earlier in my life. And my partner can maybe do some things to help me feel, help me meet some needs in the future if they're willing and able. But there's a lot of ownership that I think has to happen there too.

Yeah. One other thought, and this is maybe just a reality for some couples. I might not be ready to let go of my resentments. I'm. I might be in a space where I feel so hurt, so let down that I'm not in a space where I want. I'm ready to heal. I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to talk. I think the openness there is a truth. I feel so.

Hurt.

I don't know if I'm ready to move forward in a connection or to create that. I'm. That's an honest statement of. I'm still feeling this resentment is hurt, and I'm not ready. That type of honesty is really rare in my experience as a clinician. We aren't that honest. And so what we do is we pull away, we ignore, we avoid. We're still sending a message. I'm not ready for connection, but we're doing it in a hurtful way. we could be mature there and say, I know you might want to connect right now. I'm not in that space. And I'm telling you honestly, because I've got to work through these things. And truth is, I don't know if I'm going to be able to work through them. I'm still trying to figure these things out. That type of honesty, that type of congruency is truth. But instead what we do is we do everything but. so, no, I'm not going to bed with you at the same time. And no, I'm not doing this. And no, I'm. And so my message is I'm still hurt or angry.

You're picking it up, but we're not talking about it.

So there's a lot of non-verbal non-verbal yes. And so I'm showing you my resentment.

I'm showing you it. And that circles us back to Pia Melody, her kid coming in saying, something's going on. What's going on?

And then.

That child picking up that energy and going and expressing it someplace else. Or let's go where it's direct and.

I just, would you just stop this? You always are asking me how I'm doing, you're, you know, and so now I'm doing it through anger. And so I'm showing my resentment through my anger and trying to get you to back off because I'm saying I don't want a connection right now. So much more effective would we be is simply saying, I'm not ready for connection right now. I'm trying to figure out my own emotions. I'm still dealing with the hurts and I'm still dealing with these things. I need to figure this out before I really try to communicate because right now I don't think I could do it effectively.

So that resentment shows up, it creates a barrier between you and, or me and the other person that says, I'm gonna stay a little bit away from you because I've been hurt and it hasn't, it hasn't healed yet.

That's right.

It's, it's, it's a protective tool. It's a defense mechanism we use to protect ourselves from deeper hurt. hurt when we haven't been able to work through the hurt that's there.

And the mature us, the mature us is able to say, in all honesty, I'm not in a space where I'm ready to connect. I'm not or have this conversation. I'm not in that space. I need to figure it out. And I don't know how long it's going to take, but I'm going to tell you, I am going to work on this because I owe that to you. And you, if you can give me space and time together, we'll have this conversation. But if I did it right now, I'd probably rip your head off.

So this is a mature conversation and underlying that, what I'm hearing, there's a lot of self-compassion here when we can step into that place. Can I give myself permission to not be ready to still need some time to work through some things that I haven't worked through yet?

And from a therapeutic standpoint, I find that in that mature conversation, their partner Sometimes we'll feel that rejection, like, oh, they don't want to connect. They are not ready. And that also requires a maturity to be able to say they need some space to get work through this rather than pursue, pursue, pursue. If you pursue there, you're going to push your partner further and further away.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Yeah.

And you're talking about that dynamic because when my partner pushes away and I want to pursue it, it's because I have unmet needs. I need to connect with you. I need to know everything's okay. And so we both might be in a state of more fight or flight.

And now we're trying to help couples regulate. We could actually come back to this whole, whole in another podcast, come back to when we feel disconnected and dysregulated and how do we deal with that? That'd be an entire different podcast, but I think it follow up from what we're talking about right now. So, all right, we'll have to follow up on that in another, another podcast. Final thoughts today, Marianne.

Final thoughts. if you're experiencing frustration, resentment, any of the anything that we've talked about today, you're human. That's really normal. There's nothing wrong with you. These are normal reactions our body shows up with saying, hey, pay attention here. And so the more we can recognize this is an emotional experience. My body's trying to teach me something. It's trying to help me out. so slowing down, saying, oh, I'm feeling this, I'm recognizing this, and to take care of yourselves. Okay, what do I need here? Do I need support from somebody who is safe for me? Do I need to do some internal work? Do I need to work with a therapist or a group? Or do I need to just go really work through this? Do I need to take a walk? Do I need to write in my journal? How do I need to make sense of of what's going on. I think oftentimes we avoid emotions because they feel painful, but emotions don't hurt us. We avoid them because we don't want to go into the pain. But the more we can say, help me learn from this, help me understand this, help me learn from this, and I'm going to give myself some grace too, if I don't understand it or get it all the way, and I really might need other people to help.

Me carry this or to make sense of it.

Yeah. So just be soft and gentle with yourself and accepting because this is normal. This is a normal part of relationships is that things don't go the way that we always want or expect.

Absolutely. So in conclusion, my thoughts are this. If we we can recognize our resentments. If we can recognize them and we can do that internalized personal work, we're going to have more maturity in our approach to people and relationships. And we ourselves will feel. We will feel more congruent because we're honest with ourselves. I am. I am feeling this way. It's real. And now I'm dealing with it rather than letting it fester up because resentment carried harms your mind. It influences your physiology as you described in your own personal experience. It influences every aspect of how we approach relationships, not just with our partner. Resentment can carry over into other relationships. So don't live with resentment. That's my invitation. If you really want human intimacy in your life, work through your resentment so you live in peace and harmony within yourself and with the people closest to you. That would be my suggestion.

I would just end with you are worth doing that work. Your relationships are worth doing the work. And there is so much hope ahead. So thank you so much to our listeners for joining us today. Any final wrap up, Dr. Skinner?

Yeah, I want to announce this is again post the first human intimacy conference on April 1st. so mark your calendars April 1st. If you were not able to attend the conference, we are going to offer a special discount where you can watch every session, every session. So we have a special discount and it is going to be half off the price. So you can watch the entire conference for $150 incredible experts. And this is a great opportunity if you weren't able to attend the conference to watch incredible sessions.

I mean, so I couldn't go. I couldn't go in person, like online live. But you're saying it's going to be available for anybody who wants to purchase access to it, and they'll have access to all of the, everything that was shared.

Every session. So go to humanintimacy.com and it will be under Human Intimacy Conference. You'll be able to see it and you'll be able to get the code if you if you put in the code HI conference 50. So HI conference 50, you'll be able to get 50 off the price. Anyway, that is an invitation. If you weren't able to get there again, therapists from all over the country with over 400 years of experience, phenomenal conference invite you to join to, to go watch what in just these sessions is phenomenal. So that would be my final invitation, Marianne.

Thank you to all of our listeners for being here with us and hope that you'll join us again soon. Take care.