Resentment

Will often get plugged in when something threatens our wallet, when we feel like our desire for financial security or wealth or money or possessions or our future capacity to have those things is being threatened. Hi, welcome to Sex Love Power. I'm your host, Michelle Lizenberry Christensen. This podcast is where I convene the conversations about love and sex that help powerful women and those who love them to create the intimacy and intensity they really want in bed and in life. Together, we navigate the tensions between our desire and our devotions, between our wildness and our security with our eyes wide open. This podcast is designed to help you create more closeness, ease, pleasure and justice in your relationship. And we do it by blending wisdom from the fields of sexuality and spirituality, trauma and self regulation, and intersectional feminism. I'm so glad you're here. Hey hey, hey. Today we're talking about resentments, irritation, anger. Today's episode is going to touch on the things that you're resistant to give your partner or to talk with them about, and about the things that you have a hard time moving past. I'm going to share what I've learned about digging into the stuck places in relationships and the surprising place where I learned the most powerful tool in my arsenal for discovering what's keeping us stuck. You don't have to chase your tail because upset about the same things month after month, year after year. With this tool, I will equip you to free yourself from any grudge, irritation, frustration, resistance or anger that you may be carrying. You'll get to see what part of you is affronted by that person or that situation, and the tool I will teach you is going to help you start to see other ways of holding that circumstance or relationship. This episode's blessings for you rest on the PDF download that details this tool. Our conversation on the podcast is just an audible walkthrough of everything that I've poured into this written tool and I've provided you the tool on the podcast page. So if you want to use this tool, I recommend that you download it there and save it to your device and or print it out. I use this tool as a writing exercise longhand every time because I find that much more powerful than just thinking or speaking or trying to type out my answers. This is a system that I use myself regularly to this day, and I've taught many clients to see their part in every situation with their space spouse and with other loved ones, and with colleagues and with politics and other relationships and the whole world. This process gives us our power back, plain and simple. Most people want to be fair about their own role in their problems. We want to take responsibility, we want to feel agency, and we want to be able to move past what's in the past. The bottom line is, though, we never really learned how. So as a result, over and over, we hold onto grudges. We try to pick the speck out of somebody else's eye while we're remaining unable to see the plank in our own. We feel like life or other people are unfair and like we're getting shortchanged. We grumble, we feel frazzled and overwhelmed, and we struggle to put our finger on what it is that's bothering us. I learned a long time ago this great phrase for how best to deal with problems. It's just like keeping a horse's stall clean. You shovel while the piles are small. And now, especially in relationships, if we wait and we put off those cleanup tasks, the piles can overwhelm us, the negative feelings can pile up and blind us to the positives in the relationship. And all too often I've seen people build up a whole story that wasn't even objectively true, but that they felt justified ending the relationship, behaving in hurtful ways themselves, or doing both. So let's escape that phase, shall we? If you're ready to learn how to grow through your resentments and anger so you can ask for what you need and set appropriate boundaries and know your own role and readily release what's no longer yours to carry, this is the episode for you. I'm going to walk step by step through this with you. So here we go. We all have things that rub us the wrong way, that stick in our craw or push our buttons. They bug us. They upset us. We think we know why or we have no idea why. But the upset often gets in the way of our joy and our ease and comes between us and other people. I call this process for metabolizing, understanding and getting free from these upsets the resentment remodeling process. It has been more revelatory with regard to these triggers than anything else I've ever learned through my master's degree in psychology, through the mountain of other training I've had, or through the 25 plus years of coaching experience I have. I have refined this process through work with clients and friends and expanded it with tools that I first Learned through the 12 Step Recovery community. Herb Kagan's Big Book of Awakening, 12 Step Workbook is a wonderful guide with a lot more explanation of all 12 steps and both his books and Herb's personal teaching have been a huge inspiration and transformational process for me. This process draws deeply from gifts Herb has given me so, so beautifully, so generously, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share them with you. By running your upsets with other people and situations through this process, I'm confident that you too can gain a new level of freedom, of self awareness and of serenity. May it be so. Here's a quick overview of the process. First, we're going to identify the situation that's bothering you specifically. Then we'll look at the nature of your upset. How did this person or conversation or event make you feel? Specifically, how did it affect each of the seven parts of yourself or your ego? This is kind of your little self or your personality. I'll tell you a little bit more about what each of those seven parts are and guide you one at a time through them. Then we'll contrast your upset sense of yourself and your role in the situation with a few other possible interpretations that may give you more power to change your own state with regard to the situation. And finally, you'll find your power by discovering where you have responsibility and choice in the situation and where there's room for you to grow in wisdom and character based on what you're seeing. So first, let's look at these seven parts of self that are most often threatened. We get our buttons pushed because something in us. I picture it almost like how Peter Rabbit is running through Mr. McGregor's garden. Picture that you have seven little brass buttons on your coat, and one or more of them keeps getting hooked on the fence, just like happened to Peter Rabbit. So the buttons on our coats, this is all of us in different ways. So some of us have really big. One of these buttons is really big in us and another one's not so big. But we all get caught on these things. So what are they? Well, self esteem. And that's how we think of ourselves. Like, don't you know who I am? I'm this kind of person. We really identify with some aspect of our being. I'm a nice person. I'm good. I'm generous. I'm kind. I'm respectable. Our pride. How we need for others to see us. I need other people to think I'm intelligent or I need other people to think I'm beautiful or worth listening to, whatever it may be. Ambition. These are our goals. This is how we want things to go down. Fourth, there's our personal relations. This is how we connect with other people and how we think Those relationships should work. Since you're my friend, since you're my dad, since you're my spouse, you should, you know, that's what a good blank does. Our emotional security, that's our core sense of personal well being and safety. Like, I can't be okay unless this is happening. Our gender roles. So even those of us like myself, who like to think of ourselves as sort of post gender or feminist or, you know, not really believing in traditional men are supposed to do this. Women are supposed to do that. We have been programmed with certain beliefs and looking for the places where we think, oh, I think this situation should go differently. Because person's a man, or because this person's a woman, or because we're both women, it's supposed to be like this. That basic drive for relationship and intimacy and our socialized sense of what makes somebody a good person or a good woman or a good man often gets us hooked. And then finally we'll often get plugged in when something threatens our wallet, when we feel like our desire for financial security or wealth or money or possessions or our future capacity to have those things is being threatened. So that's like a pretty good laundry list, right, of ways you might get plugged in, buttons that might get pushed. So it's pretty comprehensive and you'll see that you can walk through each of those and find where you're getting triggered. You're going to ask, what's the truth here? Where was my responsibility in this relationship? What might I have done instead? Where did I contribute to the problem that I had or the problem I am having? Was I dishonest? Selfish? Self referencing, frightened, inconsiderate, complicating matters? This remodeling process serves to provide relief from upset that is at least to some extent draining your energy and distracting you from the life and the relationships you want to have. On another level, and this level may take you some time to discover it through experience. The more profound outcome of this process is that you will come to see and be liberated from some of the obstacles to clear sight and to spiritual depth that currently occupy your consciousness. I've studied spiritual growth, non duality, awakening, ascension for many years, but this process is a concrete way to sandblast power, wash, get out. So many of the things that for decades after I learned these beautiful concepts were still blocking my experience of the divine. By doing this, we're really polishing the mirror in a sense that is capable of reflecting the light of the power that lives deep inside us. That power has been obscured by the dust and grime of certain aspects of our personality, and we get to wipe it clean. These facets of your personality that have gotten grimed over, they developed in childhood, and for good reason. They're facets of a strategy that you developed in order to get by in your family of origin and in your childhood situations. They really worked, as evidenced by the fact that you're still here and you have all the accomplishments, resources, and life experience that you currently enjoy. They don't work anymore, at least to the extent that they're snagging you right now with this upset, with problems in your relationships and perhaps with other symptoms and struggles in your life that you aren't even currently aware of, are related to these character traits. But as you become aware of the patterns in your consciousness and become willing to soften your grip on them, a broader range of responses to life and therefore a greater emotional and interpersonal resilience will emerge. You'll have even more access to positive feelings and better problem solving abilities and a sweeter connection to something larger than yourself. However you may conceive of that, this process serves to remove the sludge in us that blocks us from full aliveness and spiritual awareness. So this is a writing exercise. You'll want to have a printout of the PDF that's included on the episode page to be able to walk through this process. I'm going to give you full instructions and then I have my husband Kurt here to kind of interview me through so that I can give you an example of what this process looks like with a resentment in my own life. This is a writing exercise. It's important to engage in the process in written format, because writing down your responses requires a level of precision that's pretty easy to lose if we just talk through or think internally about the questions. So here are the steps. First, begin by setting an intention at the top of the page. You might think of this as a prayer or just an affirmation. You could say God or Allah, Creator or Goddess, or any name that resonates for you. And then you might have a prayer like Please enable me to see the truth. Or you might say, may I gain clarity and self honesty from this process. Second, write down the name of the person you're frustrated with or reactive toward and describe what they did. Or if it's a situation that you're frustrated with, name the situation in as few words as you can. Third, consider each of the seven areas of self. The worksheet will guide you, and for each one, write in sentence form how you were and are affected. You're upset because this situation, according to your ego, hurt or threatened or got in the way of something worth defending, worth getting angry over. These prompts will help you discover what your ego thinks is so all fire important. Your answers will likely surprise you and land with the thud of truth. Both they are likely, if they're really deeply buried and true, to be embarrassing when you find them out. Like oh God, really? Am I coming from there? Deep down? Yes, I am. So don't be surprised if you have physiological responses of embarrassment. That's just a sign that it's working. Don't write I think or I feel in any of these boxes. Allow your writing in response to each prompt to reveal your beliefs, your attachments and your fears to your conscious mind. Particularly with the self esteem question. You know if you really had low self esteem when the person you're writing about did the things they did, you wouldn't have been resentful. You'd have believed that you got what you deserved. You're going to get more self awareness about your own character if you write from a vantage of high self esteem. Exaggerated. If you have to, write as if you think very highly of yourself and what you deserve. So for example, write doesn't he realize I'm an amazing wife, I'm hard working, I'm kind as well as being beautiful and great in bed. He's so lucky to have me. Then write your fear. This is where the lower self esteem side might come out in the fear box over there to the right. To continue this example. I'm afraid I'm a lousy wife. I'm afraid he could do better. I'm afraid I'd be alone forever if he left me. I'm afraid he will leave me. I'm afraid he should. The more times you do this process and see the grandiose point of view and the worthless or fearful point of view side by side, the more you'll see the extremes of your own consciousness and the more you'll loosen the grip that either pull can have on you as you write each sentence in one of the main boxes. Note in the fear box to the right the fear that corresponds. I expect or I need, but I'm afraid that and write that second part in the fear box. This might be challenging to understand at first, but read the example. Listen to the example I give you in the podcast. Use the worksheet and try it five times, maybe 10 times. You will get the hang of it and you can DM me if you have any Questions? The bottom line is that we think we ought to be in charge because we think we know better. In whatever situation it is that we're bothered by, we think we know how it should go down. You know, Shakespeare said, and I'm probably just paraphrasing here, not perfectly, but he said something like, all the world's a stage and we are merely players on it. But many of us try not to just be players acting our own part, but to write the whole script, direct all the characters, design the costumes, and otherwise control every aspect of what's going down. We're convinced we know better than others how the world should run and what they should do, think and feel. I mean, I don't consider myself a control freak and I don't think I'm going around managing other people. But in these moments where I'm bothered by what's happening, what's really going on, it's that I think I know better than they do what should really go down. In these moments, at least somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind and heart, I'm thinking, I'm the director and they're acting out of character for the way that I wrote the script. So try on that notion that right here you think you have the whole script and you know how each player is supposed to participate and the reason you're mad is because they aren't playing to the script. Use your writing to see how you're trying to run the show. You'll begin to see how you believe the whole situation should have gone down and how you think you're the showrunner and you're the director and you're entitled to call out how each scene should unfold. Self esteem is your stage character. That's the role that your ego has assigned to you. Usually a heroic role, a victim or a martyr or some other portrait that you find flattering. It's unlikely to be a perpetrator or a bumbling or ignorant role. Your pride is how other players are supposed to see you, treat you and show deference or respect to you. Ambition is what you want out of the scene, how it will go down in your ideal scenario. What you're reaching for, your security is what you need out of the scene for you to be okay. This is what you want to protect or cling to. Relationships include your deep seated idea of how this type of relationship is supposed to go. Gender roles speak to your deep seated ideas that are often not very conscious until we use this process to inquire into them and they're Frequently embarrassing, once we do, of how a real man or a real woman or a good person, especially of a particular gender identity or role, would be in this situation. And your wallet or your purse relates to your finances and belongings, for example, your money, your material security, your wealth, your expenses, your income, your future, your retirement, those kinds of things. So this gets us to the end of part one of the process. Now, in the second part, you're going to take the sense of yourself, your role in the play from the first part, and examine whether there might be a different way of seeing your part that will allow you more agency, freedom from upset, and ability to engage with life and other people constructively so you're not causing harm yourself, regardless of what another person does. Looking at your own role does not mean you don't ever hold the other person accountable for anything that they did that's unacceptable. In fact, it equips you better to hold clean, clear boundaries with others, because you can do so from a place of owning your role and not muddying the waters with denial or projection or any acting out or retaliation on your part. Here's how to do it. First, once again, you begin by setting an intention at the top of the page. You know, kind of a little prayer, a little centering, affirm why you're doing this part of the process. You could write something like God, Allah, Creator, Goddess, any name that resonates for you, please help me find my true role in this situation. Or you might simply say, non theistically, may I access self honesty and kindness to all. Second, write down the person's name with whom you're upset and the situation. Again, on the part two worksheet, When I am disturbed by for which is the perceived misdeed or the problem in the situation. And then third, read the rest of the sentence and the next sentence on the worksheet. When I'm upset by that I have a belief about my role, how I think I'm affected. And that's from the analysis in part one. My perceived role, like a character in a play, when I hold this resentment is. So this means you're stage directing the scene, you've cast yourself in a particular role or light and you're reacting from that vantage. In this part of the exercise, you're going to turn your lens around and rather than building the case for how they harmed you and what they were supposed to do, instead you get to examine what you contributed before and during the moment or situation that you're upset about, and also what you're doing and Thinking now that creates or exacerbates your your own problem and perhaps creates new problems for you, for the person you're focused on, and even for other people. So fourth, you're going to identify what that perceived role has been. I believe in this situation that I am the adjective noun. You're going to find a kind of two word or two part title for the role that you have been perceiving. So this is usually the protagonist of the story. For example, you might have been thinking of yourself as the misunderstood hero, the betrayed spouse, the abused child, the underappreciated good daughter. Chances are you've cast yourself as a very sympathetic character who's been done wrong to by somebody else or by a situation. You've probably not cast yourself as someone who could have made different choices to create better outcomes, or someone who is causing harm themselves, either for yourself or for others, or both. Just see how you would describe your role. You can use poor me if you can't think of anything else. Fifth, ask yourself, is this event true or false? Did it really happen? Sometimes the thing really did happen, but other times we have to be honest with ourselves right here and say no. In fact, I can't confirm that the thing I'm upset about is honestly even a verifiable reality. It's really good to know this either way, even if it did really happen, as you'll see in the example, the attribution of responsibility for the consequences we suffered can often change. I have helped clients use this situation with everything from a recent argument with their spouse, which was two ways back, to something where they were hurt as a child. They couldn't have had any responsibility in the situation because it was them and an adult who should have known better and should have done better. So they had no role in creating the situation in the first place. So all we're looking at in that situation is what can they do now to free themselves from imprisonment by something that happened decades ago? If a situation took place when you were a child or or it was criminal or dishonest, you may not have had a role whatsoever, or your contributions may have been dwarfed by the wrong done by others. This isn't to downplay their actions. It's to give you access to your own power, which certainly never extends to controlling other people's actions in the present, let alone in the past. So don't get distracted by how wrong what they did was or how unjust the whole system or culture or whatever. That may well be accurate, but it's not the Key to Our Freedom the key to our freedom is to see how we constructed our own jail and how we're shackling ourselves to it even today. Step 7 Consider each of the areas prompted on the worksheet. For some upsets, there'll be more responses related to at the time because they're focused on an event or a past behavior by someone else and how you were involved back then. Other times there's more evergreen thoughts, like an anger at some aspect of society that you feel is unfair or wrong. For those your responses may relate more to now. When you're doing resentment around this thing, in what ways does that pattern of upset make you self seeking, self centered? And so on. As you look through the worksheet, you'll see how the questions could focus on either the past or how you're being now. For some triggers, you'll want to draw a line right down the middle of the box and answer for both then and now. Use this process in the way that works best for you. For each particular trigger, you're gonna look at five different areas. 1. Where was I self seeking? Where was I acting on my own behalf, grasping or self centered in my behavior? Second, where was I self referencing, thinking about me, my opinions, my desires, what others think of me, my own comfort? Where was I focused on self centered thoughts, motives, attitudes? Third, where am I or was I dishonest, misrepresenting myself, misrepresenting reality in my own mind or to other people? Where was I lying to myself or others? Where was I omitting, deluding, hiding, exaggerating, minimizing, rationalizing, excusing, projecting? You can see there are lots of ways we can be dishonest, so look deeply for where you might have been, even subtly misrepresenting. Fourth, where was I afraid? Where was I in fear of not getting what I want or of losing what I have or think I deserve? And fifth, where am I responsible for or where am I creating my own feelings and my own behavior when I'm feeling this way? What about back then? How did I contribute to the original event? How am I creating my own feelings now in my current reaction to this person or event? Once you've gone through all five of those areas, review the ways that you have at the time that they were hurting or bothering you. Before that and possibly since then, how have you harmed the other person or the situation in question? Ask yourself, what emotional consequence or harm did I cause this person or the situation? What's the actual negative impact of my actions on them? Whether I intended it that way or not, you might not have hurt them, but look honestly for ways they have been impacted by your actions, your inactions and your attitudes. Examine the impact on their body, mind, feelings, spirit, finances, and any other harm. Look for where others were harmed or impacted by your participation in the situation or by your resentment itself. It's okay if the answer is no. Just look honestly at what you've done, how you've been in your upset, and whether that might have had an effect on people around you who weren't even involved in the original upset, including yourself. In Part one, you wrote about fears at every step of the way. Have any other fears been brought to your attention while doing either of these parts of the process? List them next. Then, especially as you use this process multiple times, you're going to recognize traits in yourself that cause you and other people suffering. Don't use that recognition to beat yourself up, but use it to grow the humility that you are human, with both beautiful gifts and learned strategies that got you through in the past, but that you're ready to transcend. What counterproductive character traits have you become aware of while completing the worksheet? Make a note of those. The last page of this document will give you some cues as to a few I also do further processes with clients to unearth, release, and integrate their shadow traits so they can use their gifts and limit the harm that they create. If you were going to consider letting go of these hard feelings, what resistance arises? What do you perceive, even with a little part of you, that you would lose by releasing your upset? Do you think there's some risk you take by letting go? Or is there some charge or reward you get by holding on? Write that down. This is why I hold on to this resentment. And finally, having looked at all the different facets of our egos that are hooked by this situation and all the ways we ourselves have participated in harming ourselves and harming others internally, at the very least through this resentment? It's time to consider a different viewpoint. Byron, Katie asks in the work is there another opposite idea that might possibly be at least as true as the one I've been holding onto? And we look at that here. What would be the exact opposite of the role you thought you were playing in this scene? Might there be at least some truth to the opposite you just named and or is there a different role that your writing has revealed to you where you're not the whole cause of the trouble necessarily, but you aren't an innocent victim exactly either. This is very ego deflating to see that we're not as righteous, virtuous, done wrong to, or otherwise unassailable as our internal monologue might have portrayed us. But imagine a movie where the heroine is mono dimensionally good. She'd make you gag, right? You'd rather watch the story of someone who's lovably flawed. That's because it's more true to life. That's how you are. You're lovably flawed. We all contain good and bad. We all benefit from holding ourselves accountable for our role in every situation, regardless of the other person's actions or attitudes. Nothing is truly black and white. So write down your actual role in a more grounded way. I now realize that I am actually the adjective noun. Sometimes this step will take your breath away as you see that whereas you thought you were the victim, you're a perpetrator as well. Or whereas you thought you were powerless. You've got an agency that you haven't yet fully claimed. Whatever you discover, it will be liberating and bring you closer to a grounded, spirit infused experience of not only this situation, but your entire life. I adore this process and I trust you will too, to whatever extent you invest in practicing it and opening your heart and mind to its deep medicine. In the PDF available for download on the episode page, you can get the Part one and Part two worksheets, which are three pages in total, and then an example, a filled out example of my own resentment from my own life, followed by a prompt list that you might use to nudge you to see pieces of your own Rule for your Part 2 questions My husband's going to interview me through a recent resentment so that you can see how I use this own process in my own life to uncover where my buttons get stuck on the bushes and get more free. I probably do two to four of these a month ongoingly. Anytime I find myself kind of resenting resending thoughts about a situation, whether that's upset at something happening in the world, which there's certainly a lot of cause for, or I'm bothered by one of my loved ones or something strikes me the wrong way with a client, I get to look underneath the hood and see what it is in my own wiring that's getting this situation struck in my craw. And in this way everything in my life becomes fuel for my awakening. I love, love love this process and I adore you. So enjoy trying it out for yourself, Enjoy listening to my example and I can't wait to hear how it goes for you.

Hi everybody, It's Kurt, Michelle's husband. I haven't been on here before, but it's kind of exciting to be here. Yeah. So we'll run through this. Michelle is the guinea pig, you know, and I'm grateful for that, being that it's my first time here on this podcast. But again, so this first section is like, over the top stuff. It's not like you trying to figure out yourself. And again, this is for stuff that's like bugging you and bugging you in an ongoing way. It's really kind of like Michelle said earlier, under your. Under your skin. And most of the time, at least for me, a guy who needs, you know, some ego deflation. It shows me the lenses, like, through which I'm seeing the world and where I'm not seeing things clearly at the end. You get through the end, you realize, no, this is like a place where I need to establish some healthy boundaries with somebody. But at least at that point, after you do the sheet, you know where you are. So, anyway, again, Michelle has gracefully said she'll be the guinea pig here. I'll just lead it through, so. Okay, you ready?

Yeah.

All right, here we go.

Thanks for being here.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay, part one. Here we go. This is about beliefs. What's your intention?

My intention is to really see the truth in this situation. And may I be free from reactivity.

And self delusion and what you resent.

It's kind of fun to do this together when I resent my husband for falling asleep after work and then coming down just in time to eat dinner, not help prepare it.

Yeah. And again, you want to be writing this. You don't want to just jump into something like this with somebody, obviously, but this is an example. Okay, we'll jump into self esteem. What is your deep, entitled or grandiose or aspirational belief about who you are?

I think I'm a wonderful wife, deserving of his presence and help, and I'm afraid that he takes me for granted.

And number two, pride. How do you want other people to see you being treated? Now, really ham this up. Put yourself on a stage with me in this situation and imagine a relevant audience. And this is really over the top stuff.

And it's really so, you know, this is advanced ninja skills to do this with the person that you're resentful at. I don't recommend trying mad at home. Don't let your husband interview you through this. Kurt and I have already walked through this worksheet together, and we're out on the other side of this so we're able to talk about it together. So the way that this hit my pride is others should see him treating me with respect and adoration and full presence. But what I'm afraid of is that I'm not really worthy of the respect and the cherishing that I want.

And what do you want to happen? What's your goal or dream? What do you attach to?

I want us to have great energy and deep intimacy as we make and eat dinner together. But I'm afraid that this napping guy is either old or lazy or both. And I'm afraid I'm never going to have full aliveness for security.

Number four, what do you need in order to be okay? And why?

I need my husband to show up 100% because if he doesn't, I don't know if I can handle it on my own. I'm afraid I need his energy in order for me to have enough energy myself.

Number five, relationships. How do you expect this relationship should be? So in this situation they are my husband, I should be, he's my husband.

So he's supposed to be there for me 100%, 100% of the time. But I'm afraid that he's human and therefore he's simply not good enough.

And number six, sex, genders and relationships. What is my belief about men? A real ideal man should always be.

A good man is present, adoring, thoughtful and energetic and a real woman. If I were truly a good woman, my husband wouldn't let me down. A good woman inspires devotion and reliable presence. Ugh. These make me just cringe. But deep down I think those are running me and my fear is I'm not good enough.

And number seven, the pocketbook. What's your affected value? And there's examples here, so let's just run with it. Nothing should interfere with or affect or.

Lessen your my ability to count on my husband to be present. I'm afraid he's unreliable so I can't be happy.

Okay, so that finishes up the beliefs. How was that for you?

That was really embarrassing, thanks for asking. It's like I really uncovered my deep seated beliefs about how things ought to be. And those are not things that I normally walk around thinking. They're pretty deep but as I uncover them they feel authentic. Like yeah, absolutely, some part of my ego is really thinking that way. And that's why this situation really stuck in my craw. And those fears I unearthed really are the things that I'm afraid of in the present or in the future that's how I'm afraid things actually are or are going to be. So that pendulum swing between the way things ought to be, what I'm attached to them being and then what I'm afraid they are is what caused me the upset. I see that.

Okay, and now we're going to move into part two and it's about your motives and what is your intention.

So for this may I see beneath my perceptions and discover my real role and may I feel freer and more loved and more loving.

Okay. And so when you are disturbed by me, have a belief about your role or how you think you're affected in the situation, your perceived role is like a character in a play. When you hold this resentment, I believe.

I'm the unappreciated and abandoned wife. So is the event true? I mean yeah, Kurt did fall asleep and he didn't come down till 6 when we needed to eat dinner before his 6:30 appointment. So it actually happened. But not necessarily in alignment with all those perceptions I uncovered in part one.

Okay. So disregarding the other person, which is me and my role entirely, consider it the following, just for you, before, during or after the event or behavior you're reentering. Where were you then and or where are you now? And number one, self seeking, acting on your own behalf, grasping or self centered behavior. When you feel this resentment, you.

I made dinner but resentfully and now I'm holding the grudge. I'm not telling my husband what would make it better for me.

Number two, self referencing, thinking about you, your opinions and desires, what others think of you, your own comfort, self centered thoughts, motives, attitudes. When you feel this resentment, you.

I feel sorry for myself for making dinner without your help in companionship. I felt sorry. It's funny to do this with you. Here I was grumbling about him not getting up and coming to see me, but I was missing the point that I could go wake him up, I could ask him to come down. I was assuming that he knows he's oversleeping. I was wrapped up in my own thoughts, not really considering his point of view.

Number three, dishonest, misrepresenting yourself or reality, lying to yourself or others, omitting, deluding, hiding, exaggerating, minimizing, rationalizing, excusing, projecting. When you feel this resentment, you.

I had to forget all the times that he has single handedly made our dinner when I was tied up and when I may or may not have communicated well about where I was or what I was needing. I was dishonest or misrepresenting by telling myself he has to come down, but not reminding myself that I could ask him to. I was assigning meaning and working myself up about it without being curious about his thoughts, his feelings, or his needs. And I was ignoring that. I don't know why he's so tired or what's actually going on with him.

Number four, afraid. Fear of not getting what you want or losing what you have. When you feel this resentment, you.

I'm afraid I'll never have the intimacy I want. I'm afraid of him and me getting old and slow and slovenly and never having great sex or great trips or fun dinners together.

Number five, where or how are you creating your feelings and your behavior when you're feeling this way?

I didn't invite him to come down. I didn't tell him what I needed. I was holding the resentment and thereby creating my own upset and fondling my fears.

What harm or emotional consequence did you cause this person or situation? What's the actual negative impact of your actions on?

Well, I don't think there was physical harm or mental harm, but emotionally I was really grumpy when you did come down. And I also think since then I've been pretty. I was forthright with you since I saw that I had more choice in agency than I told myself that I had. So, thankfully, we're a little out from this and I have been able to reduce the negative impact.

Number six, what specific harm did you cause to other people?

I don't think there was any on this question, but if I had acted out my resentment, if I talked trash to the kids about my husband or taken my frustrations out on them, then that would have been harm that I caused.

And number seven, other fears not already listed above that you've become aware of while doing this.

Well, I did list this, but I want to note that this bumped up against fears of aging and slowing down and frailty, which is a really great thing to see and to do some more exploration and releasing and maybe planning an action around. I don't want us to grow old and slow down, but obviously we're going to some extent at some point. So I want to take great care of both of us so that we forestall that for as long as possible and then engage gracefully in the parts of that that are inevitable and not preventable.

Okay. And eight, the counterproductive character traits that you've become aware of while completing this.

Well, I have fearfulness, a fear of getting older or my husband getting older. I have a pattern of Feeling unworthy, being afraid that I don't deserve to have the love and the joy that I desire. There's a trait of dependence, of relying on my husband or other people for energy or help or whatever, and saying to myself, I can't have what I want if this person doesn't show up for me in that way. And then self pity is a trait that doesn't serve me very well. I can see that I can feel sorry for myself rather than looking at what I want and asking for it directly.

And number nine, what's the payoff for holding onto this resentment? What do you get out of it?

When I'm holding onto this, I'm thinking that being upset with Kurt about it is going to be helpful in not experiencing that missing husband syndrome again. But I tell myself the resentment is protective against future frustration and disappointment and pain. But in truth, it ensures more pain and frustration and it might lead me to cause harm to him, to myself and other people.

Okay, so now what's the actual role you now see that you play by holding onto these negative feelings?

I realize that I'm actually the under communicative self pitying wife, which is not a very flattering picture, but it's true. That's what I was the whole time I was making that dinner and frustrated that he wasn't coming down.

Okay, so how was that for you?

Well, it's humbling. I get to see where I create my own trouble. And I think both being humbled and discovering how I'm my own jailer is really powerful every time. So it's definitely vulnerable to do it in front of an audience. And it was kind of weird to talk to you about you. Talk about you in front of you. I didn't know whether to talk first person or third person, but I was doing it for the audience. So thank you so much for walking through this with me and for all the many times that we've done this together and facilitated it for each other, because I think it's one of the most powerful things that we use to help us clear off the gunk that gets between us. So it's really fun to share with other people. With you.

Yeah. Thank you for having me. I was a little bit nervous, but I think I made it through all right. And I think the good news for both of us is mine are more embarrassing, frankly. I think so. It's good. It's good to see. I'm glad you went. And the good news for me is I didn't have to do mine. At least this time. So. All right. There we go.

Thanks, love. All right, so, hey, everybody. That's my guy. I'm so happy to have him on the podcast for the first time. I can't wait to hear what you think about this process, how it lands for you and what you and your partner discover. I don't recommend starting together with it. You just do your part, focus entirely on you. As the process says in many places, just you, just you, just you. And, you know, if you want to share one with your partner, start with one that's not about them. But it is beautiful to begin to detach from the pattern that most people are in, where it's about who's right and who's wrong. And, you know, I'm blaming you, and I believe my blame. You know, you could hear in here where I was able to say how I was kind of going off on Kurt in my head. I was able to say that in front of him because we both know now that I'm not attached to those thoughts anymore. I've laid them out on the table and I'm looking at them at arm's length. So it's that distance that this process has allowed us to create, and it allows us to clean things up much faster and more deeply. So may it do the same for you. And reach out via DMs or the contact form on my website if you have any questions or if you want to share any wins. Take care. And remember, if you love, love, love loves you too. I'd love to hear what you're taking away from this episode and what questions you have. Where do you feel this conversation in your body? My free Conscious Couples Circle is the place to continue our conversation. You can share your experiences, ask questions, and get more actionable ideas for creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that involve you both. It's all happening@society.lizenberry.com that link is in the show notes for you. You know, new listeners need to hear what you're taking away, too. Podcast reviews are what really help others recognize how this podcast is different from other relationship and sex podcasts. So thank you in advance for leaving a review right now in your podcasting app while you're thinking of it before you forget with just a few words about what this show gives you. And hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You're gonna want to so you never miss an episode. Please go to the app where you listen, hit that subscribe button, and then you'll always get notifications of new episodes when they drop. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michelle Lisenberry Christensen, and this has been Sex Love Power. I will see you on the next episode. And until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around.