Resentment: A complex, long-lasting emotion combining anger, bitterness, and disappointment, often stemming from feeling unfairly treated, wronged, or underappreciated. Experiencing a resentment is reliving an offense that injured you in the past. (The italics are mine.)
I find it very affirming in my spiritual quests to see the same concepts repeated across the ages and shared among different philosophies and religions. I was struck dumb recently at a Toltec passage about how nefarious and damaging resentments are to our psyche. Then, the passage quoted from the Big Book in today's Daily Reflection, is another big fan favorite: "Resentment is the 'number one' offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stems all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick."
Again, I love the choice of words: offender, destroys, spiritual disease. Big words, big, big words with a lot of oomph behind them. Hard to misinterpret the concept of being destroyed.
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