Fellow SelfGrowth.com expert, Cassandra Lee– speaker, coach, and author– posted an article describing her personal technique of dealing with resentment and anger.  I wanted to share a few excerpts from the article with you as well as give you a link to the full article.

Ms. Lee describes the need to analyze your actions, discover the source, and confront the issue at hand for resolution.

In her article, Ms. Lee describes a situation with a friend that caused her anger and resentment.  The friend was unaware that his actions created these negatives, but in Ms. Lee’s mind, the situation grew until, when she saw him 2 days later, she treated him so coldly that they did not speak to each other for a month.  This is a quote about her technique to deal with resentment and anger:

“Squash and Release” is a technique that allows me to discover the REAL issue at hand; analyze my actions that may have caused the issue to arise; and confront the issue through discussion, apology or whatever steps necessary for me to squash my anger and release my resentment.”

In a self-evaluation, Ms. Lee asked her self these questions:

-Had I done anything to cause the issue?

-Did my attitude make the situation worse?

-Was he really being insensitive?

-Was I overreacting?

Once Ms. Lee decided that she had overacted and strained the relationship due to not feeling secure in her friend’s concern over her well-being, she explained, apologized, and healed the friendship.  The situation did not recur because her friend now knew to respond in a way that made her feel secure and she made sure not to make assumptions.

Here is a summary of the 3 steps in Ms. Lee’s Squash and Release Technique:

 • Identify the issue… behind your emotions; determine actions or situations that have caused you discomfort…

• Assess the problem: analyze your actions; make sure you have not done anything to contribute to the problem; be prepared to apologize and change your behavior,

• Confront the conflict: take the necessary actions… schedule a private moment to address the person that is frustrating you or the right time to handle the conflict head on.

Though Ms. Lee prefers face-to-face resolution, she says that you can work through methods you are comfortable with such as calls, letters, or cards, as long as you deal with the situation head on instead of being overwhelmed by negative energy.

Click here to read Ms. Lee’s full article.

Use these links to read my earlier articles on resentment and anger:

Resentment and Anger Management

Anger and Its Residual Effects

Resentment in Your Significant Other

Emotional Healing Parallels Physical Healing

Anger is an area in which we all can improve. Realizing the residual effects on our spirits and relationships can be motivational.

A reader recently asked about the effects on anger on one’s spiritual life. Let me clarify that we are not referring to the type of anger one feels over injustice, but rather the type that involves fury, rage, bitterness, and malice [ill-will]. As the effects anger has on one’s relationships also affects his spirit, let’s take a look at both aspects.

1. First, Realize that Anger Over Injustice is not Evil Even by God’s Standards.

Some people feel guilty over any type of anger. This is not correct. We should feel anger over injustice, as it causes us to protect ourselves and those who cannot protect themselves. Jesus Himself experienced anger over injustice. “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts (Mk. 3:5).” However, even anger over injustice needs to eventually return to a less emotional state of reasoning, but we will discuss that later in the post.

2. The Type of Anger that has Negative Residual Effects is Associated with Rage.

The Greek words used for “anger” in Scripture contain the ideas of being provoked, enraged, exasperated, full of wrath and vengeance, and violently emotional. (Strong’s Dictionary of New Testament Words.) This is the kind of anger that is irrational and so overrun by emotion that it acts without thinking through the consequences of its actions. It includes thoughts of malice-desiring harm or other negative situations to come to the other person.

3. Holding on to Anger Corrupts Your Spirit.

Some people are prone to frequent bursts of anger that are short-lived; however, many of us hold on to anger. The irrational rage-type of anger is harmful to your spirit and relationships either way, but holding on to anger causes a great deal of internal harm, emotionally and to your spirit. Take a look at these quotes:

Be made new in the attitude of your minds…In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold (Eph 4:23,26,27).

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many (Heb 12:14,15).

Holding on to anger has negative residual effects on your spirit. According to these quotes, it “gives the devil a foothold” or keeps an open door in your spirit to evil forces. It causes bitterness which will defile your spirit and can actually harm one’s eternal destiny, as the defiling of one’s spirit or lack of holiness can cause one to not “see the Lord.”

4. Anger Harms Family Relationships that You are Spiritually Responsible For.

Your Children
Scripture says that attitudes or actions that are hard on your children or exasperate your children-depending on the translation, actually break their spirits and bring discouragement.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, or they will become discouraged. OR
Fathers, do not be hard on your children, so that their spirits may not be broken (Col. 3:21).

Your Spouse
In this passage, God is speaking to husbands, but the principle goes both directions. It specifically says that treating your partner with a lack of respect, which anger does, hinders your prayers. If it is harmful enough in God’s eyes to hinder your prayers, it is obviously a matter that is harming your partner.

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect…and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers (1 Pet. 3:7).

5. Anger Negatively Affects Fasting and Prayer

In part of Jewish history, the people were complaining to God for not answering their prayers even after they had devoted themselves to fasting. God goes through a list of their behavior that caused Him not to respond to their prayers and fasting. Part of that behavior that hinders God’s responses to you is anger, referred to here specifically as “quarreling and strife.”

“Why have we fasted,” they say, “and you have not seen it?”…Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high…Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke [bondage]? (Is. 58:3,4,6)

5. Other Various Negative Effects

Here are some proverbs that express other negative residual effects from anger:

Leads to evil responses. Ps. 37:8 – Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret– it leads only to evil.

Produces strife and reduces the honor of your reputation. Pr. 20:3 – It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel. P. 30:33 – For as churning the milk produces butter, so stirring up anger produces strife.

Keeps you from acting in wisdom and self-control. Pr. – 29:11 A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. Ecc. 7:9 – Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

6. God Encourages Us to Get Rid of Anger.

It is interesting, here, that the list of things to eliminate from our lives are things are usually all associated with anger, or result from anger.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice (Eph. 4:31).
But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips (Col. 3:8).

When one is in a state of anger, your mind races, imagining all the things you want to say or do to the person or what ill-will you wish towards them. God instructs, as part of anger management, to still your mind and spirit so you can hear direction and wisdom of God for proper response. Stilling your mind is necessary to avoid harmful responses.

In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent (Ps. 4:4).

7. Even the Emotion of Anger Over Injustice Must Eventually Subside.

Even over injustice, you must move past anger because it’s affect on your perspective. The extreme emotions of anger create a view toward revenge, malice, bitterness and unforgiveness. These are harmful to yourself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires (Jm. 1:19,20).

Anger’s negative effect on your relationship with God causes you not to live as He desires you to live. You will be acting on wrong motivation and wrong emotional responses.

8. God’s Example With His Own Anger

God Himself sets an example of (1) being slow to become angry and (2) quick to get over it. This is even in the case of injustice, because, obviously, God’s anger is only in response to evil and injustice.

The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished (Num. 14:18).
For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime (Ps. 30:5)
He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever (Ps. 103:9)

9. Guidelines for our Responses.

There could be a large list here, but I’ll keep it to a few short principles. First, as anger and all it entails is related to a corrupt mind, as God states in this next quote, He urges us to flee or leave behind that type of lifestyle and run to a life that is characteristic of the nature of God.

He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness (1 Tim 6:4,5,11).

We should make it a personal policy to speak slowly and softly when tempted to respond in an outburst of anger.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger (Pr 15:1).

Again in this passage below, God urges us to be completely enveloped or “clothed” with His divine nature. (You have to visualize the clothing worn in the culture at the time this was written-covered from head to toe.) This includes forgiveness, so that your own spirit and emotions are not harmed. Forgiveness does not mean giving in to evil people. Forgiveness takes place in your own spirit. If you missed the post on Forgiveness or Reconciliation – Understanding the Difference, follow the link.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts (Col 3:12-15).

God desires peace to rule in your spirit, as well as in your relationship with Him and other people. Free your life from the residual effects of anger. Still your mind, forgive, and envelope yourself in His nature!

Resentment not dealt with is a roadblock to emotional and physical healing.

Resentment usually results from a lack of dealing with conflicts. This doesn’t necessarily mean you must resolve the conflict with the other person; sometimes, that isn’t possible, especially if the person is volatile or hostile. However, you must deal with your feelings toward the past conflict in your own mind. As will be mentioned later in this post, emotional and physical ailments result from not coming to terms with past events and dealing with your resentment.

The first step in ridding yourself of resentment is to own up to your own choices.

As the old saying goes, “It takes two to tangle.” By admitting to the mistakes you made in the situation, it enables you to stop the blame game-to stop your focus of solely blaming the other person for your problems. This does not condone the other person’s harmful behavior toward you. This does not mean that you pretend that such behavior is wrong. However, instead of being focused on solely blaming the other person, you take responsibility for your own poor choices. For example, maybe you chose to get into an abusive relationship by ignoring the warning signs. Or, maybe the conflict arose because you insisted on discussing a difficult topic when you knew the other person was too tired or ill. Or, if you are a compliant dealing with a controlling person, you need to admit that you “allowed” the other person to control you and did something that you later resented when, instead, you should have set boundaries by refusing to do what you knew was not in your best interest. If your resentment stems from being over-giving to loved ones or over-involved in a good cause, again you need to admit your own fault in not setting healthy limits instead of feeling resentful that no one else stopped you or tried to help carry the load you chose. When you reflect on the situation causing resentment, do you catch yourself saying phrases such as, “I had to…” or “They made me…” If so, you are ignoring your personal responsibility. You are in control of your own choices, whether you “feel” like it or not. If you make decisions based on winning someone’s approval or due to guilty feelings, resentment will follow. You are the one who lives with the consequences of your decisions, so you must make choices that you are happy to live with.

Decide now what the limits should be from this point on in the relationships that are causing resentment.

Remember that giving is supposed to be a gift of love, not done because of someone else’s insistence, manipulation, temper, or the guilty feelings you get by saying “no” to their unreasonable desires. God reminds us that the principle of giving out of love, not compulsion, is just as necessary in our relationship with Him as with others. “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7).” If it is a friend or loved one who won’t take responsibility for jobs that are theirs to be done, or procrastinate and then expect you to use your time to bail them out, decide now if these are situations you should help with at all and how much help you can give cheerfully so you will live free of resentment. Realize that the person will very likely not be happy about these new boundaries because they have developed a pattern of life of other people doing their responsibilities for them; it is possible that their personality is so controlling that no one has ever said “No” to their unreasonable requests. That person may have wants and needs, but so do you. To have a loving relationship, we must respect each other’s limits. Your limits must be carefully decided by you because you are the only person who knows what you can give-in the areas of emotional support, time, energy, etc.-and still have time for your own mental, physical, and spiritual health, and what you want to give (are able to do and still feel positive about the situation). Only by realizing your limits and living by them can you avoid repeating and deepening already existing resentment.

Other steps to proper anger management are also beneficial to rid your life of resentment.

I’d like to direct you to further reading by Dr. Dorothy Neddermeyer. I’ve referred you to an article by her before. Here are a few quotes from her article and the link below to the full post.

Approximately 70% of people have a tendency to suppress anger. In other words, they bottle it up and lash out later…Given the statistics, there is a 90% chance that you may not be communicating your anger in a compassionate way. What happens when anger is not communicated compassionately? In other words, what is the effect of either suppressive or aggressive anger behavior? Aside from destroying relationships and careers, the physical health affect of inappropriate anger management can be deadly. My review of the medical literature over the past 30 years on the effect of inappropriate anger behavior health suggests a direct link with heart disease, arthritis, MS, high blood pressure, cancer, and strokes to name a few…As you can readily see, anger is not simply an unpleasant emotion. It can have a deadly influence on your health. However, note that anger per se is not the problem. It is what you do with the anger.

Communicating anger compassionately requires a two-step process.

Step I: Communicate with yourself by reframing your anger. Instead of blaming the other person or event when you are angry, ask the question, “What is my anger teaching me about myself?” You need to shift the negative focus off the ‘other’ person or event and direct the questions to yourself…Think of your anger as a doorway to some virtue that you need to learn. It could be that you need to learn personal responsibility, a greater sense of self-esteem, compassion or creativity.

Step II: Communicate assertively with others…Your goal is to achieve a sense of peace at the end of the conversation by having a better understanding of the person and the situation. [The article contains a long list of steps to do this.]

[Step III] If a person has left your life and you are unable to express your feelings, what can you do? In this case, communicate through forgiveness. To forgive means that you erase a negative memory or picture of someone with a positive one. It does not mean condoning someone’s negative actions or letting them off the hook. It merely means that you will no longer hold any anger towards them. Forgiveness is for your healing and your well being…Until you forgive, the blocked energy of resentment will remain within you. Either of two things will happen: it might materialize as disease, or angry events will occur in the future in order that you learn the lesson of forgiveness. This is why forgiveness is so important.

Read Dr. Dorothy’s full article on Anger Management here.

A reader asked, “Define harmful behavior.” There are many ways one can define or recognize the harmful behavior of others in your life, or even behavior of your own that is harmful to others or yourself, but the easiest way is to evaluate the results.

God says that real love does not do harm to another person, so living according to real love causes a person to completely obey all the laws of God due to living a loving lifestyle (Rom. 10:13). Thus, a person who truly loves you will not consistently live a lifestyle that brings harmful results in your life. Granted, we all lose our tempers at time and say or do things that later we have to apologize for, but the key difference is whether or not a person brings more harm than good.

Let’s take a look at how to evaluate behavior by the results.

• Does the person consistently say or do things that improve your self worth or lessens it?
• Does the person’s actions consistently cause you to feel joy and peace or fear?
• Is your physical health well? Or do you notice symptoms of various illnesses increasing whenever you are around that person?
• Does being around that person give you energy or drain your energy?
• Are your conversations consistently rational or are severe arguments with hostile words and actions taking place?
• Does the person encourage you to fulfill your dreams or belittle your dreams?
• Does the person desire you to succeed or try to make you fail?
• After talking with the person, do you feel that they are interested in your life or only in you fulfilling the wishes of his/her life? If it is the latter, you will often feel resentful due to your desires and needs always being overlooked.
• Does the person appear to give fairly equal consideration to your needs or insist that the majority of your time and energy is put into his/her needs? If it is the latter, again you will feel resentful after doing things for this person that normally should make you feel happy.

In Scripture, there is a passage that describes a wife of noble character. Many people use it to describe the ideal or perfect wife. Many of the points can apply to either gender, such as the quote, “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life (Pr. 31:12).” This is a verse that I quoted to a friend who was having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that his spouse needed professional help. She was continually doing things to harm him, and even enjoying the fact that she was harming him. A person who truly loves you will not intentionally harm you on a consistent basis. A emotionally healthy person only displays harmful behavior on rare occasions and usually during a time of extreme illness or stress that causes behavior out of their normal lifestyle.

In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is spoken of as a person. It says of wisdom, “Whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm (Pr 1:33).” Let’s come back to our initial point; what are the results of that person’s behavior? If the person’s behavior causes you to be fearful of harm, whether physical or emotional, it is harmful behavior! If you answered “Yes” to the second half of the above listed questions, that the behaviors were bringing various negative, harmful responses in your mind, emotions, or body, it’s harmful behavior. Sometimes we ask whether or not it is harmful behavior because we are not ready to admit to ourselves that we already know it is; we are fearful of the changes that we need to make.

Look again at that proverb. If you are living according to wisdom, you will be at ease and not fear harm. If the person in question causes fear of harm, continuing the relationship as it is now is not living according to wisdom.

Choose wisdom and a life without fear of harm!

For more information on identifying harmful behavior, see my posts, “Recognizing Real Love Part 1 & 2.”

I have never been one for being interested in “TV preachers.” However, I have in the recent months developed a good deal of respect for Joel Osteen, pastor of the US’s largest church, with over 30,000 in attendance. Two things I appreciate. First, his preaching is atypical. Second, he is the only pastor I have ever heard that speaks every message, even ones on hardship, failure, correction, etc. in a positive manner. It is an obvious gifting. Surprisingly, or maybe not, he consistently draws a great deal of criticism for being positive. I heard part of an interview with him once where he spoke of all the criticism he had received for not being like his dad (now deceased), a former pastor and healing evangelist. Joel believes his personal calling in life is to give a message of hope and encouragement to the world; I respect that he chose to go against the grain, to be himself, and follow his bliss.

In a message called, “Don’t Allow Criticism to Steal Your Dream,” the following quote released healing for me.

“Your destiny is not tied to what other people say about you. It does not change what God has put in your heart. Let God take care of those who hurt you. Stay focused on the future. Don’t let hurt become the central focus of your life.”

Though his examples, if I recall, were of people who allowed certain hurts to totally destroy them with bitterness or defeat, I realized how much a recent hurt had become the central focus of my life. It was repeatedly coming to my mind throughout the day. The moment the thought came, I could feel it deplete energy from my body. It was diminishing my ability to focus on my work, not to mention stealing the level of joy at which I usually function. I had to take control of this hurt. Though it was not a typical life-altering crisis–there were some of those last year–it had still become the center focus of my life without my realizing it. I had to re-focus on my destiny. I have always been a dreamer, a visionary. I had to re-focus on the joy that is mine because I am a person of destiny! I know there are divine plans for my life that will not be altered just because others don’t believe in them.

You are alive! You are a person of destiny! If there is a hurt that is staying the central focus of every day, draining the energy and focus from your life, re-focus today on the dreams and visions that you know are yours! Focus on the truth you know in your heart!

(The message referred to above is video #337 at www.joelosteen.com . You can push the scroll bar about half way through to get past the music to the 30 minute sermon.)