Resentment Saps

Resentment: A Case Illustration

While walking down the beautiful Malecon walkway in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during a recent vacation, I overheard two individuals in an animated conversation discussing how much they resented what another person had said to them several years ago. Their expressiveness was such that it was unavoidable to hear their conversation. Their resentment toward an individual not present was strong and prompted a considerable amount of disclosure with one another.  This prompted my own reflection on the number of times I’ve worked with teams and resentments eroded teaming and just how powerful emotions can be such that an individual is imprisoned—literally “captured” by the emotion so that they are less free to choose how to respond in, much less enjoy, the moment.

There are many aspects to the emotion of resentment, which have been written about by others. Nelson Mandela famously said, “Resentment is like drinking a poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”  The element I want to explore is how an emotion contains useful information and how emotions dramatically influence behavior given your frame of mind.

The more I thought about the conversation going on in front of me during the walk, the clearer it was to me that resentment presented a perfect illustration of the importance of emotional intelligence and frame of mind.  In this instance of what individuals were sharing, I have no knowledge of how much unhappiness this resentment caused, but it was clear in their loud declaration of avoiding doing things because the person they resented might be present.  By their own  sharing, they avoided certain restaurants—which they liked, and going to certain cocktail parties—with people they liked, in order to avoid the person they no longer liked.  And of course, avoiding the restaurants and parties simply compounded their resentments toward the individual.  (It is ever so tempting to go down the path to explore the current political environment in the US which seems full of resentments.  In fact, some politicians seem to build a case that they are best suited for office because they represent the resentful.  I’ll save this digression for another reflection.)

Information in Emotions

At the core of emotional intelligence is an understanding that emotions contain important information about your individual psychological system.  In the case of resentment, the emotion is alerting an individual that he or she feels unjustly treated, intentionally diminished and judged, and that their is no recourse to get fair and balanced justice in the matter at hand.  Everyone who feels a resentment, whether short or long term, has the same internal conversation: “I’ve been treated unjustly and I can’t fix it.”  (For a deeper look at this, send me an email and I”ll send you my booklet, Understanding Emotions, free.  Email your  shipping address to me at pearman@teamtelligent.com.) It is for this reason that qualities like Emotional Self-awareness measured by the EQ-i 2.0 assessment are helpful in elevating emotional awareness and understanding.

Given that the information in emotions is in the human wiring—-meaning, it doesn’t matter what your age, race, culture, or other demographic is, if you have the emotion, the meaning in the emotion is the same.  What is different however, is the trigger for any given emotion, which is the direct result of your frame of mind.  No doubt the role of demographics cannot be underestimated as part of the triggers that play into emotions; however, the central aspects of frame of mind I want to explore involve (1) your primary psychological lens, (2) your flexibility in shifting lenses, and (3) your degree of growth orientation (see Carol Dweck’s work on this factor).  The thread that runs through all three elements is your management of subject-object dynamics in your own psychology (see Kegan or Garvey’s works).  Are you able to see all aspects of what “has” you and able to work through to healthy and constructive perspective?

A Model to Work With

Jung gave us a stunning structure for understanding our primary psychological lens.  He suggested that the nature of the human mind was to prioritize meaning through one of eight psychological focal points which he called mental functions.  Your flexibility in shifting among these lenses is complex and can be learned to enrich you mental agility.  And your growth orientation defines whether experiences are a source of learning or experienced as a limiting threat of some sort.

Each of the mental functions can be understood in its basic form, which is usually simple, limited, and fragmented to its more complex form, which is very complex, inclusive, and wholistic.  Take the suggested descriptors below as benchmarks:

Perceiving Processes

Se:  basic--scanning the environment, complex--artful use of talents

Si: basic--repeating a fact, complex--identifying subtle shifts and adjustments in information

Ne: basic--expressing multiple ideas, complex--facilitating discussions about long term horizons projected from multiple angles

Ni: basic--a hunch about a situation, complex--creating metaphors about underlying meaning and potential scenarios 

Judging Processes

Ti: basic--using a formulaic analysis on a situation, complex--creating a multi variate method to study and analyze factors and possible outcomes

Te: basic--giving a criticism, complex--creating a system for exploring and testing the validity of assumptions and working principles in a situation

Fi: basic--attachment to an object as valuable, complex--identifying all of the developmental and constructive ideals and elements in a situation

Fe: basic--inclusiveness of others, complex--using empathy to empower relationships and to build networks for improving commitment for action

Consider the individual for whom Introverted Sensing (Si) is a primary lens on the world and as such, feel that when he or she is reporting on something, they are giving precise, reliable, and factual information.  When this information is disputed or treated cavalierly about something that is determined to be important, a resentment could form around the idea that carefully vetted information has been discounted and the individual has been dismissed.  Or ponder the individual for whom Extraverted Thinking (Te) is a primary lens and naturally critiques whatever presents itself.  While enjoying a good debate, the emotion turns to resentment if there is a personal attack on the competency and capability of the critique.  The pattern is quite clear: your primary lens represents an aspect of identity and world view and if there is a perception of mistreatment, resentment follows.

Given the nature of the architecture suggested by Jung, the ability to flex between lenses increases the capacity to learn and understand more about your experience. This diversity of mind allows for alternative possibilities and interpretations of events, thus reducing some of the emotional triggers.

Flex is crucial

Flexing in the use of your mental resources is essential to adapting to challenges appropriately and coping with the complex demands of modern life.  To flex you need to read what is required, know how to respond, and respond in a way that produces constructive results.  In practical terms, that means you may need to flex in the following ways:

• When you feel that some behaviors are not entirely natural but required in your day to day life…so flexing across modes (Naturally Used and Demonstrated as Expected) is important.
  
• When you need to switch from one mental function (e.g. Te to Ne) to another…..so flexing across mental functions requires a willful use of very different energy.
  
• When you need to use different forms of the mental function (from basic to complex)….so flexing in the use of the levels of complexity and richness of a mental function impacts the use of energy needed to activate the use of a mental function at the appropriate level.

Each form of flexing serves to increase an individual’s capability of responding effectively to challenges and demands.  When we don’t flex, we have fewer options in how we respond.  Fortunately, we can increase our flexibility by attending to proactivity, rejuvenation, connectivity with others, composure, and variety seeking perspectives.  It is easy to see that if you can’t flex to rethink or reimagine what is going on in a situation, an emotion like resentment just takes up residence in your perceptions distorting your reactions to a particular person or situation.

Dweck proposed that individuals develop a primary fixed or growth mindset.  Growth oriented individuals approach life as an ongoing source of learning, eager for feedback, and approaching situations as problems to be explored and solved—if possible.  To be in this kind of orientation, you see yourself as an agent in life and having the opportunity to control your interpretation of events.  We can only make this kind of shift if we are wiling to take stock of our own minds and decide we want to become more growth oriented.

And the golden thread through it all—our mental lenses, our flexing, and our growth orientation—is how we learn to create an internal conversation about what we are experiencing, what the possible sources of our interpretation are, what we want from the situation that is constructive, and how we can learn a response that is more productive and healthy in our day-to-day lives. To get to this internal conversation we need to know the possible lenses that can limit our judgments, which Jung’s system provides.  We need to understand how to increase our mental flexibility so as to leverage the insights of Jung’s system.  We need to put ourselves in a place of being growthful be seeking feedback and being open to alternate hypotheses.  When we do these things, we can turn our resentment into a lesson for personal effectiveness.

Some practical observations

If I had been invited into the conversation on the walk along the Malecon, I might have suggested to the individuals in the discussion that we recognize that the emotions run deep in the situation and explore what it would take to see the interaction that prompted the resentment from different perspectives.  What assumptions could we change which alters the meaning of what was said and how it was interpreted?  I might suggest eight different lenses (without doing a Jungian lecture) and invite generating multiple hypotheses about what is going on.  And finally, I might get them to consider whether their lives are enriched by such resentment, which would expose its costs.  I would invite them to consider what they get out of holding on to the resentment—feelings of superiority?status?righteousness? Perhaps upon seeing its costs both personally and interpersonally, we could examine how to learn from the other person’s behavior so that we do not inadvertently repeat the injustice on others and in so doing enrich all our lives.  And importantly, regain our freedom to relish the people and places we so deeply enjoy.

Consider what you know about your personality lenses and how you flex.  Explore how you can learn to elevate your emotional intelligence through greater self-awareness and personal insight.

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