Breaking the Chain of Resentment

Core Value, Forgiveness, Healing, Letting Go 0

The first thing to realize about the terrible Chain of Resentment is that you don’t have to feel it.  The experience of resentment is a choice you make.

The second thing to realize is that the Chain of Resentment binds the self more than anyone else.  Breaking the chain of resentment means unburdening the self, setting the self free.

No one can just “let go” of resentment.  You can resolve resentment only by investing more value in your life.  The more you value, the less you will resent.  The more compassionate you are, the less you are able to resent.

— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 74.

Empowering Children

Core Value, Parenting 0

The greatest leverage parents have to help and guide children is to form strong, resentment-free emotional bonds with them, based on value, mutual respect, and empowerment.

Empowerment gives someone the right and the confidence to offer solutions to problems that respect the best interests of all involved.  In other words, it activates Core Value and motivations to improve, appreciate, connect, and protect.

The trick in empowering children is to get them to come up with solutions that work for them and you.  When they come up with the solutions, you avoid power struggles, resentment, and hostility.  Most people, including children, like to cooperate, but hate to submit.

Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 51

The Crux of Christianity

God, Love 0

What matters most to me is that God had that son to begin with.  And that he has other sons and daughters like me that he loves and doesn’t want to be parted from.  That he loves his children as I love my own daughters, only more so, with a hot, knowing, parental love that says, “Be who you are, but love me back.  Only love me back.”

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 8

A More Compelling Right

Compassion, Core Value, Forgiveness, Healing 0

You have an absolute right to be resentful and angry, but exercising that right will only keep the thorns in your heart.  You have a more compelling right to heal the wounds you’ve suffered.  You can heal with compassion for yourself, with sympathy for your own hurt, and with the motivation to heal and improve.  Emotional healing is replacing your core hurts to your core value, so that you can realize your fullest potential as the loving, compassionate, competent, creative person you are meant to be.

— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 121