What happens if we write inventory but a resentment continues to haunt us?
Pray for that person. I suggested this to someone who my wife and I were trying to help and her response was, “I’m not praying for that bitch! I pray that she rots in fucking hell!”
She relapsed about two weeks later, becoming delusional once again.
If you can’t pray for someone whom you resent, then you probably aren’t cut out for the Steps. If we don’t have the guts or the courage or the willingness to grow spiritually, than relapse is inevitable. Swallowing our pride and ego and anger is a sign of maturity, but a refusal to mature and evolve will surely lead to failure. We will relapse, cause more pain to others, and eventually leave behind an unresolved life after a premature death.
From Alcoholics Anonymous, p.552:
“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”
When we pray for others in this way, we harness the power and willingness necessary to diffuse our anger and judgement. Trust me, letting go is pure and total freedom.
God, please give me the courage and willingness to pray for those I resent…
Hi Charlie, i think that´s so very true. I too work the 12 steps and I have a few resentments. They surely don´t feel good as they regularly appear in my mind when I hit the pillows at night. I think it was the Buddha who said that holding on to anger is like holding on to a hot coal: it just damages the one who hold´s it. I want my resentments gone since I want to be happy. Praying to learning to forgive “my enemies”!
Thank you, Svens. Beautiful quote from the Buddha… couldn't agree more. How fruitless it really is to hold on when there is no satisfaction whatsoever – we change nothing and only damage ourselves. Pray on, my friend.