Unresolved Bitterness Poisons Our Recovery

I’m currently working on a new retreat I call Creating Kindness, and in the process, I’ve realized that there’s one important character defect that keeps us from being kind—and it’s bitterness. I’ve learned that, on a subconscious level, I still have a great deal of unresolved bitterness that causes me to be resentful. And when I’m unconsciously motivated by bitterness, it’s really hard to be kind—to myself or others.

Looking back, I realize that this hidden bitterness has been haunting me for a long time. I can look back 30 years to family gatherings where I wanted to be open and happy and enjoy myself, but couldn’t. Why? Because a huge wall of bitterness surged forward inside of me. It was screaming “You can’t be happy! You’re angry with these people and the hurt they’ve inflicted on you! Show them how miserable they’ve made your life!” And so I did. I moped and sat quietly at family gatherings, refusing to participate in any healthy, happy way. The bitterness was overwhelming. So I couldn’t be kind to me or anyone.

I see many parallels between myself and the character of the Beast in Beauty and the Beast. It was as if my collective family was the Enchantress and they had turned me into a beast, and I was so angry and bitter that I couldn’t even move out of my agony long enough to extend kindness or love to anyone who could help me, like a Belle.

It’s obvious to me that the Beast initially has so much trouble being kind to Belle or anyone because he is so wounded and bitter inside. But I didn’t know that I suffered in the same way until now. Like the Beast, we have to wake-up and realize that our bitterness is poisoning our lives and keeping happiness at bay. We’re the ones who have to change for the better.

If we want to succeed in our recovery, we have to get past our inner-wounds and the bitterness that is still feeding them. That bitterness stokes old resentments and resentments are deadly to recovery. We can forgive those who have hurt us by seeing them as teachers instead of perpetrators. They taught us important lessons that caused us pain, but that prepared us for life by providing us with wisdom. And we can forgive ourselves for participating in the abuse. Many of us didn’t know how to set boundaries to protect ourselves, and it’s Ok to forgive ourselves. If we could have done better, we would have. We simply did the best we knew how to do in any given moment—and so did many of those who hurt us.

If we want to be kinder, gentler more loving people, we need to work at unearthing any unresolved bitterness. It keeps us from being kind and loving and it also prevents us from receiving the kindness and love we so richly deserve from others—including our Higher Power.