Total Empathy: Overcoming Bitterness & Resentment
In our modern world of (relative) peace and prosperity, it can seem hard to rationalize the daily acts of callousness and cruelty that people inflict on one another. When looking back, the perspective of history often lends understanding to the harsher behaviors of humanity. In a pre-industrial world, stealing from your neighbors may be a matter of daily survival, callousness and mistrust can prevent victimization by strangers, and ridicule and derision can help galvanize your tribe against a rival clan.
But in todays society, degradation, mockery, and deceit are more often seen as acts of pure malice enacted by “bad people". Someone who is not outwardly in a state of desperation or fear simply should not be hurting those around them, whether physically or emotionally. For most of us, this doesn’t feel like a remotely controversial stance; in fact it feels quite morally and observably correct. “Don’t be hurtful unless acting in defense, -The End”. This perspective comes into focus most sharply as it pertains to the behaviors of those closest to us. Nothing hurts like being hurt by someone you love and trust.
When we are subject to harm from those who we love, we experience a hurt that transcends the mere acts themselves. Not only do we feel the pain & betrayal that comes from being hurt & deceived, our sense of personal safety feels threatened as our circle of trust is now shaken. Over time, repeated acts of harm and manipulation by these people can begin to calcify into two of the most destructive emotions that can be associated with any relationship: bitterness and resentment.
When coaching clients about their relationship issues, I view the presence and degree of any bitterness and resentment to be strong indicators as to the potential viability of their conflicted relationship going forward. No matter how much mutual love and desire for reconciliation may still remain between two people, a deep and wounded feeling of resentment (often for past behaviors), or bitterness toward someone (their actions or their very personhood) can create a deep chasm between them. Even in a situation where a relationship is irreconcilable and the client decides to make a separation, a sense of bitterness and resentment can remain to stifle their future relationships and personal growth.
So are we supposed to accept a lifetime of harm from loved ones precisely because they are loved, in spite of how bitter it may leave us? How do we even begin to let go of such a deep and often earned sense of resentment towards others? In short, the answers are a) “No”, and b) ”Total Empathy”. What do I mean by Total Empathy? Well before we answer that, lets make an initial stop at plain old empathy.
With the benefit of introspection and life experience, one can begin to understand that hurtful behaviors are often not so simply defined as the malicious acts of “bad people". For those of us who have been hurt by whom we consider “good people”, it becomes clear that not all states of desperation are outwardly visible. Otherwise kind-hearted people may be driven by compulsion, past trauma, and destructive patterns to lash out at, tear down, and manipulate or harm even their dearest friends and loved ones. And often in spite of our sincerest desires and genuine efforts, we may simply not be able to (or allowed to) help these people to overcome what drives them to perpetuate these harms.
“Well sure,” you might say, “hurt people hurt people. But even still they chose to hurt me over and over again. Why shouldn’t I feel bitter toward them?”. It is totally understandable to feel this way. After all, bitterness and resentment are by their very nature accrued over a long period of negative experience. Our brains are wired to understand that repeated things that happen consistently over long periods are not coincidences, and that if a repeated action is taken by an individual, then it is done so deliberately and with intention. Your very subconscious tells you that these people were deliberately and intentionally hurting you.
So even empathy has its limitations, it would seem. How then can Total Empathy transcend these limitations? Imagine for a moment that a toddler flings a toy in your direction. Would you feel hurt or resentful that they did so? We understand they have essentially no agency over their current circumstances and are basically acting out of instinct at that point in their development, so we don’t judge them harshly. We have “Total Empathy” for the toddler, even when we disapprove of their behavior. But surely we shouldn’t extend Total Empathy to adults, right?
Before you rush to answer, lets get a bit philosophical and take a brief exploration into the concept of free will. “Free will” is defined as, “the capacity or ability to choose between different possible courses of action”, and there are a number of philosophers and scientists that claim that free will simply doesn’t exist. The skeptics (“determinists”, more specifically) argument can be summarized in a thought experiment; they propose that an identical you in an identical universe would, in a given moment, make identical decisions 100% of the time.
Why? Because the foundation of our existence is built upon factors over which we have no control. After all, we can understand that when we’re conceived, we don’t choose our DNA, the parents that raise us, or the environment into which we are born. So we couldn’t “choose” our height, our native language, or even choose our favorite childhood foods if our parents never served them to us. Determinists simply extend that idea into the part of our lives where we become self-aware and seemingly act of our own free will. They argue that you wouldn’t make your next decision if not for your current brain chemistry, your current situation, and all of the other factors that you either a) had no control over, or b) themselves were created by a prior “decision” that was itself built on the same foundation.
Regardless of where you stand on the prospect of free will, exploring these ideas opens the door to the concept of Total Empathy to everyone, including those that choose to harm us. If free will is in fact an illusion, then we can understand that we too, if given the DNA and life history of another, would seemingly engage in the same damaging behaviors as they do. And even if we do have true agency in determining our choices, exploring these ideas reveals how little control we often have in determining the options from which we choose.
The percentages bear this out. It is not a coincidence that wealthy children have longer life expectancies and lower incarceration rates than kids raised in poverty, or that people with mental health conditions are more likely to be of lower socioeconomic status (and vice versa). The set of choices available to some have far more roads to ruin than others, and these same limitations can be applied to the human potential for certain personality traits and behaviors. Total Empathy involves understanding and embracing the reality of how we arrive at who we are and why we do the things that we do.
I don’t coach Total Empathy as a means of encouraging clients to justify and accept repeated abuse and degradation from others. In fact, I would empower anyone who suffers consistently intolerable behavior to (you guessed it) no longer tolerate it, and take corrective action. I do coach Total Empathy as a means of freeing clients from the toxic effects of lingering resentment and bitterness towards those who harm them. This is not to be confused with forgiveness, and Total Empathy in no way suggests forgetting the harms that others have done to them.
Total Empathy does provide a path for letting go of the bitterness that comes with blaming others for choosing so explicitly to hurt them. By realizing the degree to which factors outside of our control can influence our lives and behaviors, we can understand that someone’s “choice” to hurt us is essentially a tiny manifestation of a giant confluence of events, rather than a necessarily deliberately evil act by a willfully malicious person. When seeing people (and indeed, our entire reality) through this wider lens, peace of mind becomes a possibility. We can let go of bitterness and resentment, both for ourselves, those that harmed us, and those who come to our into our lives down the road.
After all, how many people hold grudges against future partners based on the actions of prior abusers? “Well she was like that, so you must be too", and "You men are all the same", etc. Who wants to live their life carrying that resentment around, foisting it upon others? And conversely, who wants to have their actions judged through the lens of someones prior resentment of an entirely different person? The toxicity of bitterness and resentment cannot be overstated, and any tool that we can use (that doesn’t involve tolerating or justifying abuse) to be rid of them should be welcome in our lives.
If you want to be rid of resentment and bitterness in your relationships, please reach out to me. I will guide you in achieving clarity on your journey towards Total Empathy and a achieving a lasting transformation in your life.