From Bitterness to Betterment: Embracing Emotional Recovery

Good Day, this is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps from Mind Pilot. Today we're going to talk about the bitterness. And this is a really tough subject for a lot of people. Bitterness is basically an emotion where people get stuck in anger and they're not quite sure how to work their way out of it. So let's talk a little bit about what gets people stuck and then talk a little bit about what gets people unstuck. Bitterness is often a result of somebody crossing your boundaries and not getting the situation dealt with. So examples that often contributed to bitterness are old insults, old habits that have hurt your feelings, affairs and financial betrayals. Usually it has to do with some kind of betrayal or feeling like the other person doesn't care. And that is ongoing. So what do you do with that? Well, the one of the biggest ways out of bitterness is empowerment. Because if your boundaries have been crossed and you're angry about that, you can do one or two things for that. You can either stay mad at the other person, which I get that, but that also keeps you stuck. There's no way out of that. The person can't change the past. They can't go back and make a wrong a right, if that makes sense. They can't fix it in any way. The only thing they can do is say they're sorry. And so a lot of times when people are stuck in bitterness, they're like, well, yeah, he said he's sorry or she said she's sorry, but at the end of the day, they still did that. It's true. Absolutely. If that happened, that happened. But how do you move forward? Because there's nothing they can do with the exception of saying they're sorry. There's nothing they can do to go back and fix it. So how do you begin to move forward? A lot of times bitterness comes from the fear that something will happen again. So if somebody has betrayed you in some way or stepped on your boundaries in some way, there's a fear that that's going to happen again. And that fear means that you become very defended. You become very cautious and hyper vigilant with that person. Now, if that's a coworker, well, okay, it's not the end of the world. If that's a significant other or a family member, that's a different story. So how do you get unstuck? Well, the first thing is you have to take that step back and go, okay, what am I going to do about this situation? In other words, there's somebody who's betrayed you and you still have them in your life. You have to ask yourself, why now? Maybe it's a good idea. I don't know. I'm not in your situation. But you really have to be very clear. If that person is doing your life, why are they still in your life? What is what is it that is outweighing what they've done in the past that is going to keep you there? And I don't know what that is, but you need to answer that because you need to be very clear that if you're still there, that person is still in your life, that you're deciding to keep that person in your life because bitter bitterness is all about disempowerment in my mind. Okay. And so to to walk through that, you have to go, okay, Does this person have full access to me? And what I mean by that is, are you still talking to them or are you still maybe living with them? Are you still good friends with them? And if the answer is yes, you need to be clear that that is a choice that you are making. And you need to be very clear that that's what you want to do. If you feel very hypervigilant and concerned that they're going to betray you again, then you need to set up some kind of test. Yeah, I don't know. Test is a great word, but some kind of measurement of whether or not that person is going to continue to treat you well. In other words, let's take an affair, because that's probably the most common action that leads to bitterness. Okay, So the person has an affair. The two of you decide to work it out and now you're bitter. Okay. But you're still there with that person. So clearly, you've made a decision to be with that person. What is it that you want to see from that person to continue in that relationship? Is it You need to develop a closer relationship with that person? Is it that that person shows you his or her phone on a regular basis? You know, what is it that you would need to see to feel like, okay, I trust this person enough that I can move forward? Now, this is a hard point and and a lot of people and it's tough for them to hear. But I want you to hear this. If you can't get over this at some point, then let go. And I'm not a big fan of divorce, but if truly you are not able to get past this, that it comes up for you no matter what the other person does. No matter how much attention they've given to you, no matter how much they've worked on repairing the relationship, you're still stuck and you are never going to trust them again. Then you really need to consider not being in that relationship, because what it does is it keeps you both stuck and it keeps you both feeling miserable. And that's that's not okay for you, but it's also not okay for the other person. So you really need to think about, okay, if I'm going to stay, then I need to figure out a way to work through this. And I'm not quite sure what that looks like, but I need to figure out how to do this. It's not the other person's responsibility to fix this for you. It's a responsibility to not do it again. It's a responsibility to apologize. If they've done something that's wrong, but it's not their job to fix your emotions, they can't do that. The only one that can fix your emotions is you. That's it. And so a lot of times in bitterness, people are kind of waiting for the other person to almost say the right thing or do the right thing that leads to that person healing. And that isn't going to happen. So you have to kind of let go of that and realize this is yours. This isn't theirs anymore. What they did, they did. You get to decide what you do with that. So start empowering yourself. Ask yourself, okay, what can I do to begin the process of letting go of this? What is it that I need to do that to start bringing down my defenses a little bit and testing the water again? And then am I going to allow myself to get closer and closer to this person? If you're having a kneejerk reaction to this and you're going, Nope, nope, not going to do that, then why are you still there? Truly, why are you still there? So you really have to think about, is this someone I need to walk away from or do I need to minimize contact with maybe a true friend or colleague coworker. But your responses, your response. You're responsible for your response. Take ownership of it. Empower yourself and decide what is going to be okay for you and what isn't going to be okay for you. And then make a hard decision about that because the other person can't fix it for you and it's not their responsibility to fix it for you. They might want to, but they still can do even if they want to. They can't. So let go of that false belief and realize that you're the one that's going to have to fix this. You're the one that's going to have to frame it in such a way that either you can live with it or you can let go, because those are really the two options, that bitterness. I know it's hard, but empower yourself. Don't fall into that almost victim mindset of this was done to me and I am going to wait around until somebody fixes it because that's never going to happen. So empower yourself, embrace your life, embrace your responsibility to yourself, and figure out what you need to do for you. You have the right to have a happy life. Please take care of yourself. This is Dr. Jana Price-Sharps from Mind Pilot.