Don't Be Afraid to Feel Resentful

Susan had been happy with her job – a position she’d held for five years managing a team of three people – until recently. She felt a lack of attention and support from her boss around career advancement. She thought she was being taken for granted. Susan pushed back her feelings of resentment in favor of gratitude for having a good job and a good salary. But was this serving her needs? How can cultivating and addressing resentment be of service to all of us?

In previous blogs, I’ve discussed the value of Adaptive Inquiry (AI), a step-by-step process for interpreting emotions in a way that allows us to make more effective use of them. Developed by Charles Jones, a cognitive researcher, AI produces an immediate and lasting increase in our emotional intelligence. Over this month, I will be addressing how to use AI practices to make the most of our emotional messages and successfully adapt to challenges.

Let’s start with Susan as an example of using resentment as a tool to meet important needs. This blog about resentment will be delivered in three parts.

Susan had two issues that were misdirecting her attention and creating obstacles to solving her problem.  One was interpreting the problem as her boss - mistaking a stimulus for a cause. The other was pushing away her feeling of resentment, believing that it would not assist her in solving her problem.

However, the actual source of resentment was a genuine need to air a grievance. Susan asked herself: What grievance am I at a loss to express? She realized that she lacked confidence in approaching her boss and explaining what she wanted him to do to help meet her need for career advancement opportunities.

Susan wrote in her journal about her complaints, expectations, wishes and doubts and kept her attention on what feelings emerged for her.  As she constructed her grievances, she noticed that her focus shifted from her boss to her own effectiveness when it came to career advancement and speaking up. She asked herself: “What would I want my boss to do?” “What direction do I want my career to take?”

These questions were a turning point for shifting her attention to her beliefs, practices, priorities and place in the company. 

In the next blog, I’ll discuss the potent questions she used to explore her options for action.

-Andrea Zintz, Career Coach