Dr. Joe Dispenza says when we hang on to emotions, when we can't let them go, we become addicted to them. And then, in that addiction, we start using the situations in our life as reasons to get a dose of that emotion we can't let go of.
We'll keep calling on that emotion until what we're addicted to is a life we don't like living. I've come to know that most of my life the emotion I couldn't let go of was resentment. There were others, I know, but they were all children of resentment. I've come to own that I spent a lot of my life resenting people and situations because I looked for excuses to experience a shot of resentment, not because the people or situations were resentful. I've traced the roots of that resentment. The events and circumstances aren't important. What's important is recognizing how much of my life I've spent NOT reliving events and circumstances but craving the emotion that came out of them. Resentment has been an emotion I've felt comfortable in, simply because it was the emotion I was most familiar with. When you've grown up as someone not great with emotions, you'll cling to the ones you know best. The ones that are familiar. Until, that is, we can no longer escape the reality we are living a life we don't like living. I spent decades resenting life before I woke up one day feeling like, what the heck, life has started resenting me back. Some people think it should be easy to wake up and start living a life you like living. One that has started resenting you back. Stop doing this and start doing that and, voila, you have a life you like living. For some of us it's not quite that simple, those of us who've been addicted to some toxic emotions. Because we've destroyed some things along the way and we've had to leave some things behind along the way and we're too utterly exhausted to keep fighting through our addiction to resentment to take on life yet another day. You can sleep off the hangover from the alcohol you use to drown your toxic emotions, the hangover from toxic emotions themselves is a much bigger monster. Trading in resentment for peace is not a simple transition. Some addictions are not even trades. Recently I felt a dose of resentment come upon me. It couldn't be helped. As Dispenza says, we can't NOT react to something, but we CAN control how long we react. I'm not holding onto this reaction, I thought. I went for a walk. I turned on the playlist I've saved to my phone, the one that sounds like peace when I play it, created specifically for this moment. And many times in the steps of that walk I reminded myself, I have traded in resentment for peace. You would think it would be easy to hold on to peace once you've experienced it. But it's not. It takes work. New and healthier addictions take time. The old emotions want to show up uninvited, the new emotions need quite a few invitations before they feel at home within us. Before they feel familiar. I am thankful for just how familiar peace feels these days. I am thankful for how out of place resentment feels, like an intruder I can't wait to evict. Do you have emotions that need evicted? It starts with knowing where your emotions are coming from. It starts with identifying if your emotions are connected to events of the here and now or being used in the here and now to call upon emotions you've become addicted to. Maybe it's time to hang on to some new emotions. Some more peaceful ones. The starting place: let go of some old ones.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
July 2025
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