Powerful Shadow work exercise.

[mmKay]

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

 

This right here is an extremely powerful DIY exercise to alleviate resentment.

 

• Think of one person in your life who has aggrieved you. ( Both my Mother and Father in my case , buy you may pick anyone )

 

• Take a blank page and write that person a letter saying anything and everything you wish you had ever told them. Really get into this—you have nothing to lose. Make sure you write it out by hand.

 

• When you’ve gotten absolutely everything off your mind and onto paper, put the letter aside

 

• Take a fresh sheet and write their response just the way you wish they would respond. You might have them taking responsibility for their actions, acknowledging and apologizing for everything they’ve ever done that hurt you. You don’t need to find any justification for their actions, just an acknowledgment and an apology. It’s your imagination, so you get to decide exactly what you’d like to hear.

 

I consider myself a 7.5 / 10 at inner work and I thought I have worked through pretty much everything but MAN this exercise had me sobbing QUICK,

 

Enjoy!

 

EDIT : You may not feel an immediate internal shift. However, over the next few days you may be amazed to feel this “new reality” gradually taking hold.

To accelerate the process, simply reread the apology letter nightly for a few days. You’ll appreciate the results.

Edited December 25, 2021 by mmKay

[Noahsteelers34]

I did this exercise after me and my dad had a huge fight. By the end it went from me being angry and rage filled at him, to me just seeing myself in him and feeling an overwhelming sadness and forgiveness. The next time I say him I was able to see him in a different light, just realizing that I was a huge part of the problem. 
Very powerful exercise!

[decentralized]

I just finished the exercise but I have doubts on its efficacy. I wrote about my ex boyfriend, writing the letter was relieving but I struggled in the answer part. If he acknowledged all these feelings while we were together we wouldn't be in this situation right now. I'm not sure if it'll change anything in real life on his part. Maybe it will, I don't know! 

[mmKay]

 

10 hours ago, mmKay said:

write their response just the way you wish they would respond. You might have them taking responsibility for their actions, acknowledging and apologizing for everything they’ve ever done that hurt you.

 

@decentralized Then you can try again from a few different angles.

• This could mean that either you havent digged deep enough on what or how  you would like them to respond.
• Perhaps you're going to need to engage  your imagination way more and go beyond words. Imagine specific scenarios that would have to happen for you to forgive them and be able to move on and let go.
• Look for plausible justifications for their actions. This one is very good to trigger compassion for them in you.

Resentment, anger, sadness, withdrawal -  all stem from feeling HURT by something somehow. Find out exactly how do you feel you've been hurt and release it from the core.

If any of you struggle with some of this, feel free to post any specific scenarios on here or through PM.

[decentralized]

@mmKay I think I don't know what this exercise will change in real life. Are we doing this to feel empathetic to the other person and forgive them? To let go of the resentment and accept the situation as it is? Right now I have 0 ways to connect with this person, I have no idea how he feels about our situation but in the answer letter I wrote about he acknowledges my feelings and accepts & loves me as I am, but I'm not sure if it's just a way of creating an alternative reality to feel better about the situation? Don't get me wrong, I definitely want to feel better about all this and let it all go, but right now my vibration is quite low.

[mmKay]

1 hour ago, decentralized said:

I think I don't know what this exercise will change in real life. 

The purpose of this exercise is to add a new tool to your toolkit,  to deal with (and master) your inner world - your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, self-talk. It's not about changing the other person ( but better managing your inner world will certainly  have many ramifications in real life and how you interact with others, and therefore, how they interact with you)

1 hour ago, decentralized said:

Are we doing this to feel empathetic to the other person and forgive them? To let go of the resentment and accept the situation as it is?

Remember, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

So the " forgiveness " and " acceptance " is not for him but for you. It definitely does no good to you walking around bitter and resentful.

Don't mistake " forgiveness" with "idiot compassion". Women are specially prone to this. Use your intuition to determine if the relationship is salvagable. Otherwise, learn to move on helping yourself with these techniques and more.

1 hour ago, decentralized said:

Right now I have 0 ways to connect with this person, I have no idea how he feels about our situation

 I don't know if you mean that you don't talk anymore or that you're together but are being cold and emotionally unavailable. But for the purpose of this exercise and Inner work / shadow work overall, you don't need anyone besides yourself, your mind and your contemplation skills. Relationship counselling and relationship advice would be something else.

1 hour ago, decentralized said:

in the answer letter I wrote about he acknowledges my feelings and accepts & loves me as I am

It helps to get very clear , specific and tanglible about what " my feelings " are , and how " as I am "  is ( for yourself ). 

Also the topic of " the need for love and aprooval  from others " is deeper than this exercise. For this, I recommend you read Byron Katie's book " Loving what IS " . Here is a short PDF on the gist of it from her website .

Also some of her videos from YT

Lastly, understand that human beings are hard-wired to crave love , attention and aprooval from others, but women are exceptionally hard-wired  for this, so I understand that It may be hard, but the key solution for all of this is learning DEEP self-love that emanates from inside out.

1 hour ago, decentralized said:

but I'm not sure if it's just a way of creating an alternative reality to feel better about the situation?

One thing about " truth" in interpersonal relationships. Truth is perspective dependant. So you have your POV, and he has HIS pov. But not only that. Depending of how YOU or HE looks at the situation you can derive different "truths". All perspectives are partial, but also have a kernel of truth.

So yeah, you could say that you are " creating an alternative reallity". But remember it's just as fake ( or as real) as your current one. The only difference is that the first one was created unconsciously, and for the second one you were aware of the mechanisms of your mind and chose to explore it deliberately.

 

[...] “Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That's not a possibility. It's only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I'm the one who's hurting me by BELIEVING what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don't have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I'm the one who can stop hurting me. It's within my power." - Byron Katie.

[Preety_India]

I feel like writing such a letter a thousand times. 

And even then It won't be enough. I might get so angry I'll slap the letter on their face. 

This is difficult for extreme trauma. 

 

 

[Gabith]

@mmKay Ok when we write the letter telling them what we want them to know it can be cursing at them, expressing them our anger, what we feel inside about them ? 
Or just telling them "you hurted me when you did X ..."  

[mmKay]

@Gabith Allow yourself to get carried away. Everything is valid as long as its how you really feel.