The choice is to remain in a state of contraction or release and align with truth
By Sharon Brock
We all know how it feels to be wronged. Whether or not we’re experts at handling it, we’ve all experienced that constriction in the belly, tension in the shoulders and scowl between the brows. Sometimes we hang onto grudges for years, not realizing that resentment and guilt (which is simply non-forgiveness of the self) take a toll on our mental, emotional and even physical health.
If we know that festering resentment can cause mental and physical problems, why is it so difficult to forgive? L.A.-based yoga instructor Daniel Stewart, MFT, explains, “When we feel resentment or guilt we create contractions around the thought patterns of being wronged or wronging others, and we get hooked on these thought patterns. Buddhists refer to this feeling of being hooked as shenpa.”
Shenpa is often translated as “attachment,” but might be better described as “getting your buttons pushed.” It is that contraction in your chest that gets triggered when someone makes a remark that rubs you the wrong way. Since everyone has different past experiences, everyone is triggered by different remarks, but the subsequent contracted feeling is universal. We get hooked on this contraction and spiral into feelings of low self-esteem, anger, blame or revenge toward the other person. We feel entitled to stay in resentment because we have been wronged; we feel validated in some way. It is clear that the ego would rather be right than feel good.
But shenpa is not based in truth. It is an evolutionary mechanism to avoid harm, a psychological defense mechanism to prevent being wronged again. Our individual or egoic lens typically results in a misperception of what actually happened.
“The goal of yoga is to clean the lens, be with the actual experience and align fully with truth,” says Stewart. “From there, you have choices. From there, you are not the victim. The whole concept of forgiving someone requires that there has to be a perpetrator. Through the yoga lens there is no perpetrator. It was simply a person who acted from fear. It’s never personal.”
Yoga helps us to move out of the state of shenpa and align ourselves with truth and higher consciousness. When we become present through yoga, we see our situations—and our reactions—more objectively, as if we have a bird’s-eye view. This clarity creates the space to make a conscious choice: Do I stay in a state of contraction or do I align with truth?
When we make a conscious choice to align with higher consciousness, we transform resentment into compassion and gratitude, says Stewart. “We let go of resentment because we realize there is something higher than this contracted state, higher than our egoic consciousness.” Compassion flows naturally as we realize that only someone who is hurting inside would behave in a hurtful way.
The way spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson explains it, resentment and guilt “block the heart.” The energies of resentment and guilt hold us back from living our best lives and reaching our highest potential. She notes that “We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.”
Yoga’s role here is that it “moves you out of suffering and enables your mind to create and choose a different path that is about wholeness and healing,” says Stewart. “Yoga is about growing your consciousness and aligning with this larger state of awareness.”
Exploring further as a therapist, Stewart sees that the ego tends to avoid deeper trauma by staying on the surface—blaming others, holding grudges—rather than looking within to figure out what lurks beneath resentment. What hidden trauma is this resentment really about?
This avoidance of the truth causes suffering. “The person who is staying hooked on resentment rather than forgiving is avoiding some deeper pain stored in the body,” he says. “We need to go into the body, really see the truth of the pain, sit with it with deep compassion, and slowly allow it to [seep] out of the body.”
Forgiveness does not mean condoning the other person’s behavior, nor does it leave you open to have it happen again. You can live with an open heart and have healthy boundaries. The yogic practice of continually choosing to align with your highest Self while maintaining healthy boundaries allows you to live in flow and stay open to receive all the abundance life has to offer.
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~ Pranayama for a Tranquil Life
~ Mark Whitwell’s Yoga in the Context of the Feminine
~ The Eastern Science of Self-Healing
