Resentment!

 

“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.” ~ “Freedom from Bondage” story inThe Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Kindle Edition.

May 17th. Reread the story for at least the seventh time,
decided to try it on my biggest resentment.
Prayed for health, energy, enthusiasm,
clarity of understanding of events and causes,
for love of all people: in the news, reporting the news,
reacting to the news… asked for a spirit of compassion
and understanding in all thoughts and statements,
for peace and magnificence toward all subjects
for both the person resented and for me.
May 18th. Read through the description
of the prior prayer, praying it,
seeking sincerity as well as willingness
and ongoing awareness of the prayer/request.
May 19th, I read “Pick a spot on the planet.
It could be anywhere…
you would like to help heal.
Envision that place as peaceful,
with people well fed and clothed
and living in safety and peace.
Take a moment every day
and envision it.” ~ Louise Hay
I picked our two hearts.
Prayed at various times through the day.
May 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, it’s becoming a habit,
one that will remind me
even after two weeks have come and gone
to keep on wishing, praying, willing
each of us be free, have health,
prosperity, and happiness, to enjoy being free.
Yelling when yelled out cures nothing.
The full relief is not promised by the sixth day.
Yelling going both directions does not show on the sixth day
resentment will remain intact.
It means I must resolve again to seek for the other
what ‘i want for myself, including choosing
other than accusatory communication.
Love is the most powerful healing force there is.
I open myself to love for the two of us.
I am willing to love and be loved.
I see myself and the other self prosper.
I see us both healthy.
I see us both creatively fulfilled.
I will us both peace and safety.
I send and receive thoughts of comfort
and acceptance, support and love.
May 26th. Love and concern seem to prevail,
a peaceful day, shared concerns
about approaching events. Peace prevails.
And two weeks have ended.
Animosity has dimmed to the point of non-evident,
closer to peace and understanding…by far!!!…
than to the animosity I had felt.
My responsibilities have been assumed
by the other and kind words said,
far more often than fault-finding.
I have found truth in Herbert Spencer’s
“There is a principle which is
a bar against all information,
which is proof against all arguments
and which cannot fail to keep a man
in everlasting ignorance —
that principle is contempt prior to investigation. —”
And I have found truth in it.
I will continue the prayer longer
and hopefully the canyon that has materialized
will continue to hide resentments
for both of us. ¡ojolá que sí! So be it!