I’m going to ask you a question; bitter or better? You might be thinking – what? Answer me honestly, though, when something happens in your life that doesn’t go your way, do you stay bitter or make things better?
Are You Bitter? – Really?
Listen, this human experience is challenging. No matter how good your intention, there will be circumstances that don’t go your way. You are going to react to situations undesirably – it’s how we grow and evolve as people. The trouble is the after-effects of these situations can leave us feeling bitter. Be honest, have you ever harboured bitterness around a problem that has passed?
Many of you will shrug this off in denial. Of course, you aren’t bitter. No one wants to admit that. The truth is that sometimes we are bitter even when we think we aren’t. It’s our job to recognise this and make it better.
Bitterness Doesn’t Help.
Being bitter and harbouring resentment is never going to work well. Those feelings have low-level frequencies, which will alter your overall vibration. Remaining bitter about something means keeping a foot in the past rather than living in the present. You are essentially carrying baggage that no longer serves you but is taking up valuable space and resources.
How To Make Things Better
When a situation happens in life that has the potential to leave us feeling bitter, we need to surrender and release our control on this moment fully. In the ideal world, this scenario wouldn’t have happened in the first place, but we can’t go back into the past and change things. We have to move forward and release everything we are harbouring that no longer serves us. We need to get better.
How can we get better about a situation, though, I hear you ask. So, for example, say you’ve had a row with your neighbour over a boundary fence line that needs maintaining. Their reaction was, in your opinion, out of proportion. This causes you frustration, some anger, stress and also upset. After the initial feelings pass you, then feel bitterness because you don’t see why they needed to respond in such a way. You can’t go back and alter their reaction. You can’t go back and change your handling of the situation. Feeling bitter and holding on to this moment won’t make you feel any better either. The truth is, though, you think that you are ‘over it.’ In your honest mind, you have moved on. Yet that bitter feeling you have suggests otherwise.
In a scenario like this, you need to lean into forgiveness. Forgive your neighbour for their response, yourself for your handling and for allowing bitterness to consume you. Then you need to surrender and release this moment from your mind. You cannot change it, but you are torturing yourself in the process whilst ever you remain shackled to it. This isn’t a process of ease, but it is one of peace. When you fully surrender, you will have moved on, and you will feel a world different as a result.
This Is About You, Not Others
Will this process change your neighbour? No. They will still be the resistant, difficult neighbours I am sure they have always been, but this isn’t about them. It’s about you. In life, we cannot change other people. We are not responsible for them. If they are still harbouring bitterness, then that’s on them. You don’t need to remain tortured regardless.
That being said, sometimes, when we release our own bitterness in making things better for ourselves, we find that people respond to us in a much different way. You never know this could also help your relationship too!
