Conquering resentment is the key to dealing with all stress, even stress that does not appear to be related in any way to cruelty, such as the stress of balancing the household budget, or the stress of our children needing a great deal of our attention.

The reason is simple: The way we react to all stress, even the innocent problems, discomforts, and responsibilities of life, is conditioned and keyed to the way in which we deal with cruelty.

In other words if we react with upset and resentment to cruelty and thoughtlessness, we will also react that way, in one form or another, to all stressful situations. 

Resentment plays millions of tricks with our minds. One of them is to make us feel lost and empty, and that intensifies the need for love and approval. This opens the door to binges with food and sex—anything to fill the emptiness.

But when we find gratification through people, places, and things, as a love substitute, we are literally breeding addiction within ourselves. Why? Because the pleasure is only a love substitute, which by its very nature feeds the anger that gave rise to it, making us even more angry—and round it goes. 

That is the nature of addiction to anything, from gambling, to food addiction, to drugs and alcohol. How do we solve all these stress problems? By applying Principle number two, which is: Locate the resentment and drop it in the present moment.

If we can locate our resentment in every present intimidation, and let it pass, we discover to our amazement that our fears, fetishes, phobias and guilts, in fact all those faults we have hated in ourselves and others, begin to disappear. 

Please freeze frame this point: Resentment is the root cause of all the suffering in your life, bad decisions, even many diseases. Being upset makes us suggestible, gullible, and submissive to cruel authority.

"Conquering resentment is the key to dealing with all stress"

We grow up as permanent victims, and tyrants and manipulators see to it that their quarry never outgrow their secret hostilities by piling on cruelty upon cruelty, terror upon terror, and confusion upon confusion. 

Incredibly, very often the victim of secret, suppressed rage feels love and warmth towards his violator, and truly believes that his slavery is a loving service.

This is because the hate he feels automatically produces guilt, which automatically creates a powerful need for him to “make up” for that guilt—with false love. An entire nation can be controlled by this hate-love phenomenon.

Consider the nation of Iran. Do you really believe that the late Ayatollah Khomeni’s followers truly loved him? Of course not; they hated him. They had religion forced upon them when they were children, in a society that has no tolerance for a different view.

The result is rage and conformity—and a strange loyalty to serve the violator, even to the death. 

Resentment is the establishing cause of all past traumas, and a reinforcing cause of them in the present. That is why so many of us never get well. At the same time, however, it gives great hope for a cure to those willing to engage in a little introspection.

There is no need to look into the past to find the cause of our problems; we can gauge our pasts by carefully observing how we relate to people, places, and things in the present.