“How you’ve been GRINCHED”. Part 2. Grumpy and Resentful.

Dear reader, this article is Part 2 in a series of 10 articles titled: “How you’ve been GRINCHED and you didn’t even know it”. You can read the previous article here: Read “Grinched” Part 1

GRINCH – a bitter and ill-tempered character.

Let’s take a closer look at what first two components of GRINCH (Grumpy, Resentful) personality look like.

G – Grumpy [definition]: easily irritated, ready to quickly show annoyance or impatience.

Grinch surely was grumpy and so are you [at least at times]. Does it ring a bell? Maybe not, at least not yet. OK. So ask yourself the following questions: Do I wake up easily early in the morning? Do I enjoy going to work? Do I look in the mirror and smile every day? Do I look forward to Mondays? Do I stay calm in traffic? Do I stay patient when someone disagrees with me or calls me out? Chances are “NO” is a frequent answer to these. And it’s a hint that you may have been engaging in grumpiness. How about we take it a little further?

Do you need a cup of coffee or tea before you talk to anyone in the morning? Do you get hangry (angry when you’re hungry)? Do you keep quiet despite wanting to speak up at those management meetings for a while? Do Monday mornings feel like the weekend flew by and you didn’t even get to rest? Saturday was a chores day, family, kids, loved ones, maybe some time with friends, a dinner or night out, drinks to numb you up, Netflix and here comes Sunday, it’s time to get ready for work…tomorrow is Monday. If the answer to any of the above is YES, then you know what your own experience of grumpy is.

I can keep going, but by now I hope you’re getting my point. It’s never obvious [grumpiness], until you allow yourself to look closely within, dropping your guards. It is a true blindspot and isn’t easy to see. For example, to Grinch it would never appear to even think that he was grumpy because grumpiness became his second nature, a “normal” behavior. Therefore, carefully check if you’ve been running on grumpy autopilot, leaving a trail of “casualties” and [even worse] enemies behind in ways you talk and interact with your colleagues, employees, friends, family members, strangers (those people that cut you off in traffic or drive too slow when you’re running late:)).

While grumpy doesn’t seem like an overly negative quality – think about the real impact it has on your life. Think about all the mean and nasty things you’ve said when you were grumpy. Think about how quickly and easily you get annoyed and offended. It’s almost like you are inviting more grumpiness into your life when you are grumpy. Think about how others around you feel when you’re grumpy? How you’re actually impacting the quality of your experiences and relationships…

R – Resentful [definition]: feeling or expressing bitterness or indignation at having been treated unfairly.

Does this one ring a bell? Perhaps not. So let’s ask ourselves the following questions: Have your parents made you do things you never wanted to? Have your parents affected the choices you made about school, friends, education, career, work that left you feeling disempowered and not in control? Have your siblings ever annoyed you to the point that you don’t even talk to them? Does your boss or manager pick on you unfairly? Did somebody get your “earned” promotion? If the answer is yes to any of these, then you’ve experienced resentment in the past. You know what it feels like to be angry and bitter at people.

Resentment is the ultimate poison of happiness. You simply cannot feel joy and happiness while being occupied by resentment. In the case of the Grinch, resentment of everyone around him effectively created an impenetrable armor around his heart. As such, when we have relationships in our lives where we feel resentment towards another person (especially if it’s a family member), it stops us from living life fully and powerfully. Moreover, resentment typically spills over into other relationships and shows up often in very unexpected ways and moments.

A good example of that would be resenting your mother or father and then surprisingly [not really] but consistently not having good, trusting relationships with women and/or men in your life (we like to label them as mommy or daddy issues). You may not think that these two are correlated, but I assure you they are. If you could be present for a moment, get honest and identify such resentful relationships in your life, you may be able to discover what’s stopping you, another blindspot. With desire, will, patience and guidance you could go on to resolve such issues and fix those relationships, which in turn will give you a lot more freedom. Freedom to be, freedom to do and freedom to act. But for now, at least make yourself aware that resentment hides within. And the impact is typically largely on you, until it spills over on others…

Ⓒ 2018, Sergey Kiklevich, CEO of Gambit Solutions Inc.