All resenting stems from resisting. Resentment comes from resisting another person’s actions, behaviors and habits. Instead of allowing the person to be, we silently resist who they are. That silent resistance turns into spoken or unspoken anger, distance and mutual hardship.

The absolute best thing we can do when feeling resentment is to go from resisting to enlisting. Instead of feeling like we must either fight or silently suffer, we can enlist the other person. We enlist by lovingly teaching and showing by example. We show the proper way through our being, and we enlist our partners to join in. We keep blame and fault out of the equation. Through love, we heal resentment and we are more likely to invoke change from the other person.

When people feel attacked, they never learn. When one partner suffers in silence, the other partner never learns. Only through love, kindness and patience has anyone been able to grow and evolve. Not everyone will change at the pace we might wish them to, but at least you did not lose your inner peace. Everyone has their own demons to work through. We can’t control anyone. But, if we are unable to be that patient and loving teacher, that only shows us the work we still have to do on ourselves. This is what Gandhi meant when he said, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.