There’s something about human beings that simply love to blame other people for our own downfalls. As much as we don’t like to admit it, this is something that we’ve all done from time to time, and it’s rarely something we own up to doing.
In most cases, it’s an old habit that’s been hardwired over time into our mindsets and of course, like any personality trait, it can take time to unwind, and it may be a long process ahead of you. However, without changing this ‘victim’ mindset, you’re risking making yourself extremely unhappy and bitter about your life.
At the end of the day, it’s so important to realise that when you’re bitter towards something or someone, you’re not going to hurt the other person or party involved, only yourself. By clinging to blame, anger or pain from a past event, you’re never going to be able to move on.
You need to learn to forgive.
How Bitterness Hurts
You could be bitter and angry about anything. It could be something relatively small, such as someone taking the last doughnut in the office, or it could be something much more life-changing, such as someone beating you to a promotion, or your relationship falling apart.
In one study, 71 people were studied by psychologists and shown special images that were designed to encourage feelings of resentment and hate for 15 seconds. After these 15 seconds, the participants were shown images that were designed to soothe and relax these feelings for just 5 seconds.
Surprisingly, those who focused more on resentment and bitterness during the trials had a collective heart rate increase of an incredible 250% after just four seconds of being shown the first images. However, four seconds later, after the soothing images were shown, that heart rate dropped by an astonishing 200%.
Those who were able to focus on being relaxed and empathic throughout the entire study has a heart rate (and blood pressure level) that averaged around 150% lower than the group noted above.
As you can imagine, this level of stress and elevated heart rate can be detrimental to your health. Another study that was carried out by the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that ‘being bitter’ and ‘resenting’, which resulted in elevated blood pressure and heart rates can lead to numerous health problems which include; enduring emotional distress, overall declining health, poor sleep quality, chronic depression, increased stress hormone production (cortisol) and even negative cardiovascular problems.
Meditation and Your Brain
So, it’s clear that being a bitter person, whether you release it or not, can be extremely damaging to your health, so what can you do about it?
As mentioned above, one of the best ways to go about it is learning to forgive people and yourself for things that have happened in the past. One of my personal favourite sayings is ‘the past is the past, and the future doesn’t exist’. All you need to focus on is the present.
As I’ve suggested in the title of this article, one of the best ways to learn how to forgive and let go of the past is through meditation. By taking the name to take a step back from everyday life to breath and clear your mind, you can train your brain to let go of anything negative, whether it’s a situation of the past or anxiety, to solely focus on the present.
This will help you to become free from stress, worries and anger that can drive down your emotional wellbeing in the day to day life. Of course, if you feel like you’ve been a bitter person for several years, it can take months, possibly even years, to re-hardwire your brain to let go. However, with daily practice, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how good you feel after such a short amount of time.