The Delicate Balance of Giving and the Slow Burn of Resentment

If you have 3’s, 5’s, 8’s or 9’s in your Soul Contract, then listen up, this post is for you.

And perhaps it’s for anyone who has ever felt the slow burn of resentment that threatens to engulf them in anger and rage when they’ve been pushed too far.

In this post I’m exploring how resentment can grow into our life, what feeds it, and how we can release it and step into an empowered command of ourselves and our lives.

I also want to share a personal story to illustrate how slowly resentment can build, how to recognise the signs, and, ultimately, how to recognise our worth and what we deserve.

Is This All I Deserve? And Other Powerful Questions

I had a Divine Healing session with a client the other day who questioned, “Is this all that I deserve? Should I settle for what I have?” when talking about what was happening in her life. This made me pause and consider that perhaps more of us who are asking this question need it answered.

Are we supposed to settle for what we have, or dare we dream for more?

I’m not going to segue into feminism at this point because, like many other social agendas, I feel it’s also been hijacked into a yet another programme to serve global agendas that I’m not really interested in. I’m just not into man-bashing.

Men aren’t better than women, and women aren’t better than men. We’re just different. Wildly and incredibly different.

The reason I slid into feminism briefly is that I work with women, and I am a woman, so of course my experience of being a woman nowadays is pretty legitimate.

And what I’m noticing is that many of us are suffering from resentment without really understanding what it is that we’re feeling and how to go about transmuting it. This isn’t just an issue that affects women, but it’s most certainly something that can quietly breed within us.

What Is Resentment and How Does It Affect Us?

In its basic form, resentment is a feeling of bitterness or anger towards someone or something, often due to a perceived injustice, wrongdoing, or unmet expectations (which are our own expectations).

It’s also where we haven’t fully processed the emotions or even understood what we’re truly feeling.

The reason why resentment is a slow burn is because it’s not an obvious emotion, like fear or grief. It’s more subtle, sitting just below the surface of our consciousness until it grows so big that we suddenly realise it’s there.

A good example of this is that I always feel like I’m looking after the house I share with my boyfriend. I feel like I do almost all of the house admin, and it grates under my skin.

Yet, most of us are martyrs, myself included. This means that we’ll often stoically carry on with an air of resignation and long-suffering heroism in order to feel important, valued, and useful.

The problem with this is that while there’s a short-term gain of appreciation or gratitude after I’ve sorted something our in the house, the long-term resentment starts to build under the surface.

More often than not, resentment builds when we overgive without recognition, validation, appreciation, or reward. It’s really lovely to give, it’s a beautiful energy, but it can easily become imbalanced when we set our expectations on receiving an equal energy exchange that doesn’t arrive.

We all need validation, it’s a basic human necessity, but it’s even more important when we’re in a dynamic with someone who we expect to receive from and who doesn’t deliver - whether it’s a partner, a boss or a friend.

The Energy of Overgiving and How It Doesn’t Serve Us

There are a few reasons why we overgive. The first is that it comes from a genuine desire to be helpful, kind, and generous, all the values instilled in us by society, especially for women. We’re supposed to give and smile as we’re doing it.

This is the ‘good girl’ energy that I know so many of us are trying to break free from. The ‘good girl’ is someone who follows the rules, wants to please people (especially her parents), and suppresses her desires in order to serve someone else’s - whether it’s society’s, a boss’s, or a partner’s.

There has been careful conditioning in place for a long time that feeds off the idea that women should be eternal givers: of their time, love, and energy. Yet what about our need to receive?

The second reason that we overgive is because we’re trying to recognise our worth. This is about giving in order to feel valuable, important, and worthy, and, as I’m sure you’re aware, it only serves to create problems in the long run, for it is not sustainable - we burn out.

And it’s when we stop the ‘doing’ to feed our worth that we can have a real crisis that isn’t so easily fixed.

The third reason why we give is pure of heart and something that we can do freely, lovingly, and as much as we desire. There are no cords, no restrictions, no expectations, and no desires attached to a particular outcome. We can never overgive in this energy of love, which is why it has no connection to resentment at all.

Ultimately, resentment comes when we don’t recognise what we deserve, and fail to ask for it. This is why I believe that resentment is often all about our self-worth and learning how to stand up for ourselves.

This is something that I’ve struggled with, through many low-paying jobs, where I’ve given so much of my energy to the role in order to feel that appreciation and validation I was so desperately needing and seeking to build my worth - not realising that it was slowly eroding it instead.

The Soul Contract Energies and Resentment

So, why are the energies of 3, 5, 8, and 9 in the Soul Contract system so intimately linked with resentment, and how can we embrace the challenges they present us so we can sidestep out of resentment and into confidence and command of ourselves and our lives?

One of the biggest challenges for me has always been how to recognise my worth and feel confident in who I am and what I offer. This is all to do with the 3 energy in my Soul Contract, which is ultimately about learning to communicate how we feel, express it, and acknowledge our true worth.

The way it’s shown up for me is always through work.

I’ve had more jobs than I can even count. From cycle tour guiding to working in corporate London, I’ve also spent many years waitressing and working in admin roles.

And the question that’s always sat heavily within me has been – “is this all I deserve?” And once again, it’s reared its ugly head in a current work situation.

For those of you who stumbled onto this post and don’t know me, alongside emotional healing and the Soul Contract work, I have a few other jobs supporting other similar businesses. Last year, I made the decision (from a place of absolute financial scarcity that I simply didn’t know how to drag myself out of) to take on yet another.

At the time, I just didn’t recognise my value, the huge amount of experience and energy that I brought to the table, but a year later, I do, and I’ve realised that this situation just isn’t in alignment for me anymore.

At the time, I tried to negotiate for a higher hourly rate, but it just didn’t work - perhaps I wasn’t confident enough in my skill set, but more importantly, perhaps I wasn’t confident enough in what I was able to deliver.

This is the energy of the 3 in motion, the financial ups and downs are linked to our belief systems around our worth. It is also showcasing the energy of the 9s. This energy is all about disempowerment.

For anyone who has 9s in a karmic position in their Soul Contract, they might have had some pretty tough experiences and trauma, especially in childhood. But my 9s sit in my goals, which means I’m really here to step into my power as a lifetime achievement for me.

Part of stepping into our power involves speaking up for ourselves, which is where the beautiful 5 energy comes in.

The 5’s also often experience situations that force them to stand up and assert themselves. In particular, the 5 energy is all about using our voice to speak up for the truth that burns so brightly within us. We are not here to allow others to speak over and dominate us; we are here to speak up for ourselves.

And lastly, we have those glorious 8 energies, which are all to do with boundaries.

Boundaries are something that many of us struggle with. After all, they’re so intangible it’s hard to sometimes gauge how to bring them into action. For 8s, however, boundaries are super important, for without them, we can easily want to overgive.

The reason we want to give more and help people is because we’re deeply empathetic, meaning we feel the struggles and suffering of others and feel a deep need to step in and fix their problems.

Yet if we have 8’s showing up in our Soul Contract, we’re here to learn discernment and to know when peacekeeping and helping others doesn’t always serve us, and how people can really take advantage of our sensitive and empathic nature.

How to Move Through Resentment

Resentment isn’t obvious, but the signs that it’s there are.

If you consider something in your life, perhaps your relationship, your work, or something at home - is there an area that causes a little irritation, a sense of injustice, or annoyance? Perhaps there may be some judgement on the other person that’s lingering, a vague feeling of disappointment or resignation.

Sometimes the signs are very clear; we just don’t know how to handle them.

More often than not, resentment erupts in a rage and ongoing anger that cannot be sated unless a decision is made.

If we’re stuck in a situation that no longer feels good or in alignment with who we are (which is normal, for we are constantly changing and evolving), we have three options. We can either change the situation, leave the situation, or accept the situation.

If we can’t leave it, we can either accept it and come to peace with what is, or we can work on changing it. If we can’t change it, then again, we can choose to accept it with grace or walk away from it. Finally, if we can’t accept it, for it is no longer something we are willing to allow in our lives, we must either change it, change ourselves, or leave.

We’re all allowed to feel anger, it’s just something drummed into us that ‘good girls don’t get angry’, and yet anger is necessary and important.

If we don’t allow ourselves to feel and express the anger that we have a right to have, then it stays stuck in the body and eventually morphs into a depression - which is the grief of not being able to be who we truly are.

It is therefore vital that we allow ourselves to express where we are out of alignment in our lives.

It’s easy to think that we’re angry at other people who are linked to our resentment, but more often than not, we’re actually only angry at ourselves. We’re angry that we can’t speak up for ourselves. We’re angry that we’re too scared to leave a situation that doesn’t feel good anymore. We’re angry that we can’t act on the inner knowing that we deserve better, it’s just too terrifying for us.

Releasing resentment comes in a myriad of ways.

While a lot is out of our control, a lot is within our command. Some of the ways I’ve been able to let the anger go are through healing sessions, crazy dancing to expend the energy out of my body when I’ve been feeling stuck, and speaking the situation through with friends and family.

Ultimately, no one truly understands how we feel, and often they can’t help beyond offering the space to let us share our burdens. However, we do have the ability to make decisions - and that is powerful!

Making Decisions and the Fear and Challenge to Our Worth

It is no easy feat to make a decision that might change our lives and send us careering in a direction that we didn’t anticipate heading in.

Yet, sometimes decisions must be made. Whether it’s deciding to have a conversation with someone who is connected to the resentment, looking for other opportunities to replace a situation that is creating resentment, or taking measures and actions to clear the resentment, and all that’s connected to it, from our lives.

There is a beautiful irony in this whole process, for it is when we allow ourselves to feel the anger below the surface, or the grief which often sits just below further it, that we can truly step into our power and acknowledge what we’re really worth.

We stay stuck in situations and relationships with people that build resentment, forgetting that the key to answering the question of “is this all that I deserve, should I settle for what I have?” sits securely and resolutely within us.

It is only when we recognise that we are the key players in this game called life that we can begin to move the pieces on our chessboard and navigate our way to something better. We can appreciate what we have whilst striving for more, it is not selfish, it is not greedy, and it is not wrong.

The only thing that is wrong about it is the judgement that we place on ourselves for having those thoughts of wanting and desiring more.

No one created the manual of life; no one knows the rules of how it should be lived. And all the stories we read about the lives of others who tell us how we should live are only basing it on their own singular reality of living, they do not contain the universal truth.

Of course, we deserve more. Of course, we deserve the sun, the moon, and the stars. We don’t have to settle for what we have; we always have a choice to change or to walk away.

If you’d like support and guidance on your spiritual journey, you may like to explore my monthly group healing membership Your Authentic Soul, take a look at one-to-one healing sessions, or sign up to my newsletter to stay in touch for more similar posts.

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Carry on exploring