12 Steps To Overcome Feeling Bitter - Harley Therapy™ Blog

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By: Bev Sykes

Often, in telling our story to others, we stop telling the truth to ourselves about what really happened and what is truly upsetting us.

Ask yourself good questions to dig deeper into facts and feelings. Journalling can be a great tool here (as can a counsellor who is trained at asking powerful questions).

• What about the situation really upsets you when you go through it?
• What are the details that actually haunt you, versus what you tell your friends bothers you because they all agree it should? If you were the victim of fraud, is it losing the money that has upset you, or is really being made to look stupid that has you bitter?
• Re-evaluate the thing that was actually lost, too. Do you still want it? Is it still attainable? Or is it all something you have actually long since outgrown?

2. Put your story on hold.

As for that story about what happened to you. What would happen if, just for a week, or even a few days, you take a break from telling it?

Telling the story of what happened to you to those whose job it is to help you, or because you are trying to find new and positive ways to deal with your situation, is one thing. But telling the story of what happened to you again and again in a negative way to everyone you meet is often a form of keeping yourself stuck in victimhood.

3. Take what responsibility you can.

As for that victimhood that your story generates. Note that if you are a victim, you are helpless. You put yourself in a corner where you can’t embrace your personal power to create change and move on.

Of course not all situations contain personal responsibility. If you are bitter that a loved one died in a senseless war, there is obviously nothing you did to make that happen.

But many of us who are bitter know we had a part in what took place, but we are too ashamed to admit to it. We didn’t get fired just as our boss was horrible. We were slacking off, too.

Again, the point of acknowledging your responsibility in what transpired is not to blame yourself, which is counterproductive, but to reclaim your personal power.

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