We have all been down that road of bitterness. If you are reading this and you are thinking to yourself, “no I have never been a bitter person,” let me give you a little test….Have you ever secretly said “yay” when Ms. Van Uppity’s children act out in public? Or gloated when the person who always seemed to one up you at work gets called out for a mistake? That my friend is bitterness.
Now… before you move forward, we are about to step into the world of “real talk.” May I encourage you to grab a glass of wine for the next thing I am about to say… it’s 6am… ok add some orange juice to your wine and make it a mimosa… it’s fine. Ok…
Bitterness is a subtle yet destructive seed. It eats you from the inside out until even the simplest of actions are drenched in “ha got you”moments. You silently revel in the imperfection of that woman with the seemingly perfect skin who has a flaw in her lipstick or a messed up line from her mascara. Bitterness is mistakenly arrributed to something someone else did to you or something they have that you do not. You have allowed that thing or that person to fester under your skin, and the bitterness is now coming out in your every day life.
That is the easy culprit of bitterness to believe, but it is often more complicated than that. Bitternesss tends to breed from our own internal feelings of shame, guilt, failure or inadequacy. Sometimes there is an environmental trigger like an embarrassing or seemingly devastating situation like losing your job, or deeper triggers like ending a relationship or not having or being able to have children. Those triggers bring up feelings we have not admitted to ourselves, feelings we are too afraid to admit to ourselves.
The thing about bitterness is it doesn’t go away… not until you handle the internal root of that bitterness. As you read this, I encourage you to stop doubting the seeds of bitterness and admit them. What are you holding onto right now? What lies are you telling yourself because the shame has become your best friend, and is too hard to let it go for fear of the vulnerability it opens up in your life?
My friend… take it from a PRO at dwelling on bitterness… now is the time to be honest with yourself and deal with the roots of your bitterness. There is not an easy 12 step process to moving beyond bitterness, and you may never be 100% free from even a little bitterness… you are not perfect no matter how many times you try and tell people you are. Be imperfect, be vulnerable, be honest, and be real. Stop hiding behind bitterness, and start dealing with what that bitterness is doing to you. Today may not be perfect, but it is today. You can own the next step in your journey towards a better and less bitter today.
