Envy, Resentment, and Bitterness

I am realizing that I am developing very unhealthy feelings of envy, resentment, and bitterness in the work place. I am fully aware that these emotions are not healthy and that I must do something soon to heal myself before I do something stupid and harmful to perfectly good people.

Yes, younger people are getting promoted over me. Yes, I have more experience and education than most of them. Yes, I have lived in many more places and therefore worked in many more places, and have seen many more work methods. That does not give me the right to feel the bitterness I feel for not moving up as fast as I have expected I would have or should have.

How do I conquer these feelings? I know that I am the only one to hurt from these emotions. I am polite and courteous to my coworkers, but, I seethe inside. I should be happy for their success. Instead, when I see them doing the work I wanted to be doing by now, the anger and resentment boils up again. I don't want to feel this anymore. A little part of me feels happy for them, but, most of me is envious. How do I conquer this? It is eating me up inside. I don't like these feelings.

Hey, Nicks Nose! I can certainly understand your feelings. Off hand, I am thinking that talking to a counselor might help--or at least someone who knows how to help people to work through their feelings. I know I would find it hard to release these feelings without such help anyway.

Hey, NIcks NOse

I do understand resentment and bitterness. My situation was opposite ,but with same effect. I am quite younger then my colleagues,though had similar education and training in a good facility(started right after school and no social life). When I started working I was disregarded as a professional because of age,gender.I had to prove my professional choices right and left,finally, they accepted and now respect me professionally,but there is resentment on my part and some anger for discrimination,which I am working through just by enjoying what I do ( i know I am not going to be chosen for advanced positions anyway).
Just let it go,or if you are bold enough talk to you administration to understand the problem
Best wishes to you

I would recommend talking to a counselor or close friend about your feelings. Keep talking about them until you reach the point of acceptance. The key to resolving the feelings is accepting the situation for what it is and realizing that its beyond your control. I am not saying its easy or that it will happen overnight but the goal with any negative emotions is to work through them and accept the situation that has brought them about. You will also need to work on forgiving yourself. You are being hard on yourself. Everyone has those type of feelings at some point in life. The key is not to stay there. Even journaling your feelings may help if you keep a journal. By all means find someone you trust to talk to about it so they can help you work through them. You will get through this - will just take a little time ! Hang in there and thanks for sharing !!!

Examine your work situation. It may be the wrong kind of situation for you, with the wrong kind of people. Tine re-look.

Excellent advice from everybody. Wave1, you are very correct in advising a gentle and patient handling of the whole situation. I do tend to
ruminate on issues and try too hard to constantly prove my worth at work and perhaps I am trying too hard. There also comes impatience as I get older and see my work life period getting shorter and shorter. There is some desparation to work through.

Thunder Bow, you are also correct in advising me to assess the situation at hand. The location I am at right now is culturally conflicting. I feel like a fish out of water. That causes stress and the work practices are culturally different here from the locations I originally trianed in this industry. I believe I have accomplished as much as I can in this industry and it might be time for me to start over and try to see which skills I can possibly transfer into another field. The economy being what it is in this small town though, there are not many options for the kinds of work available.

Hugs for all of your support, everybody. Thank you, all.

Are you happy at where you work? If not then maybe a newness is in order for you. What are your passions? Find out what it is you like to do.

This is excellent advice, but few people realize it. I'm finally changing my life situation after many years in a rut. I think I simply couldn't envision a new me before, but due to exhaustion, oppression and frustration, I am forcing myself to change. Too bad it takes such trauma to wake oneself up sometimes.

I would so like to get out of this work rut I am in and that is why I have returned to school so many times in my life to retrain for other careers or trades but I continue to get shunned due to lack of experience. I have to keep falling back on the same crappy industry I do have experience in just to find work because they are the only people who WILL hire me. I feel like giving up and this has led to my occasional thoughts now of ending life. I can't get out of this rut even though I have been trying to for 20 years. When will employers give educated people a chance to ATTAIN their experience?

I'm not sure if I have the answer to your problem, but I do know that what you feel is what you feel, and that's it.

Even if you don't want to feel bitter, you have to accept that in that moment you in fact DID feel bitter. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you acknowledge that while you may hold some resentment, you're going to rise above these feelings and that the you that you are proud of is a person who would accept a situation like this and make the best of it.

Best of luck.

I have to count my blessings for the few good people who have recently come into my life and seem to be helping me laugh again. That is helping me immensely. I guess laughter does do a lot for what ails me. Three of those people are the actual coworkers I work with. The job might suck but the people are good.

Try a little bit of meditation on it. Put on some soothing music. Think of all of the things that bother you at work, allow the anger and frustration to build up, and then throw it away. Do this over and over again until you feel some of the tension start to go away. I know it's hard, but I find this kind of thing really helps. Feel free to join my social group for job seekers if you want. I understand the frustration in not finding the job you're educated for because no one will give you the chance. In the social group, you're welcome to give specifics about what you know you can do, and we'll see if we can come up with some ideas on how to gain that experience. It can't hurt and may be something that could help in the long run.....

http://forums.psychcentral.com/group...b-seekers.html

Best of luck to you...always here if you'd like to vent.