Why is it so hard to let go of resentment of things past?

It isn’t the thing, the person, the condition that holds us captive and puts us in conflict. It is our attachment to the sense of self that pondering these thoughts produces in us. There’s the pain, and there’s the way out. Holding on hurts. When we pick up a hot skillet, we let go immediately because the very cells in our body realize the inherent danger in this heat to their life.

Letting go is natural and an act of physical intelligence in this instance. The same holds true with negative states. Our awareness of resentment permits us to “touch” the actual energy of that state, and our spiritual intelligence drops what is destructive to the soul. 

In order to let go of any painful past condition – so there is never again a moment where regret, sorrow, or resentment is pulling us down – we must allow every movement, each unexpected event encountered, every thought and feeling – no matter its character – to have its own life. If we will attempt to view life from this new and higher understanding – that everything under the sun — from thoughts to thunder — has its own birth, life and death, then one day we will come to the relief-filled realization that the reason any part of our painful past persists is because there is something in us that won’t let it die out naturally. Any lingering sadness or resentment is an unnatural life-form kept breathing by the false self’s reluctance to let it go.