Is the Revenge Dish Best Served Cold? – How to Safely Deal With Injustice
You must have heard the proverb: “Revenge is a dish best served cold“, right? But do you really know its true meaning?And most importantly the effect revenge may have on your health if not conducted intelligently?
Sometimes you are the victim of an injustice and feel an intense need for revenge but you feel that you are unable to do anything. Have you experienced such situation at some point in your life? I’m sure you did, we all do to some degree.
We are then overwhelmed with violent emotions.
Our worst nightmare is seeing him or her laugh, have fun, make fun of us!
We imagine that our greatest joy would be to inflict a thousand tortures on our enemy, and right now. But …
Revenge May Be a Dish Best Served Cold!
It might turn into a medical emergency. Indeed, this state of desire for revenge is disastrous for our health.
Our stomachs start to secrete corrosive substances.
At night, we clench our teeth (bruxism) which damages our tooth enamel. Our appetite decreases, our digestion becomes more complicated. Sleep is agitated, the joy of life soars, the libido collapses.
The thirst for revenge can lead to high blood pressure, impotence, depression and, in extreme cases, cancer.
It Therefore becomes a MEDICAL EMERGENCY
And even if there is no physical illness that kicks in, the person who needs revenge but cannot do anything, is at enormous risk of weakening, curling up, becoming fearful and frightened. Totally unable to do anything more with their life, which is a terrible form of inner death.
How to Get Out of This Hell?
Of course, there is the solution to try mending your marriage, and it has worked for the better on many occasions. If it is something that you would like to try first, then I can recommend “Mend the Marriage” by Brad Browning and I wish you a very happy ending. Watch the video below …
Otherwise, how can we forget our “executioner” and move on, especially if we also have to accept that “justice is not done”? Here are a few recommendations that will to get on with our life, safely and contented:
1 – Give up this idea …
Yes, give up believing that we can “make the aggressor understand” that he or she has acted badly. Being hurt unfairly, the first instinct is to want to explain things to your enemy.
Make them understand that they did something wrong. That he / she hurt us. That this was really mean, and they shouldn’t do it again.
At this point, I say: “Watch out, great danger!”
From the moment the person in front of you is aware that you are suffering because of them; and that obviously this does not make them change; that they do not come to apologize or repair or seek any solution; that maybe even she or he redoubles their aggressiveness against you; you have to have the courage to consider that making you suffer is perhaps part of their goals.
If this is the case, it is important not to explain to them why or how they hurt you.
Because they could take this valuable information and use it against you. If you tell them where it is hurting you, you are giving them the key to hurting you even more, and there is reason to fear that they will use it.
In the absence of a sincere plea for forgiveness and reparation, of a genuine desire for reconciliation, do not try to explain to your enemy that they should not mistreat you.
Accept, even if it is hard, that you have an enemy who wants to harm you. It is very important to learn to live with this certainty.
This first step is long, it can take months or years, because it involves recognizing that there is a dark part in Man, which is difficult and painful, especially for benevolent people who do not feel bad feelings for others.
This work of acceptance will never be entirely finished, as the victim’s need to explain itself will often come to revisit it. Each time, it will be a struggle, to convince oneself that it is useless, and that it can only make matters worse.
There is here a real mourning to be made, the mourning of the idealized image that one had of the other, and of Man in general, where one imagined that such wickedness “was not possible”.
Well if, unfortunately, if there is one thing history teaches us, it is that not only is wickedness possible, it seems to also have no limits.
2 – Try to stop feeling joy when misfortunes happen to your enemy!
The second step is to try to reduce our feeling of joy when misfortunes happen to our enemy.
This is a very important step in emotional release.
Practical case :
A caring, faithful, good-natured woman, having sacrificed herself all her life for a selfish and wicked husband, whom she nevertheless strove to love and forgive on all occasions.
One day, the husband leaves her for another, fifteen years younger. During the divorce proceedings, he multiplies the fanciful accusations against his first wife, taking visible pleasure in humiliating her in order to leave her penniless and make her bear the guilt. Afterwards, he will have fun posting radiant images on Facebook showing his wonderful life with his new wife, to increase his suffering.
For the betrayed woman, it is extremely difficult not to experience a visceral urge for revenge.
With all her heart, she hopes that things will turn out badly, as soon as possible, with the young girl. And with each “good news” – birth, successful vacation, new home purchase, new car – is like a dagger in her heart.
There is no way this woman will stop suffering as she hears that her ex-husband is living the good life with his new wife.
So this is not the place to start.
But there is still something very important to do:
It’s about working to experience less joy when misfortunes happen to her ex-husband.
This is where she can initiate the work of emotional liberation, for example by reflecting on the following:
“I want to be happy, but I want true happiness, which isn’t just the unhealthy joy that things are going wrong in my ex-husband’s life. So I don’t want to just wait for bad luck to happen to him, especially since I know it only gives me short-lived joy. I will avoid indulging myself in it, I will turn away as quickly as possible, I will try to forget this joy and return to my positive occupations, which bring me genuine lasting happiness.“
It is only later that she will also be able to feel less pain when her husband returns to taunt her with his “successes”.
However, as we can imagine, this strategy is not enough. This is only a first step. An emergency bandage.
To truly get rid of the craving for revenge that hangs over us, we need to initiate a basic treatment.
This is what we are going to see now …
3 – Understand that the person who betrayed you did not “win”
Let’s go back to this woman’s story.
She was therefore humiliated, deceived, despoiled by her ex-husband.
Which is obviously horrible for her.
But let’s take a side step and try to judge her situation now.
Since she was so good to her husband, and he was so ungrateful to her… Who won and who lost in the affair?
- The husband lost a wife who wanted him well
- The wife has lost an exploitative husband
The answer is obvious: it was the husband who lost. His betrayal deprived him of a position that was advantageous for him.
As he left her, the husband shot himself in the foot. He has lost his best ally. Of course, he hopes his new wife will be as good to him as the first one. But nothing is less certain, especially if the former was exceptionally dedicated and patient, as she appeared to be.
Moreover, this tendency to harm his own benefactress indicates in him a serious lack of judgment. In life, it’s not that common to meet people who want you well. If he was stupid enough to mistreat his first wife, to the point of depriving himself of her gentleness and patience, there is a likelihood that he will do the same with the next one, and for that matter with everyone. . So he is a man who does not know how to recognize his allies! Worse, he is a man who turns his best friends into enemies.
However, a person crazy enough to alienate the (rare) people who wish them well necessarily ends up in disaster.
The husband punished himself. The betrayed wife doesn’t need to seek revenge any more, he already takes care of it on his own !!
Once the person who was consumed with the desire for revenge manages to:
- Give up the need to go and explain to his or her enemy that he or she has hurt him;
- Contain the joy he or she feels when bad luck befalls their enemy;
- Understand that, in cases of treason, it is always the traitor who loses the most, since he or she deprives him/herself of the support of a benevolent person
Well, once they get that, which is of course a long and difficult process, the job isn’t completely done.
Indeed, the desire for justice in us is so strong that it is very difficult to extinguish it, until justice has not been done officially, publicly. In short, as long as the villain in James Bond hasn’t been devoured by sharks.
We can control this desire for revenge, but it will come back regularly.
Each time, you will have to redo all the reasoning, from A to Z, to calm down.
The reasoning, which is in the head, takes a long time to “descend” to the depths of us, into our guts. Only when we have fully integrated it, when it becomes clear to us that it is the one who betrayed who loses, that we start to get better.
Which can take years I hate to say!
But fortunately, there is a way out that may present itself to us.
A very amazing path, but to understand it I ask you in advance to be very open-minded.
4 – A way out to get free more quickly
It is common, when one rehashes cravings for revenge, to call for some kind of “heavenly justice”, even if one does not believe it.
We hope that, despite everything, something will “happen”.
That “Heaven” will not remain silent. That the wicked will not go unpunished even if, to all appearances, he is not going to pay for his crimes here on earth.
In short, let’s get right to the point, we find ourselves hoping, with the naivety of a child, that hell exists despite everything, just for the pleasure of seeing the other person roast there!
These moments are extremely interesting, and useful on a psychological level. They are an opportunity to be totally free.
Indeed, they are an excellent opportunity to ask the question, very seriously, whether, really, we would benefit from hell.
Because, if hell does exist, are we absolutely certain that only the other person will be there?
In other words, are we absolutely sure that we, on our side, have never done anything that would risk, if only because of a misunderstanding, to lead us there too?
Which suddenly changes the picture. It brings us back to the scene …
Suddenly, we finally manage to look away from our enemy, to wonder about ourselves, about what we are doing with our own life.
We finally start to be able to think about our own possible wrongs, and no longer just those of the other.
I’m not talking about our wrongs in this particular dispute. It is of course not a question of seeking in the poor betrayed wife any responsibility for the wickedness of her husband.
No, I’m talking about other occasions in our life, outside of this particular conflict. The question is, do we have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of? Are there not other situations where we have not been an innocent victim, and where we have harmed, directly or indirectly, other people?
A person who could suffer as we are now suffering from the wrong someone else has done to us?
Opening our eyes to another reality, our own, which alone really concerns us, frees us.
We realize that we wasted our time wanting revenge. That this person who betrayed us is only one case among all the evil beings that exist, and that it is really stupid and useless to stop everything for him. We realize that we have imposed slavery on ourselves by making our happiness dependent on our unhappiness, and vice versa.
It is by realizing this that one comes out of hypnosis, one could even say of bewitchment, revenge.
It’s like the scales are falling out of our eyes. Suddenly, you feel like you are seeing again.
We realize that there are loads of things to do in our own life that we had left behind, and that is where the real urgency lies.
5 – The supreme reward when revenge is a dish best served cold
And this is where you get the ultimate reward.
This supreme reward is to understand that this person who had “betrayed” us has in fact done us a service.
By revealing to us the truth about the unhealthy relationship we had with her or he, she / he freed us, which gave us the possibility to finally live our own vocation, and to detach ourselves from them.
The fact that she or he suffers, that she or he pays for their wickedness, then becomes secondary. It will even become ridiculous, one day, sooner or later.
Little by little, our enemy presents itself less often to our consciousness. Until the day when we come to experience bursts of joy and gratitude thinking of him.
Am I exaggerating?
Barely. These bursts of joy and gratitude will probably never be constant, or even frequent. But they can happen at least fleetingly, more often than you might think.
For a moment, we see that, despite all the wounds our enemy has inflicted on us, he / she has also helped reveal something deeply positive to us, which we most likely would never have discovered without them.
Again, I don’t mean to sound ridiculously naive, pretending that one can leap for joy when thinking about betrayals.
The ideal would obviously be a world where traitors would be punished, and where their victims would not have to consume themselves for years meditating an impossible revenge.
But my message is that in the night of suffering it is possible to rediscover flashes of light and even joy, and avoid making yourself sick or dying of sadness.
Even though the path is complicated, I hope I have helped clear it a little. Please feel free to help me, and other readers, to go further, by sharing your thoughts and any experiences, positive or negative, in this area.
Cheers, stay safe, healthy and happy!
So, now that you have fully read this article, how do you feel?
Do you think it may be worth trying to save your marriage? If yes, then it may not be too late and it may be the best solution. In this case, here is another recommended read by Dr. Lee H. Baucom, PhD: “Save The Marriage” …
So, is revenge a dish best served cold or not?
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Hello John. There were such situations in my life when I was hurt by some of my coworkers. In the beginning, I was hoping something bad will happen to them, that they will lose their position in the company for example. Later I chose to ignore them as much as possible and reduce contact and communication to the minimum. Excluding them from my life was a good solution, I no longer have any feelings (good or bad) for them.
Regards
Debora
Well done Debora, you have done exactly what you had to do and I am sure that these people are now realizing how wrong they were to treat you like that and are really feeling bad about it. You never know, maybe one day they will come back to you and apologize, it will then be your choice to accept or not. But that’s not important as you have won by responding more intelligently than they have. You are the winner Debora!
I wish you the very best of health and happiness.
John
Hi John,
Very interesting insight and eye catching title! I agree with you that having feeling of revenge will have health consequences and it is better to deal with sorrow or disappointment with a healthy outlet. These are important yet simple tips to have a more positive and constructive attitude. Thanks for the great article!
Thanks very much for reading my latest article and for taking the time to share your wise views on the subject David.
I wish you the very best of health and happiness!
John