Many of us will be familiar with the four stages of competence. It’s a really useful framework:

• Unconscious incompetence – we are unaware of room for improvement
• Conscious incompetence – we learn we have room for improvement
• Conscious competence – we are doing better with deliberate concentration
• Unconscious competence – we do better naturally without having to concentrate

These stages can be helpfully applied to the journey from resentment to acceptance.

• Unconscious resentment – we are angry, but not aware of it or the ways it is keeping us sick.
• Conscious resentment – our anger is still hindering our mental health, but at least we are aware of it
• Conscious acceptance – we make a conscious decision (or multiple decisions!) to let go of our anger and accept others as imperfect like us – we enjoy moments of relief from the effects that anger has on our mental health.
• Unconscious acceptance – seeing others as equal to us has become an embedded habit – a way of being that we do not have to labour at – more like brushing teeth than solving a complex problem.