Holding Grudges

By Amy Sherman

Resentments or grudges can be a major stumbling block to your happiness and personal growth and yet, so many people are holding on to these intrusive feelings and thoughts. When you develop a grudge, you are harming your physical health and emotional well-being because it becomes a poison that takes over your whole life. Forgiveness is a productive way to move forward, detach from the past and let go of lingering hurts so you can experience a healthier, more promising future.

What causes you to hold a grudge? Usually, it is the people closest to you that you resent because they have violated your trust through a lie, betrayal, deceit or abuse. However, resentment comes at a big cost to you.

When you can't let go of hurt and anger, it snowballs and grows. That feeling takes hold making it difficult to enjoy your present life or appreciate your good fortune. Resentments define who you are and how you act and they hurt only you. When you hold on to a grudge, it makes you bitter, which depletes you of your strength, reduces your ability to make good choices and compromises your overall mental and emotional health.

Here are some common behaviors that indicate you may be holding on to a grudge:

Passive-aggressive behavior: While often very subtle, this behavior is focused on getting back at the person you are angry at through indirect means. Holding back necessary information, tense silences, or saying there's nothing wrong when obviously you are really angry are typical indicators of passive aggressive manipulation.

Sarcastic remarks:These remarks indicate there is still strong emotion behind what you're thinking, even though you may be saying you're "just kidding."

Short, abrupt comments: Comments of this nature suggest your intolerance and annoyance. They usually are delivered with a certain intonation in your voice.

If you are besieged with intrusive thoughts and negative feelings and believe you are justified to feel this way, you are heading toward a lifetime of misery, anger and torment. These one-sided dialogues with yourself make it harder to move on or work on developing a forgiving, letting go attitude.

Ask yourself the following questions to get some insights into your own behavior:

To what extent will you do things to annoy him/her? How long are you willing to hold on to your resentment? What benefit do you get from keeping these negative feelings current?

Forgiveness starts by making a decision to forgive. That decision frees you to let go of the old hurts. You give yourself permission to release the negative emotions associated with that other person and choose to not let their past actions hurt you anymore. The healing choice is yours to make.

Unless you forgive others, your feelings of resentment, hurt and humiliation will continue being an active part of your life. Unless you forgive yourself, your feelings of guilt and shame will continue to entrap you!

Every experience in life - good or bad - can be a teaching lesson for you Consider your lesson in forgiveness as a vehicle for personal growth. This means getting in touch with what you learned from this experience so you never repeat the same harmful pattern again. With this understanding, all experiences become stepping stones for enhancing your growth -- rather than sources of pain and despair.

Martin Luther King once said, "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

About the author: Amy Sherman, LMHC is the author of Distress-Free Aging: A Boomer's Guide to Creating a Fulfilled and Purposeful Life.

From Holding Grudges Return to Home

More Self-improvement Articles