Are you holding a grudge? About?
The word “grudge” immediately brings to my mind savoring the perceived wrongs, intentional and unintentional, that have been done against me. There is even a sour flavor I can almost taste when I remember some of the grudges that shaped periods of my life. And shape my life they did!
There was a time in my life when if a person wronged me (imagined or real), I would recount in my mind and emotions that which had been done. I imagined doing so gave me power over the other. Every time I saw them in-person or in my mind, I could call up those feelings and thoughts to draw upon that “power.”
Only there was no power. As I recollect, there were very few people who had “wronged” me who seemed in any way effected by the “power of my grudge.” To the contrary there was only one person deeply scarred by the grudge: me.
Since then I have come to realize a couple of truths about holding grudges.
I do not hold grudges; grudges hold me. Grudges hold me in a no longer existent past and keep me hostage, unable to move forward in freedom. Grudges limit the way I can openly experience life as it comes to me because of the energy I am expending to “hold,” and be held by, the grudge. I get stuck.
Grudges hold me in a no longer existent past; they keep me a hostage, unable to move forward in freedom.
-me
There is a reason the Christian Bible cautions us not to “let the sun go down on [our] anger.” (Ephesians 4:26) The longer we grasp after the anger experienced before this moment, the more that same anger grasps after and steals this moment from us. It can be helpful to reflect on your day before heading off to sleep and practice letting go of anything that is still holding you. I am aware when I lay down if there is something unresolved plucking at my thoughts and feelings; I even say to myself, “I let go of [whatever is unresolved].”
Holding on to a grudge (or anything) requires energy. Energy I use to hold on is energy I do not have to use elsewhere. It is like putting a stone in a small stream; the stream has to flow around the stone, impeding its flow. Get enough stones in there and suddenly, it’s a dam! That dam has an impact on all my relationships, including the one I have with myself. Is holding a grudge worth all that?
There is no magic way to keep grudges from arising in life. People will intentionally and unintentionally do things that will feel wrong. I must be intentional in not letting those “wrongs” draw my focus from living fully here and now. If I do, I miss now and here by being “there and then.”
I want to live fully. Here and now is the only Reality that I can experience; what was and what will be exist only in my imagination, my held thoughts. Learning to let go of my grudges, to forgive myself and others, has been and is hard work. My life is fuller because of it.
Infinitely Precious 