Why We Hold Grudges and How To Let Them Go

I’m sure that each and every one of us have felt slighted or wronged by someone during the course of our lives. This could have been a family member, a friend, a coworker or even a stranger that you just cross paths within that exact moment. This person may have said something or done something that genuinely hurt your feelings or that you felt was disrespectful. And as a result, you started to harbor feelings of anger, frustration, or aggravation towards this particular person. These feelings, if left unattended, can produce deep-seated resentments, which usually transform into this act of holding a grudge. When we hold onto grudges and resentment, it’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. It causes us to carry negative, tense energy in our biology. The problem with grudges, besides the fact that they are a drag to carry around (like a bag of sedimentized toxic waste that keeps us stuck in anger) is that they don’t serve the purpose that they are there to serve. They don’t make us feel better or heal our hurt. At the end of the day, we end up as proud owners of our grudges but still without the experience of comfort that we ultimately crave, that we have craved since the original wounding. To let go of a grudge we need to move the focus off of the one who “wronged” us, off of the story of our suffering, and into the felt experience of what we actually lived.