Carrying a Grudge? Resentment? Thirsting for Revenge?
It can crush the life out of you if you let it.
Would you love to discover that the playground bullies, the cliquey “mean girls,” and all the teachers that embarrassed you in front of the class have fallen flat on their faces? What about the cheating, lying, betraying lovers/spouses/partners? And the bosses and sabotaging coworkers that made your job a living hell?
Yeah, some people deserve getting all the misery thrown back at them, and we want to be around the see it happen. It’s human nature, right? All these people harmed us in some way, and sometimes, the wound was deep and never completely healed. Revenge seems sweet and, like a cow chewing its cud, we savor thoughts of it while we wait for life to take a pound of flesh.
The sobering truth is this: Hoarding our resentments and grudges, revisiting painful, toxic memories of those who wronged us, harmed us, hurt us can grind us down. The longer we hold on to the past, the less joy and satisfaction we experience in the present. We sacrifice our peace of mind with painful memories of being wronged and leave ourselves open to psychological and physical problems from stress-related conditions to deep depression.
“When we hold onto grudges and resentment, it’s like drinking poison and expecting…
