Write down your grudges
Part four of five ways to be emotionally woke
This week’s sneak peek of the advice shared in our book, talks about an effective way to deal with grudges instead of bottling it all up.
Most people would agree that holding onto grudges is a bad thing to do; it’s commonly seen as an undesirable habit or trait for a person to have. Dr. Frederic Luskin, a psychology professor from Stanford University, describes a grudge as a “really ineffective strategy for dealing with a life situation that you haven’t been able to master”. What’s less well known is the science showing that holding a grudge is bad for our health and wellbeing as well: recent studies have shown that persistent anger and despair — the feelings that grudges usually manifest as — put extra strain on our immune and cardiovascular systems, are associated with higher levels of inflammation and chronic illness in old age, and reduce our ability to see things from other people’s perspective (which in turn limits our chances of having healthy and fulfilling relationships).
So grudges are bad. Some people — like those who are less detail-oriented or who don’t analyse others’ behaviour as much — accumulate fewer grudges. But for most of us, letting go of them is easier said than done.
Writing grudges down is a great way to begin freeing yourself of them: it makes the associated negative emotions seem more manageable5 and gives you space to separate the reality of what happened from your projections onto it.
Once you’ve written your main grudges down, grade their severity according to some of these criteria on a scale from ‘very strong no’ up to ‘very strong yes’. Did the person in question know they were upsetting you? Did they cause you real harm? Should or could they have known better? Are they important to you, and are you important to them? Have you held the grudge for a long time?
Return to your grudge list a few days later. Read them over and ask if you can inject any humour or fun into them. Ask yourself: if I could rewrite this story changing only my behaviour, what would I change? Compare the two versions. Often the most frustrating part of our grudges is the wish that we’d acted or reacted differently.
Like with goal or resolution setting, acknowledging these things explicitly does wonders. It stops negative feelings from intensifying over time, helps define the values that are important to you (what would you never do?), and makes you feel like more of an active participant in the situation rather than a passive subject.
