Ways to Stop Holding Grudges and Move On

Holding a grudge means when we hold on to bitterness, resentment, anger, and other negative feelings against someone who has done something wrong with us. Holding a grudge is completely normal for a human being but not being able to control it can be harmful.

• Holding grudges is a response to something that has already occurred.
• It may occur directly when someone does something actually wrong or the person feels someone has done wrong to them.
• Sometimes it lasts for a long time.

Possible reasons:

Being bullied, avoided, and cheated by loved ones, being cornered at the workplace, feeling of betrayed, and many more incidents with the potential to make us angry after a long time.

SIGNS

1) Being angry over something unrelated:

Holding a grudge makes us easily frustrated even on small matters. Sometimes we may appear arguing over anything and everything. Also getting upset very frequently and not being sure about where it is coming from could be a sign.

2) A tendency to avoid the person/incident behind the problem:

When we are holding grudges against someone, we may avoid the person knowingly or unknowingly. For example, If the person is closer to us, we may show how busy we are just to avoid them, or avoid phone calls, and messages to avoid conversation with them.

3) Always feeling negative about the person

Though a long time has passed since the incident, we get negative feelings whenever we think about the incident and the person responsible for it.

Negative Effects:

Holding negative feelings can affect us emotionally and physically.

Feelings like anger are associated with increased heart rate and higher blood pressure. Calmness and serenity can decrease heart rate reactions and blood pressure. Also for some people, it may be manifested as body pain. Holding rage can trigger aggressive and violent behaviors and can also lead to several mental health conditions like personality disorder, depression, Post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and many more.

On the other side, it makes us more pessimistic, we may face a hard time trusting someone and evaluate everything negatively. We may isolate ourselves from others to avoid new relationships, and conversations and open up ourselves once again, but a fear of being betrayed again haunts us. It also increases the risk of cognitive decline, which may increase overall stress.

Positive Effects:

Though holding a grudge is negative most of the time, practicing it in an enlightened way makes us more forgiving. Knowing the art of forgiving someone is an essential life skill. It can save friendships, keep romantic relationships intact, and restore faith. Through the process, we can learn how to value their personal boundaries, priorities and respect their own value system.

How To Move On?

Holding onto a grudge is normal so if someone feels they are alone in it, that’s not true. Moving on requires practice and effort which some people may find difficult. One who is finding a way out from the problem may practice following rules.

1. Getting in touch with your own emotions

Knowledge about our own emotions is very important along with why we exactly feel this way. If anger comes to the surface, we are more likely to hold grudges. Also, if we pay more attention to identifying exactly which incident triggers our reactions and how we feel about it we can solve the problem more easily.

2. Stop thinking over and over about past events

The more we try to forget something, we think about it. It can be difficult to stop ruminating about past events, but if one can break the cycle it will bring positive changes. Also trying to see from the perspective of the person who has wronged can be helpful to free up emotional overload and open up space for new thought and experience.

3. Being aware of the problem

Sometimes individuals with resentment do not have a clear idea why they are actually feeling this way. To solve the problem, acknowledgment is important. If we store up feelings of resentment against someone without acknowledging it, the problem may persist for a long time.

4. Transforming the negative experience into growth

Transforming past negative experiences into growth is very difficult. We can see some people around us use their negative experiences as their strengths and find opportunities to grow and survive in difficult situations. Also, people like them help others with their experience and don’t let them face the same consequences that they have faced once.

5. Foster acceptance and self-forgiveness

Before forgiving others, we should know how to forgive themselves first. Research from 2018 suggested, that one can regularly practice self-forgiveness may have better outcomes and avoid harmful outcomes regarding long-term hostility.

Practicing mindfulness can be helpful as it helps us to focus on the present and makes us aware of ourselves through which we can concentrate on our present life rather than past experiences. Engaging in self-care can increase self-acceptance, the more we spend time with ourselves the more we get to know about ourselves which can help us to find what is better for us.

Though there are various methods we can follow to move on, few people genuinely need help sometimes. People like them should seek help from mental health professionals. They can guide over the problem and also can apply therapies like CBT to help the client overcome their problems.