How To Let Go Of Grudges – 15 Ideas to Return To Peace

Did someone cause you pain? Or make you mad?  Are you still holding a grudge?  Looking for a way to forgive them? Learn how you can forget the past and forgive someone for the bad they have done in the past? Read this article if you have any grudges and feeling bad for someone for a long time. In this article, we have discussed how to let of grudges and bring inner peace to your life.

There is a saying, “People who undertake revenge should dig two graves.”  While a grudge is a far cry from holding a grudge, they are on the same path. When you hold a grudge for years it likely hurts you more than the person you are holding a grudge against.

This is not to say you need to become besties with someone who hurt you, but you should stop holding a grudge, because there is little point in this. You likely only hurt yourself. In this post we cover 15 methods to help you to learn how to let go of grudges

15 Effective Steps To Let Go Of Grudges

Here are the 15 most powerful steps which you can follow to let go of any grudge in your life. Read them step by step if you want to free yourself of the pain, hurt and anger that holding a grudge brings to your life.

The first step in how to let go of grudges is to rewind the clock and go back to the point where it all has started. Imagine the situation that happened and try to perceive the situation with a different energy.

Acknowledge the issue; when you see what was the issue that caused you pain, then you can be able to solve it. Accept the pain and hurt it caused. Accept it and that this happened in the past. By this acknowledgement you can begin to move on.

Bad feelings fester when they are ignored. If you want to let go of a grudge, it helps to share your negative emotions with a family member or close friend. By sharing your feelings you can begin to feel better.

If you are getting irritated or uncomfortable, share your feelings about it on-the-spot with someone you trust and ask for their feedback. This is not only cathartic but the feedback (covered in next section) can help you to put your issue with the other person into perspective.

If you have shared your feelings with someone you trust, as discussed above, pay attention to their feedback. Listen to them what they are telling you and pick the healthy words that can help you in this forgiving process.

The person you talk to can be your friend, parents or anyone you trust that can see things from a perspective which you can’t and is willing to be honest enough to tell you if you are wrong or making something out of nothing.

4. See Things From Their Perspective

When you are angry,  hurt and holding a grudge it might be very difficult to try and see WHY the person who hurt you did what they did. You are hurt and that is all that matters at first.

But given some time and the feedback spoken about above, you might realize that there were reasons someone hurt you. It may have been unintentional. They may have been reacting to a previous hurt or it may simply be they are a bad person. But you need to at  least try to see if there might be justifiable reasons that they did what they did to you.

Only after you have exhausted trying to see from their perspective should you move on to the next step.

5. Share Your Feelings With the Person You Hold a Grudge Against

Once you have the feedback of someone you trust and have tried your best to understand the person who hurt you it is time to confront the other person. Now I said, “confront” but this interaction should not be too confrontational.  You should stay calm, use empathic listening to try to really understand what they are telling you.

If the previous steps don’t seem to work for you, possibly due to the fact that the person who hurt you really is not a sympathetic person or you are just bad at sharing, or don’t know how to put your feelings on the piece of paper. then you can start healing through meditation.

Meditation can be helpful to find the peace to let go of grudges. You can have mental peace by sitting in silence, listening to your own breath, and let go of the bad energy. The main purpose is to get rid of negative thoughts.

To heal yourself, you have to get an understanding of the other person’s feelings. Try to put yourself in their shoes which will give you a better view of their situation, maybe the person who has hurt you was in self is in a lot of pain that caused him to behave as he did.

Doing this will not turn your pain into blooming flowers, but it will give you another perspective to understand the whole issue. The more you understand the situation, the more will be the chances to let go of the grudge.

It’s the holder of the grudge that will always suffer more. You may start hating that person or creates a negative image for him, but that will cause you pain.

The longer you hold the grudge, the more difficult it is to forgive and move forward. It’s not about the weight of the grudge that hurts; it’s about time you hold that grudge.

Once I have read somewhere “Suppose if you are holding a glass of water half-filled with water. Holding it for a minute won’t make a difference, holding it for an hour won’t be painful, but holding it for a day can make you feel lose the sense of your arm”.

We can summarize it in one line as “The Longer You Hold, The Heavier It Becomes.”

Once you understand their situation, don’t wait for them to say sorry. Don’t depend on their apology message or letter to start healing yourself. Not saying sorry doesn’t make them right.

The important thing for you should know that you are not wrong. Acknowledgement from their side is not and should not be essential for you.

Some people don’t know how to apologize. They are unaware of the fact that the person they have caused pain needs to hear one or not.

Saying sorry can’t be condoning, realizing it should be enough for you to move on in your life and be positive.

The next important practice is you should not discuss it anywhere to collect sympathy. Try not to talk about it.

If someone starts discussing the issue. Change the conversation by saying “I am not liking it” or “I don’t feel comfortable talking about it”.

The more you discuss, the more you will think about it, and the more it will be challenging for you to let it go. You don’t have to put and waste your energy on the thing you have decided to leave as there is a saying “Let bygones be bygones”.

Observe nature and be positive. Taking time to have a positive attitude can be essential when you are feeling negative vibes.

As there is a saying “There are always two sides of a coin”. You can either learn a lesson from a bad happening or you can stick there thinking “Why Me?”.

When you act positively you choose to learn a valuable and life lesson from it and leave it behind. There will be no use over disliking that person so you can have peace inside.

Don’t hold onto bad thoughts, holding such thoughts will make you ill mentally.

You can understand this step by below a simple example. Collecting garbage will only produce the smell and entertain bees. People will avoid passing from those places. Likewise saving negative thoughts will repel positive thinking.

One more thing, holding a grudge takes a lot of energy from you why wasting that powerful energy instead when you can invest that somewhere worthy.

12. Understand the Negative Effects of Holding a Grudge

You may wonder why trying to get rid of grudges is worth the effort. Because there is effort involved with getting rid of these negative feelings. To help you learn how to stop holding a grudge it is important to understand the negative aspects that holding a grudge can cause to your psyche.

Here are some of the negative effects of holding a grudge

1. You can easily get angry
2. You will bring bitterness to every new experience of life
3. You will be so surrounded by negative thoughts. You won’t be able to see the positive side of things.
4. Grudges bring depression and sadness.
5. You will try to find anger and sadness even in happy times.
6. You lose people you care about in life.
7. You won’t be able to find your purpose of life

Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. Forgiving means to admit that no one is perfect; we all lack somewhere. To forgive someone is to admit the fact we are human, and we do make mistakes, so it’s okay to let go of the thing that hurt you.

Forgiving is not an easy way to do but the best and only thing that can bring peace. You can say that you can buy peace at the cost of forgiving and here are some of the benefits of forgiving:

Once you learned how to let go of grudges, you have to find yourself. Be aware of your capabilities. You will see yourself that you will find the beautiful person within.

When you finally find a better version of yourself, you will start accepting things with optimistic thinking. Your power to understand will get stronger and stronger and you will grow as a person.

15. Don’t Dwell On Your Grudge

Once you decide to let go of your grudge and take some of the steps for catharsis, it is essential to let it go.

Once you decide to let go of your grudge, make sure you keep going and don’t look back. Don’t put too much thought into the situation or continue to discuss it with others. Dwelling grudge will only make it harder for you to let go. If the issue is ever brought up again in conversation, just change the subject quickly and leave it in the past.

We can sum up the whole route towards forgiveness here, starting from owning the issue, to understanding the other person.

Once you know where it all has started, share your feelings with someone you are comfortable with. If you are not good at sharing, you can also share your emotions by writing somewhere or through meditation.

The next step is to try to understand them, try to understand what they have been into and why they have hurt you. Don’t wait for them to say sorry once you understand them. You don’t have to discuss it with everyone. Be positive and try to pull yourself out of that grudge.

Forgive, find yourself, and tell others to let go of the grudges and begin to make a better version of yourself.

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