A grudge is anger that is held onto, after the situation which created it has passed by or changed. We all hold grudges in life to greater or lesser degrees. Learn to recognize them, for until you realize you are carrying a grudge you'll not be able to get over it.

If you were to park your car and block my driveway, I would have a right to be irritated with you. If you wouldn't acknowledge your mistake when I brought it to your attention, I'd have the right to be more cheesed off with you. And if you continued to refuse to move your car, I'd have the right to be angry with you, and also the right to have the police ticket your car or tow it away. But, if one week or several weeks after you parked your car in my driveway, I refuse to say hello to you, or keep hassling you about your mistake, I am carrying a grudge.

Grudges come in many sizes. Many of us carry little grudges around for a long time. We may never tell the other person about our feelings. But, those feelings take their toll out of us. We feel on edge around that person. Instead of being relaxed and enjoying their presence, we're irritated and uncomfortable. Since others pick up our nonverbal cues, they may pull away from us, making us even more upset with them. No matter how small grudges are, they seldom go away on their own. They hang in like a low-grade infection, taking away our enjoyment from being with others. The longer small size grudges are held, the larger they tend to become. What started the grudge can't change, but a person's memory of what happened does.

Large grudges often deal with major conflicts which one person, often the one who feels they lost out in it, won't allow them die in their mind. Some large grudges focus on the family. Small grudges are usually over small incidents, but large grudges tend to focus on family characteristics or major events. At times, grudges are shared by several members of a family, allowing them to collectively scapegoat someone else as being responsible for family problems.

Grudges don't help a situation. They make it worse. Grudges don't help you feel good about others. In the long run, grudges don't help you to feel good about yourself. Getting rid of a grudge takes effort. The longer you carry a grudge, the more the grudge becomes part of you, and the harder it is to shake off.

To get rid of grudges you hold against others, try the following:

  1. Admit to yourself (and the person involved if appropriate) that the feelings you are dealing with go back a great deal.
  2. Ask yourself what benefits you get from keeping the grudge.
  3. Ask what will happen if you choose to let go of the grudge.
  4. Decide if you need to:

a) Tell the other person that you forgive them for an error they might have committed in the past.

b) Forgive yourself for carrying the grudge around for so long.

 For when you get over a grudge, you also get yourself from under it.

Peter Griffiths Daily Herald Daily Herald August 11, 1990