What is grudge, and how to fight it

Resentment is a very human emotion and, at the same time, harmful. It is a feeling of hostility towards someone who has done us, in our opinion, an injustice, worth the redundancy.

This emotion is not only chronicled in the form of hatred towards the person who hurt us, but also It brings us discomfort, a pain that we accept to affect us, despite the fact that we can look for it. solution.

We are going to see what resentment is, how bad it causes us and how we can stop feeling it, in a healthy and socially appropriate way.

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What is grudge? General characteristics

Resentment is, without a doubt, a negative emotion. Taking its most literal and academic definition, it is about the feeling of hostility, or great resentment, towards someone who has done us some kind of offense or harm. That is, it appears when we feel that someone has misbehaved with us.

Each one takes things in their own way. Where some hear an innocent comment, others see a terrible offense, generating a lot of anger. We feel hurt by anything and, instead of talking about things or managing what we interpret as injustice, we feel a deep hatred for the person who has caused us such misery.

This emotion can be so strong and so bad that, sometimes, it can unbalance us, making us sick both physically and mentally.. Blinding ourselves with an injustice transforms our mind into a prison and, at the same time, transforms us into executioners. Accumulated resentment leads us to behave very contrary to how we are, wanting to take revenge, losing control. Of course, it can make us worse people.

Resentment, as natural as it is harmful

It is normal that, when we feel that someone has treated us unfairly, we feel negative emotions, being the grudge between them. The problem is that it can take control of our lives, radically changing our way of being.

As we suggested, everyone is unique and takes things in many different ways. This is why, on more than one occasion, something will happen to us that will make us awaken this emotion. However, Since there are many times that resentment can come and it is almost never beneficial, it is necessary to learn to manage it..

It is necessary to learn that everything changes, that there are times that good things will happen to us and others that bad things will happen to us. Life is a constant flow in which we will not always be in a cloud. If we take refuge in resentment, instead of looking for solutions to the damage that has been done to us, we are fanning the flames of bitterness, hate, tension, bad feelings, feelings that do not make us advance.

Resentment, something so humanly natural is, at the same time, very harmful, a dangerous weapon that unbalances our body and mind. It prevents us from enjoying life. It makes offenses, whether verbal or of any kind, become almost chronic in our minds.. A comment that hurt us, some words that the wind has already carried away, are repeated over and over again on the walls of our minds, like an echo in a cave...

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What is it for?

Continuing to hate or repeatedly thinking about something that no longer exists is pointless. As we have already said, the words that the wind has taken away are no longer there. Thinking over and over again about the damage that was done to us, but not learning to manage the damage that we feel, that we inflict on ourselves with toxic thoughts, is the real problem. You have to let go, in a healthy and not harmful way, that pain.

We cannot go around the world wishing evil on others. It sounds obvious, a classic lesson from school, family or church. From a very young age they tell us that we will not harm others, but when someone does it to us, we take refuge in the excuse of “it was they who started it”, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”.

But, as Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye and the world will end blind." We cannot hurt those who supposedly hurt us, because hate is not expelled by hurting. It goes more and more, being able to materialize in a spiral of physical and verbal violence that is not at all desirable. You have to turn off the hatred with good intentions and speak it.

So what good is spite? Really, little. It is an obstacle that intrudes when trying to restore a relationship. It is what we interpret as an offense that, with the passage of time and despite the fact that it was extinct, we have kept it cryogenized in our minds. It is a problem, not a solution, in our social relationships. To the extent that there is a grudge, the relationship will not be able to return to the way it was.

How to stop feeling grudges

As we have already commented, resentment, although an emotion undoubtedly natural in every human being, is not beneficial to us. That is why there are not a few people who, despite being trapped in a fervent hatred, try to make the effort to flee from the terrible clutches of this emotion. Resentment hurts us, it destroys us physically and mentally. For this reason, a solution must be found.

The first step is to correctly identify this feeling. It is not the same to be angry because of a small quarrel with someone, an emotion that will eventually fade, than to feel the need to take revenge for what they have done to us. If our imagination does not stop imagining terrible consequences for him and his actions, it is clear that we feel resentment.

Once the emotion is identified, it is necessary to resort to a powerful tool, more powerful than any revenge that we can conceive: communication. Talking and expressing to that person why he has upset us is a good attempt to get the relationship back on track. Forgiveness is a prosocial act, which helps stabilize our interactions with others.

However, if it is not possible for us to talk to the person because either he does not want to or cannot, we can try to vent, in a healthy way, with another person. Explaining to him what has happened to us may awaken his empathy, something that, without a doubt, will make us feel supported.

An extremely vital way to face life is accept what has happened, as long as it is not something terribly serious. Sometimes pain prevents us from accepting things that are already part of the past and that, as we have said before, it makes no sense to dwell on it. That person did something bad to us, that's it. Expired water.

However, accepting is not synonymous with forgiving. In addition to accepting what happened to us, we must make decisions and actions to improve the situation. As we have already said, communication is essential, especially when it is used to fix the situation and vent in a healthy way.

However, if there is no way to fix the damage that has been caused to us, either because they do not want to or because they are not aware of their actions, trying to separate ourselves from that person can be a drastic but necessary measure. In some cases, it is better to be alone than in bad company.

Bibliographic references:

• Kancyper, L. (2003). The memory of rancor and the memory of pain. Intercambios, papeles de psicoanálisis/Intercanvis, papers de psicoanàlisi, (10), 84-94.
• Murphy, J. g. (1982). Forgiveness and resentment. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 7(1), 503-516.