Grudge

“A persistent feeling of ill will or resentment from a past insult or injury.” This is Webster’s definition of a ‘grudge’. My question is do you have a grudge toward someone or an event that happened in your recent or distant past? Be honest with yourself, is there a sticky residue that instantly comes to mind when you ask yourself this question? Next, my curiosity wants me to ask what is holding onto this story doing for you today, now, this very moment? I mean do you think back on it and laugh or feel warmth in your heart, does the image in your mind bring a smile to your face? Not likely. Grudges are no more than a file we have stored away in our mind that is full of all the ‘wrong doing and our opposing opinions about what unfolded.’ Every time we ‘revisit’ a past situation and replay it in our mind, we are brining to life those feelings and thoughts we experienced all those years ago. Isn’t it true, that you can think back to something someone said that really rubbed you the wrong way and feel the emotion come alive again in your body within seconds? Years later, many people are retelling the same story and once again they say ”oh that pissed me off so much.” Do we not hear ourselves repeating the same words about the same situation time and time again? Worse, is that this energy felt again over and over is causing huge detriment to our health.

I realize that letting go is a work in progress for many of us and for this reason I would like to share a couple of ways of viewing ‘letting go’ that have helped me to do so. One piece of information that has continued to blow me away since the day I heard it is that the past no longer exists nor does the future, yet for that matter. Everything unfolds and exists only in this moment right now, this inhale or exhale, period. Secondly, not only have I learned in both my yoga and bio energy training but many many books have been written about the impact of emotions and thoughts on the body. Holding onto negative, upsetting, thoughts or feelings that are not positive for prolonged periods of time WILL eventually create illness, pain and discomfort in the body. These thoughts and feelings become their own energetic entity, take up residence in our body and mind that often close our hearts and create ridged structures in our thinking, leave us feeling emotionally stuck. Your grudge is no more than a collection of thoughts that you have given your power away too.

I often hear people say “I’m done with so and so, they have done such and such one time too many.” And so they remove themselves from someones life and that is how they deal, in their mind, they are done, they have ‘moved on.’ The truth is, you are not done at all. As long as you have not reconciled within yourself with 100% honest compassion, open heart in the presence of full awareness, you have not let go and you are not done, you are walking around with a festering ball of energy inside you that you are giving permission to stay and guess what? it will stay, it will unpack and move in, not good, watch out! If that energy could speak it would say “oh I think I’ll grow some some lower back pain here and maybe some hip strain here, perhaps a tumour here. Could you decide to take a different approach? let those thoughts go and forgive or have a conversation if you feel that is needed and speak from your heart with no judgement towards the other and mean it and truly let go? of course you can. If you are not letting go, you are holding on and giving your power away. Choose to let go today of something that no longer serves you.