Holding onto grudges, anger, resentment, and unforgiveness doesn’t hurt anyone other than yourself.

It’s possible that someone truly devastated you, abused, you, broke your heart, abandoned you, or worse.

Whether they’ve apologized to you or not, YOU are the one who is still being damaged by their actions – as long as you hold onto a grudge against them.

This sentiment applies when it comes to holding a grudge against yourself as well.

Here are a few tips about releasing difficult grudges you might be holding onto on Shadow Work Sunday.

How to go about releasing grudges

One of the first steps to take when releasing grudges is to understand the science of why it’s so unhealthy to continue holding onto them.

When you refuse to forgive someone else for hurting you, you end up living a life full of anger and bitterness.

Anger and bitterness lead to irritability, anxiety, and depression. In the worst cases, these toxic and negative emotions will manifest into physical diseases of the body.

Before allowing the pain someone else caused you to manifest into a physical disease, it’s best to release the grudge in the first place.

The second step would be practicing empathy. It might feel impossible to put yourself in the other person’s shoes to understand how they could’ve done something so diabolical to you.

Ask internal questions about their circumstances to try and better understand how they ended up so f***ed up.

You don’t have to resonate with someone to have empathy for them.

Remember that hurt people hurt people. If the person who harmed you was capable of doing something so wrong, there’s a high probability they live a life full of excruciating mental anguish.

Even if they don’t publicize the sadness they endure most of the time, there’s a chance they aren’t living life full of rainbows and butterflies.

Thirdly… remember that forgiveness requires consistency. You might decide you’re ready to release a grudge on Monday, but by Tuesday, your negative feelings have started brewing inside your spirit all over again.

With each new day, you’ll have to repeatedly forgive the person who hurt you.

This process won’t feel good at first, but eventually, if you stay on the path of consistent forgiveness, the pain they caused you will start taking up less space in your mind.