5 steps to letting go of grudges

In this article, you will receive step-by-step instructions on how to forgive and let go of hurt feelings, as well as learn why you can rejoice in offences, why you are offended at all, and how to stop doing it once and for all.

What is resentment?

Resentment is an unjustified expectation. You expected one thing from a person, but he acted completely differently. Perhaps you did not know him well enough since you expected something different from him. Each person is unique, and we cannot predict how someone from our environment will act in a given situation. There is no need to speculate for others and expect something from them. We can only decide what to do and take responsibility for the decisions made by ourselves.

Why should you rejoice in grudges?

Resentment is your growth zone. If you are offended by someone's criticism, then most likely you really think of yourself that way. For example, you have been told that you are fat and that it would be good for you to lose weight. If you are offended by this, this means you think so of yourself or have doubt in your heart. And the abuser just let you see the spot where you are insecure, where you need to grow up.

And if you have a completely different opinion of yourself, are always sure of your beauty, or you simply do not care what your body looks like, then you will react with a laugh to such a statement. This will prevent the abuser from getting you hooked and his words will be flying past you.

If you are offended by something - note for yourself what exactly it was. This is your growth zone, the point where you need to learn to love yourself, grow, develop, improve yourself. So smile at your abuser and thank him sincerely. You can rejoice as he helped you see your growth zone and now you know where you need to change yourself for the better.

Thus, if a person offended you, then by doing so he showed you where you treat yourself badly. Start developing in areas where you tend to be offended. And over time, no one will be able to offend you.

How to forgive and let go of resentment - 5 steps

Let's move on to the forgiveness technique. The technique time is from fifteen minutes, but it all depends on the depth of your offense. You will need a pen, four sheets of paper, and several spare ones.

Take them and sit down somewhere quiet where no one will disturb you. From the experience of many people, we can say that if you don't do it now, you probably will never do it. Do not let resentment continue to take your strength and energy away, do not give it opportunity to influence your life any more. Free yourself from this heavy burden right now.

The main condition for this technique is to be fully involved in the process. Do not be lazy, feel and write down everything you need. This is your life, and its release from resentment is in your hands.

So, here are the 5 steps how to forgive and let go of resentment.

Step # 1: Blacklisting grudges

Well, have you already armed yourself with a pen and sheets of paper? If not, do it now. Why put off your happy life until tomorrow?

So let's get started. Take the first sheet of paper and write down the name of the person you are most offended by on the top in the middle. Below, write a list of all your grievances against this person. Write in as much detail as possible.

Probably, you will reveal offences that you did not even know about. Maybe you will make some kind of discovery. For example, you will finally understand why you have been carrying resentment all this time.

We do everything in this life with some benefit for ourselves. Sometimes this benefit is unconscious, or, in other words, secondary. This means that you, unknowingly, carry an offense with you through life, because subconsciously you yourself want it.

For example, in childhood, when you were offended, relatives immediately showed increased attention to you, friends felt sorry. And you remembered at the subconscious level that insult is accompanied by such pleasant bonuses. As you matured, you learned to cope with many things, but you still love to receive attention and care. And so sometimes you allow yourself to be offended.

Another example of secondary benefit is pleasant memories. Many people remember grievances from school years and during their life, mentally returning to their school offenders, communicate with them in their head.

For example, at school, Mary was offended by a classmate for not reciprocating her sympathy. Many years or even decades later, Mary is still mad at him and from time to time mentally returns to those episodes that aroused the emotion of resentment in her.

How does she benefit from this situation? She liked her classmate. She likes to think about him. Perhaps he is one of her sweetest school memories. Mary has many mixed feelings about her classmate, but resentment is the strongest of them.

And so it seems to her that she is only offended. But in reality, her sweet memories are charged with a huge number of other emotions that she likes to feel. And for their sake, she continues to play these memories in her head and prolong her resentment.

Think what is your secondary benefit to each grudge? Write these benefits down and come up with a different satisfaction method for each benefit. Write it down. And from now on, start to receive benefits in a new way you have invented.

Step # 2: Feel the resentment one last time

Take another piece of paper. Write a letter to your abuser on it. Let it begin like this: “Dear (name), I have a grudge against you for ... I hate you for ... it hurts me because ... I am offended at you for ... I feel rage, hatred for what ... "

In this letter, it is important to describe your feelings, sensations, emotions. And feel them as if it is happening now.

When writing it down, reproduce the offense in memory. Remember everything in the smallest detail: what day was then, what happened before that, how you felt at the moment when you were offended. How did you feel the next day? What exactly were you told, what specifically of these words or actions touched you? If another person did the same to you, would it offend you or not? Why was this particular person important to you?

Perhaps those memories and sensations that you have long forgotten will come up. Describe them too. Feel your resentment as deeply as you have never done before. After all, you say goodbye to it forever today.

Step # 3: Take responsibility

Third step and third sheet of paper. Resentment is your choice, which is often not realized. There is always a choice between stimulus and reaction - how to react. So between the insult and the offence to this insult there is a choice: to take offense or to pass by.

The problem is that, as a rule, you do not have time to realize this and are offended right away. The first time you choose your reaction to insult is in childhood. For example, a neighbor boy called you stupid and you were offended.

Since then, year after year, when this situation happened to you (you were insulted or criticized), you unknowingly chose to be offended again and again.

Have you ever noticed that some people are not offended when criticized? They deliberately chose this. Or they were lucky - their parents taught them not to be offended by criticism in early childhood. And you should start learning this now. It won't be easy and it won't work right away. But gradually, exerting efforts patiently over and over again, you will get what you want.

Whenever something unpleasant is said or done to you, take a mental pause. You have a choice of how you react. Make this choice. As long as you are offended, you go on about the offender. But this is your life, and it is up to you to decide whether to follow someone else's lead or live the way you want.

So, the third step and the third sheet of paper. Start it like this: “Dear (name)! I understand that I myself chose to be offended by you then. I bear full responsibility for the fact that I was offended, for the fact that I hated you ... ”Continue yourself.

Write in this letter to your abuser why you chose to be offended. What exactly touched you then. All this time, you transferred responsibility for the offense to another person. But now you are taking responsibility yourself. It’s not that someone offended you, but you were offended.

It is possible that your abuser had no idea what he was saying or doing wrong. But even if he did it on purpose, it only means that he achieved his goal. He hooked you. You are offended, and all this time you have been thinking about him and about his deed. You followed his lead.

There is a big difference between guilt and responsibility, and the key difference is that only by taking responsibility can you be able to forgive. Resentment is the position of the weak and the small. Responsibility is the position of the strong.

Step # 4: Forgive and let go

Start the fourth sheet like this: "Dear (name), I forgive you for that ...".

Write down everything you wanted to say but couldn't. Put all your love, all the warm and pleasant feelings that you have for this person in this letter. Imagine him sitting in front of you and talk to him mentally. Surely he will be glad to hear that you have finally forgiven him. He will accept your kind words and reciprocate. Imagine all of this as you write your letter of forgiveness.

Thank your abuser for giving you the opportunity to see your growth zones. Now you know where you need to grow and develop and what qualities to improve.

After completing the proposed technique, you should feel better. During the technique, you should feel the unity with the offender and the completion of what was not completed then, on the day when you were offended. The main condition is to re-live your resentment, all the emotions and feelings that fill you to the maximum in this technique. Do it sincerely and with all your heart. Only you can free yourself from this heavy burden.

If, by chance, you still come back to that unpleasant episode in the past with which you just worked, we recommend that you go through the fifth step.

Step # 5: Anchor exercise

You have completed the forgiveness technique presented in this article. But suddenly it happened that you again, perhaps out of habit, remembered your old insult. In this case, add another one to your memory.

After the offender says those unpleasant words to you (or does unpleasant actions), he comes close to you, looks into your eyes, takes your hands and says: “Please forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you. Do not feel angry with me. Let go of your insult.”

Every time you mentally return to that insult, add this new episode to your memory. Over time, a new episode will be fixed in your thoughts along with the insult, and they will only be remembered by you together. Rest assured that you will be able to forgive soon.

If you do all the proposed steps as expected without laziness, sincerely and with all your heart, you will be able to find the strength to forgive and let go of the insult.

Become fully involved in the process. Only in this way will you be able to free yourself from resentment and forgive from the bottom of your heart.

After you have forgiven your biggest offenders, start working on choosing how you respond to unpleasant words and actions. Remember, there is always a choice between stimulus and response. Before reading this article, you chose to be offended. Now start choosing other emotions or stay neutral.