Letting Go
“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies”-Dr John F DeMartini
Think back to the last time you felt ignored, insulted, offended, ostracized, humiliated, criticized, denigrated, bullied, blamed, suffered a public put down, and the list goes on…(a Thesaurus is a handy thing!)
If you are a sharp wit and can think quickly on your feet, you might have a great come back. However, the rest of us tend to have our killer line and retort ready long after the event and when your tormentor is halfway into the next county. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
In our heads we have a replay button stuck on the same audio and video track, going through that event over and over again. With time, it is embellished with even more negativity and it starts to take on a life of its own.
“What to do” you ask yourself, still fuming. In the safety of your head, you plot or there is the other tack where you can say “You gotta turn the other cheek and forgive”.
I don’t know about you but I am not interested in long term penitentiary stays, nor am I a saint so the cheek turning business gets a bit tiresome after a while.
However, it is for your own sake to break the cycle, otherwise as Dr DeMartini has aptly put, “Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping someone else dies”.
I like practical solutions.
Therefore you need to put Plan A into action i.e., dissipate the physical anger (see my previous post on Anger Management 101); second, get your head to talk to your heart about this negative situation.
Ask yourself how much of it was because of your own interpretation of how the event unfolded. Remember you cannot feel insulted, embarrassed or small unless YOU ALLOW it. How to overcome this?
Work on improving your self esteem.
Write a letter addressed to that person about what you want to say (give yourself permission to let ‘er rip!) and then burn it. This is symbolic of severing the tie that binds you to that person because whether we like it or not, when we do not let go, we are still attached to that person (yuck!).
Make better use of the energy that God has given us, put it to better use like spending time with people we like or working on increasing the value of our businesses.
Yours in health, wealth and happiness
