How to Hold a Grudge and Transform Resentment into Contentment

This week’s review is about a controversial topic; the possibility of going from resentment to contentment by holding onto all your grudges! This is the promise that Sophie Hannah makes with her book, How to Hold a Grudge. Does she make good on the promise? As usual, I will be looking at what’s good, what’s bad and some of what she mentions to do…

The Good

Magical thinking is well and truly slain in How to Hold a Grudge: From Resentment to Contentment – The Power of Grudges to Transform Your Life.  It is a call to live with our feet firmly planted on the ground and come to terms with what is really happening – in the actions of others and in ourselves.  The process involves very practical tips and steps for coming to terms with the reality of harsh situations and doing the right thing in response.

Its starting point is “the unchanging fact that people, intentionally and unintentionally, will regularly hurt, inconvenience and infuriate us throughout our lives, unless we go and live in a cabin in some remote woods, with no wifi and miles away from all other human beings”. We don’t want to sugarcoat things more than we have to and we want to ensure that there is some justice in our lives and in the world!  So, what do we do about it? We follow Sophie Hannah’s Grudge-fold Path.  This is finding the famous middle way between clinging to anger and bitterness to such an extent that they ruin our lives, or forgiving everybody straightaway, making light of what happened while repressing our understandable and justified hurt or rage (Denial! As the sharks say to Marlin in the movie Finding Nemo).

It is a very practical way of acknowledging and processing anger into the productive result it is intended for:  protection and restoration of our boundaries and those of others, as well as the healing of trauma.  It helps us to observe our anger rather than become our anger.  Although Sophie Hannah says she could never follow the Buddhist Eight-fold Path, what she puts forward is a mindful way of working with all emotions that arise in response to a grudge-worthy event.

Each chapter deals with philosophical ideas, practical steps, and pitfalls for dealing with different aspects of holding grudges.  Each chapter ends with a case study demonstrating how the process can be applied to a real-life example.  The cases become more extreme as we progress through the book.  Hannah also classifies, categorises and grades many kinds of treatment that we should not put up with.  She is clear that giving ourselves permission to care in a serious way about how we are treated will lead most of us to also automatically extend that care to others.  Thus, the personal becomes political.  In addition, there are guidelines for discerning what are invalid, bad and / or toxic grudges.  Obviously, the recommendation is to ditch those immediately, and consider getting therapy.  By the same token, she invites us all to see how we have provoked grudges in others and what to do about that.  For balance, we are also reminded to create a list of stories that acknowledge what we are grateful for.

Hannah is the first to acknowledge that holding and processing grudges is not for everyone.  She encourages avid grudge holders, along with those of us who have trouble doing so, to read all the way to the end, if only to be affirmed in the first case, or to understand avid grudge holders in the second.  I tend to fall into the second group and I have to say that this book has been an eye-opener for me that has changed my life.  I have come to appreciate how properly processed grudges offer:

• Protection by reminding us of a valuable life lesson we have learned
• A witness that the experience matters
• Motivation to act differently or prove a label wrong
• Acknowledgement that the grudge-sparking behaviour is not okay
• Symbolic justice through the trace left of the ill treatment suffered, making it possible to forgive and move on if we choose to

Anyone who has trouble with protecting their own boundaries, questions their personal worth, or questions their right to take up space on this planet will find that this book guides you towards a healthier regard for yourself and validates expecting the same from others.  You will also develop realistic expectations of others and yourself (since she deals with the grudges we can hold against ourselves too). Through these exercises you will articulate your own personal value system more clearly as well.

To cap it all off, this book is funny.  I laughed out loud on a number of occasions.  Don’t worry, though, you can read How To Hold A Grudge in public, unlike some books by a Swedish author and journalist that have me rolling on the floor from start to finish. 

As with anything, the depth and seriousness with which you take this on will determine how much you get out of it.  WARNING!  It has the potential to rock your world.  Grudges that you thought were mere trifles might turn out to be much more serious than initially assumed.  This happened to me!  The process also has the potential to alter your core beliefs.  By the end of it you will likely think and act differently.  This is the point.  Doing so could drastically change your life.  It might be more than you bargained for, though.

The Bad

I had to work to find things to write in this section.  This book earned a 4.8 star rating because Hannah covers all the bases for a good how-to book!

My grudge with Sophie Hannah is her tone.  There are moments when she comes across as a bit of a know-it-all. I wondered whether it was  just the voice in my head reading her this way, but it comes through when you listen to her on her podcast too.  Of course, there is a high chance that I find this annoying because her style mirrors something that I am learning to accept about myself, befriend and moderate.

The author refers to the difficult and intense emotions as negative.  I think we all understand what she means, but I have learned the importance of discerning the message that they have for us rather than giving them a valence.  The irony is that this whole book is precisely about accessing the message in the emotion!  It is a very practical way of learning to listen to what anger, shame, grief, sadness and hate have to teach us.

The only other real issue I have is Hannah’s time estimate for processing a grudge.  She says it will initially take you about 2 hours and with practice it will take a mere hour.  This has not been my experience.  It can take considerably longer depending on:

• how practiced and comfortable you are with writing, 
• how perfectionist you are, and 
• how intense the experience and lessons are.  

You may have to break down and cry, rant, go for a run, work in the garden, eat a slice of cake etc., to keep the process going. You may also discover you have to go for therapy.

The How to

Identify the right thing to do

Sophie Hannah describes her process of how to hold a grudge in detail.  After writing down the grudge, categorising it, and grading it, comes the part of extracting the lessons.  If you could rewrite the story, what of your actions would you change?  The focus is only on your actions because you can’t change what your grudgee did to you!  Then, you rewrite the story including your fictitious different actions along with the different results they would have reaped.

Now you place the two versions next to one another, read them and ask yourself:  Is the strength of your feeling around this raw grudge due to either:

1. frustration at being unable to change the past, or
2. anger at yourself for nor having done the obvious right thing(s) to do?

Identifying the Right Things To Do (RTTD) is the practice I want to tell you about here.  

You will have identified the right things to do that didn’t get done when you looked at what actions you would change.  Beating yourself up about these takes your attention and energy away from what the right thing to do is in the here and now.  We can’t change the past, and those right-things-to-do now no longer exist.  The first step is accepting this reality.

The next step is identifying the present moment right things to do (RTTDs) by looking at what you would have done differently and seeing if there is anything on the list that you can still do.  If there is something that you can still and should do now, do it!  Take any action that you could take to right a wrong in your grudge story, always with the aim of righting a wrong, not with the aim of taking revenge!  If you discover a correct and feasible action would remove your grudge, then perform it rather than holding the grudge!

The next present moment RTTD is to learn all the lessons offered by the story.  Which of those lessons can be implemented this moment?  Like for instance making sure your children know that stealing is something they must never, ever do.  Which of those lessons should be implemented the next time a similar situation arises?  Which of those lessons should be applied to your relationship with the person in question going forward?

I find thinking about the RTTD so powerful because it doesn’t only apply to processing a grudge-sparking incident.  Asking ourselves this question in the midst of a difficult situation could be the difference between sparking a grudge in someone else and resolving it.  I have heard people say that it is better to do the right thing than to be right!  

There is a third instant where identifying the RTTD and doing it applies.  This is when you know that someone holds a grudge against you.  Take the time to consider what you can or should say or do, assuming that you agree that you wrongfully caused someone else harm.  How might you set things right now, and would you be willing to try? Would you be willing to accept rejection?  Other people are under no obligation to accept your apology.

The rest of the process includes being grateful for what this experience has taught you by listing the benefits that have accrued to you.  Accept any residual bad feelings you may have towards your grudgee but don’t act on them!  Vent to yourself if needs be.  Eventually they will dissipate, especially as you start to reap the benefits of all you have learned.  If you are still plagued by the incident, Hannah recommends getting therapy.

Conclusion

The central tenet of this book is “Do No Harm”.  It is about seeing people as they are and letting them be them while not letting them walk all over you.  The Grudge-fold Path offers a structure or a container to work with our resentments.  Think of it as the alchemist’s crucible, the mortar and pestle that Baba Yaga flies about in, Noah’s Ark that rides above the flood, the tent that protects the pilgrim from the dust storm.  It is full of humour, compassion and grace towards the reader, as well as the people who commit grudge-worthy acts (i.e. all of us). I suspect that people who are already holding good grudges don’t need this book.  If you are like me, however, who falls into the category of those who tend not to hold grudges, you might find this book changes your life – for the better.