A few years ago, a friend criticised me quite openly for what she thought was a failure on my part to follow through on a promise I’d made. She’d formed a number of assumptions about me before reaching that conclusion. In addition, she was quite forthright about them.
I was completely taken aback and felt misunderstood and badly judged. Considering the work I was doing on myself, I knew I should look at the situation differently. However, I found I didn’t want to. I held onto my grievance against her for several weeks. This was because I was angry and hurt, and I didn’t feel like letting it go.
I would have apologised if I’d known that I’d in any way disrespected her or done something to warrant her attack. I genuinely hadn’t. As far as I could tell, her fears had run away with her. She had convinced herself that I had done something to her.
Looking Inside
When I eventually got to the point where I decided I needed to look at what was going on inside me, three things became very clear to me.
The first was that I could put myself in her shoes. I didn’t agree with her at all. However, I could see the fear behind her reaction and why she’d jumped to that conclusion.
The second was that I could still love her, despite the behaviour.
The third was that while she was in fact a lovely person, the way she had treated me was not acceptable. Therefore, I pulled away from the relationship. We did remain in touch, just on a much more distant basis from that point on.
Your Feelings Can Inform You About Your Boundaries
What was most important was that I came to be at peace with it. A huge part of my fear in giving up the grievance was that I would then re-enter the relationship on the previous terms. In that case, I would be open again to another attack on my character.
My grievance had been very clear as to where the line had been crossed, and once I’d listened to it, I was able to respect myself by not going back to the friendship on the same terms. This happened without having to blame her or have her admit she was wrong.
When The Ego Takes Hold
There are times when we are well aware we are holding a grudge and have no intention of letting it go. Someone has offended us, slighted us or been thoughtless, and we want them to know what they’ve done. We may want an apology; we may want them to change their behaviour, or we may want them to acknowledge that our feelings count.
In that state of mind, the very idea that we might see the other person in a different light can come across as almost offensive. Why should we be trying to understand their pain when they appear so indifferent to our own? That’s a perfectly valid question, and I recognise the resistance behind it. There are times when we can see quite clearly that there is another way of looking at things and still we won’t take it. This can happen because letting go feels like letting the other person off the hook while we are still in pain.
While it’s perfectly legitimate to have that reaction and to take a moment to absorb what’s happened, it helps to realise that once we start clinging to the grievance, the ego has taken hold.
What Our Grievance Is Telling Us
The sense of grievance can be a very useful thing, as it’s often the first indication that one of our boundaries has been breached. It’s the signal that something has happened which is unacceptable to us and which we need to pay attention to rather than ignore.
What’s important is how we interpret the signal. The ego takes it as a signal to blame, to punish or to get even. Our Higher Self sees the same signal as a prompt to forgive the person and to restate our boundaries clearly, without the need to win. The grievance has done its job once it’s shown us where the line is. To hold on to it any longer than that rarely provides any further protection. Furthermore, it more often than not keeps the hurt alive while we’re waiting for someone else to change.
Loving the Person While Addressing Their Behaviour
For me, the invitation from our Higher Self is to keep loving the person and to find peace with their behaviour at the same time. That can be a bit like trying to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time. If we’re feeling loving, we may find it hard to challenge at all, and if we do challenge someone, we may find ourselves pulling the love back without quite realising we’re doing it. So we end up caught between overlooking the thing that’s really important and condemning the person.
What we’re learning is how to hold the two together. We can acknowledge someone’s worth, appreciate the difficulties they’re going through, and at the same time be quite honest about the behaviour that has hurt us. The person may have been acting out of fear, hurt, defensiveness or just plain thoughtlessness. That understanding can go a long way to softening our approach to them. The behaviour still has consequences, though, because understanding why someone did something is not the same as justifying it.
To be at peace with their behaviour doesn’t mean we approve of it. It simply means we accept that that’s the way they have behaved and we’re no longer in a state of constant internal conflict about it. Once we’ve stopped fighting it, we’re in a far better position to decide what we actually need to do next. That might be asking for a change, setting a boundary or just walking away. Love can remain part of that process, whichever we choose.
Being Honest About Our Resistance
Sometimes the most honest starting point is simply, “I don’t want to let this go. I want them to see how much they’ve hurt me.” We might go further and want them to feel guilty, want other people to take our side or want to be proved right. There may be a quiet condition there too: “I’ll look at you differently when you acknowledge what you’ve done.” That’s the sort of thing that makes our peace entirely dependent on a response we have no control over. Some people simply will never give that response.
None of this is particularly pleasant to be made aware of, but to turn it into yet another reason to criticise ourselves is of no benefit. It just confirms where we are in our struggle. We don’t have to be ready to let go of anything. On the other hand, we have to be willing to consider that there might be another way of looking at it. That is precisely why a tiny amount of willingness is so important, as it is often all it takes to begin the process of change.
This article reflects my personal experiences and the Living From Your Higher Self philosophy, and isn't intended as a substitute for professional psychological support. If reading it brings up painful past experiences or causes you significant distress, please seek help or consider working with a qualified therapist.
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