324. Why do we hold grudges?

Why do some things sit heavy in our chest for weeks, months, even years - while others seem to slide right off? In today’s episode, we’re unpacking the psychology of resentment, exploring why letting go can feel so hard, and what our grudges might actually be trying to tell us about ourselves. Grudges are often dismissed as petty or immature, but they’re rarely that simple. They’re emotional archives - stories we keep retelling in our minds, not just to stay angry, but to make sense of hurt, to assert boundaries, or to reclaim a sense of control. Whether it’s a betrayal from years ago or a passive-aggressive comment from last week, the feelings linger for a reason. We explore: • The psychological function of holding a grudge • How rumination and memory shape emotional pain • The role of power, justice, and unmet needs in long-term resentment • How resentment harms us more than them • Why forgiveness isn’t the same as forgetting • Tools for emotional processing and (maybe) letting go If you want to get curious about what your lingering anger is pointing to, this episode is for you. Listen to my NEW PODCAST, Mantra: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ckds0BoJDDpODInN9cWcc?si=b6ad5d555c1940e0 Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:10Jemma Sbeg?

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• 2:52Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello everybody and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:11Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our twenties. Before we begin, I just want to let you know that this episode is actually a collab episode with my other podcast, Mantra. So if you would like a more succinct, spiritually minded version of this episode to get you started before we dive into the psychology and the research, do check it out. I'll leave a link in the description. But as for our subject matter today, we are diving into a topic that I think

• 3:52Jemma Sbeg?

  everyone has experienced in some way or another, even if you don't always want to admit it, something that can kind of simmer in the background for days, for months, sometimes years. We are talking about grudges. I'll be honest, and I don't feel great admitting this, but I have held grudges for

• 4:16Jemma Sbeg?

  Like a decade for many, many years. Even after a person is long gone from my life, even after I am sure they have grown and they have matured as have I. This, there is this lingering feeling of anger and resentment that has stayed and that comes up from time to time. The thing is, I know for a fact I'm not alone. I know for a fact that none of us are innocent of this because holding grudges, well, it turns out, surprise, surprise, is a lot more universal and human than we think. And is linked to some very core human behaviours. So today, I really wanna ask the question, what are those core behaviours? Why do we hold grudges? What purpose do they serve?

• 4:58Jemma Sbeg?

  And more importantly, what do they actually secretly reveal about our emotional needs? Our relationships and the story of our life that we are almost telling ourselves. Because underneath this resentment, underneath this kind of bitterness, there's usually something deeper and quite soft um that we don't wanna, don't wanna acknowledge. You know, there is a boundary that was crossed, there is a part of you that felt unseen, there is a story that you haven't finished telling. And that's why the grudge stays, even when it doesn't really seem to serve a purpose anymore. This part of you that has felt hurt or injured just really isn't ready to let it go. Because they still don't feel like they have closure.

• 5:41Jemma Sbeg?

  And when we understand there's a lack of closure as a reason for our resentment and as a reason for holding on to grudges, um we understand them a lot better and in a more complex way that goes beyond just forgiveness or black and white thinking. You know, this person was the villain, this person was the victim, this person was good, this person was bad. Nothing ever is that simple when humans are involved. And this topic is included, grudges are included in that matter. So whether you are nursing a silent grudge or you're just trying to figure out how to stop feeling this kind of anger towards someone else, how to process the pain.

• 6:24Jemma Sbeg?

  If you're wondering, should I let go or maybe should I hold on a little bit longer? This episode is most certainly for you today. Let's unpack the psychology of grudges and why they seem to matter to us. Stay with us.

• 6:46Jemma Sbeg?

  So let's get something very, very clear. What is a grudge really and what is it not? What's different about a grudge compared to a fleeting moment of anger or sadness is the persistence of the feeling. It is this persistent feeling of resentment or malice that has resulted from a past insult, a past offence that actively lingers and does not go away. Psychologically, a grudge involves one core ingredient and that core ingredient is active rumination. That is that for something to be a grudge, we have to be repeatedly dwelling on the offence, repeatedly analysing it from every angle,

• 7:30Jemma Sbeg?

  re-experiencing the negative emotions associated with it for it to have the kind of hold that it does over us. It's not simply, "I haven't forgotten", it's, "I haven't forgotten and emotionally I'm still bothered by it and that's why it feels like it matters." A 2021 study conducted by researchers at York University in England, they theorised that the act of holding a grudge is actually a cyclical process that is characterised by negative emotions and intrusive thoughts that continue to kind of trigger each other and impact our quality of life. Participants in the study, they conveyed that whilst the intensity of the negative thoughts and the emotions

• 8:15Jemma Sbeg?

  may dwindle over time, the underlying negativity connected to that memory or event is always kind of in the background. It is always ready to be summoned like at any point. So whilst grudges don't necessarily have to be all-consuming every single day, there is a negativity there that is lying dormant and is very much ready to be reignited when it feels like it's going to serve a purpose. So there are a few compelling reasons why our mind might default to holding on rather than letting go. The first is that some people just unfortunately have a harder time releasing resentment.

• 8:59Jemma Sbeg?

  It's just in their personality. According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, individuals high in neuroticism, which is a personality trait that's very similar to anxiety, they are more likely to ruminate on negative experiences, making it harder for them to move on, or harder for them to reframe those events in a neutral light, meaning that they have a higher collection, higher prevalence of grudges. A similar study also found that people with an insecure attachment style are also more prone to grudges. And also individuals with ADHD, particularly people whose ADHD presents itself through a strong sense of justice

• 9:44Jemma Sbeg?

  and fairness, or who have rejection sensitivity disorder, RSD, alongside their ADHD. I was reading about this on Reddit, actually, the other day, and it's a Reddit page for women with ADHD. And there were literally hundreds of individuals talking about small slights from years ago or decades ago that they just couldn't let go of, that they really wanted to. And all of them said it got worse when the ADHD symptoms got worse as well. So it seemed kind of connected to a larger cluster of things that were going on. Now, this is still an area of emerging research,

• 10:28Jemma Sbeg?

  but it could be one part of the explanation for you if you feel like compared to friends, compared to relatives, grudges just sit heavier with you compared to them. On a more general level, I think the reason that humans in general seem hardwired towards remembering over forgetting is because our memory and our ability to recall specific events, it's not particularly honest or objective. It is highly selective. It is a strategically biased filter. We remember only what emotionally resonates with us. But we, of course, also only remember it from our perspective

• 11:07Jemma Sbeg?

  and through the lens with which we originally viewed or experiencing something happening. So there's no way to tell what the objective truth is. Your opinion is always going to be involved. We also tend to remember pain and negative experiences more vividly and more persistently than. Ones that are positive or ones that involve pleasure. So this is known in psychology, specifically in cognitive psychology, as a negativity bias. Almost all of us have this, pessimistic, optimistic, whatever you are. There is a part of you, from an evolutionary standpoint, that will always prefer to remember negative things over positive things.

• 11:49Jemma Sbeg?

  Think about it this way, it was much more important for you as an ancient human to know where the poisonous snake lived or to know where the predator lurked, rather than to know where the berries grew. Yes, the berries are nice and they're lovely, but the snake and the predator, they are the thing that is really gonna cost you. This was really crucial for our survival. Our ancestors, who quickly learned from negative encounters, were more likely to live another day. Of course, environmental information isn't the only thing that's important. Social information is also really valuable to us.

• 12:27Jemma Sbeg?

  So the dangers that may have been present back in ancient times are present in a new form. They're more present socially and through what we perceive as social threats. So if someone wrongs us, if someone does something that really hurts us, that feels not just painful but threatening. And so it gets tagged in our memory storage system as a high priority. Because it has been tagged that way, it is encoded with a greater emotional intensity. It triggers stronger psychological response and is therefore, in the future, more easily recalled. Especially when we encounter similar situations or we encounter similar people,

• 13:11Jemma Sbeg?

  or even when we just encounter internal triggers. Beyond just, you know, memory and the strangeness of our memory systems as humans, holding a grudge can feel like a vital act of self-protection. If someone hurt you deeply in the past, your mind might cling to that resentment as a really powerful psychological shield, but also as an emotional barrier that is designed to prevent future pain.

• 13:42Jemma Sbeg?

  It's often this very deceptive internal declaration that says, if I continue to be angry, it means that this isn't going to happen again. Because I will be on guard and I will know to be prepared for it. Clinging to the grudge kind of ensures that you don't forget the bitter lesson that you learned from the injustice and as a result, you continue to be hyper aware of future potential threats. So you you save yourself. You stop yourself from being naive. You stop yourself from trusting too easily. And therefore you stop yourself from experiencing pain. It's actually quite sad when you think about it, you know, one bad

• 14:23Jemma Sbeg?

  egg, one bad fruit, I think, what's the what's the saying, one bad, bad fruit spoils the whole bunch. One bad human who does something terrible might make you hypervigilant for the rest of your life. For some, I think it also again helps you reinforce a necessary boundary. The fact that the grudge is still there means that you'll never let this person back into your life because you have a constant reminder of how they made you feel. This can be a very genuinely adaptive behaviour in the case of harmful or abusive relationships where, you know, maintaining no contact is crucial for safety. However, the same mechanism can become maladaptive when it kind of keeps everyone out.

• 15:06Jemma Sbeg?

  When it stops you from letting there be new opportunities for genuine connection, for empathy, for positive healing experiences with people who aren't going to hurt you. While, you know, the intention is undeniably perhaps a good one and it is protective, I think the long term effect can be profoundly self isolating. You know, we do possess a very primal need for justice. The thing that really contributes to this is what we know as the just world hypothesis. Basically, beyond just wanting to protect ourselves, we all kind of want to believe deep down that the world is fundamentally fair. And that people generally, they get what they deserve.

• 15:51Jemma Sbeg?

  If they do bad things, bad things will come back to them. If they're good and kind, the world will be good and kind to them. When a profound or seemingly arbitrary injustice happens to us, when someone does something bad and they get away with it. It really shatters this comforting illusion and that is what causes us to feel even worse. And to perhaps question life in a way that's kind of, kind of distressing. You know, if someone does something bad to you and they get away with it, suddenly you're thinking, what's the point of me being good? If they get to be awful and still get a good life, why am I trying so hard to be good? Wouldn't it be easier to just not care about other people?

• 16:35Jemma Sbeg?

  Wouldn't it be easier to just not be good? Obviously, we don't all wanna think that way. So, holding a grudge can be kind of a subconscious antidote to that discomfort. Me holding a grudge, me not forgetting, that is their punishment. That means that karma has worked because there is this like lingering thought that I have about them that is sitting over their head. We feel like the world is fair again because somewhere in your brain, they haven't gotten away with it. So, in some ways, holding a grudge can be a very desperate, if ultimately futile, attempt to return the world to how you think it should operate. And how, you know, we want it to operate.

• 17:18Jemma Sbeg?

  It returns a very fragile sense of, of internal order. I think potentially the most deceptive reason and one of the final reasons we hold on to grudges comes from the fact that it provides a sense of control. And that's where all these explanations are kind of leading. When an injustice occurs and we feel utterly vulnerable, that's a very, very shaky feeling. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. Um, and it can make us really, again, ask some very big questions of the world. How could this happen? You know, how, how does, how does this person get to hurt me and get away with it?

• 18:02Jemma Sbeg?

  How was this allowed to occur? Do I really have any sense of control? You know, the answer is you probably don't. But if you cling to the resentment and you cling to the grudge, again, it reinforces that perhaps you can do something about it. It's also the same reason why we may replay over and over again, hypothetical confrontations or pretend arguments that you might have with this person. These illusions, these imaginations, provide once again, a powerful but illusory belief that we are still dictating this narrative. But here's the stark and kind of undeniable reality. We may feel like we're in control with a grudge.

• 18:46Jemma Sbeg?

  We may feel like it's protecting us. We may feel like it's justice. But in reality, a grudge is always going to harm us far more and far more consistently than it's going to harm the original target. It sucks, but the fact is, is that the true pain of resentment is not one that someone else can feel. It is one that we are going to feel the full force of ourselves. And so with that in mind, there has to be a healthier approach to this. Knowing all the reasons that we hold a grudge, despite all those reasons, there has to be something that we can do about it, surely. Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about. We're also going to talk about, again, how the resentment

• 19:31Jemma Sbeg?

  and the pain of a grudge does actually physically harm us and why that's something to be aware of when you find yourself stewing after this short break.

• 19:45Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been really trying to prioritize my health in a realistic way this year. And something that has kept me really motivated is my Whoop. I am such a data person, which is why I love Whoop, because I can genuinely see why my body feels differently depending on the day, why I'm running differently, why I'm maybe less focused. Whoop effortlessly tracks my sleep, it tracks my strain, my recovery, my stress, and most importantly, my overall health. And it just gives me all that data and all those patterns so I can make better decisions, which includes. Knowing when to go easy and knowing when to go hard. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join dot whoop dot com slash psychology for your free month of Whoop.

• 20:30Jemma Sbeg?

  This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is. Lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark dot com.

• 21:07Jemma Sbeg?

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• 23:34Jemma Sbeg?

  Okay, so the question that we have for this part of the show is how do grudges kind of linger in our bodies in invisible but still painful ways? I saw this interview with none other than Miley Cyrus the other day. Super random. You probably didn't think that her name was gonna show up in this episode, but here we are. Anyways, Miley Cyrus, she's doing this interview and she's talking about how she has all this rage and she had all this resentment and she had all these grudges towards people who had wronged her. And she didn't let herself get angry about it. She just let them stew. And after a while, she was noticing that there was all this pain showing up in her body. Pain that she didn't understand for years.

• 24:19Jemma Sbeg?

  And she realized that that pain was coming from the fact that she never let herself feel the full emotion behind her resentment. She wasn't able to let it go because she hadn't had that release. This is a great example of what a grudge can do. Now, obviously, a celebrity experience is one thing, but she is a real person and how she explained it really resonated with me because so many people feel this way but can't express it. She had the platform to be able to explain what she was experiencing and what she's experiencing. It's called somatization and it's a term that has been around for over a hundred years. And it describes how our body actually harbors feels and is pained by emotions we don't release.

• 25:02Jemma Sbeg?

  I a grudge, I back to what we're talking about today. There was a paper written about this a few decades back, actually in the late nineties. So a little bit dated now, but still relevant. And it talks about this exact, exact experience and all these instances where medical professionals will encounter someone who has chronic pain, who is suffering and they'll do all the blood work, they'll look at all the obvious biological signs of stress and of pain, and there aren't any, there is no reasonable explanation for it. But then this person goes to therapy, this person starts talking about their rage, starts talking about their resentment, starts talking about the pain of their past and their physical condition improves.

• 25:46Jemma Sbeg?

  And these cases of ways kind of shocked doctors because they're like, what are you talking about? Like surely you must be taking some kind of medication, surely you must be doing, you must be exercising differently, something else must be happening. But the thing is, is that they were looking at chronic pain as purely a physical thing, when at times it can be an emotional thing. When you hold on to a grudge, you constantly replay an offence and all that rage, all that anger, all that fear and frustration and sadness, it comes rushing back to your body. And so your body is going to respond as if you are in a perpetual ongoing state of threat. There is this very interesting idea that your body actually can't tell the difference between its imagination and what's happening in real time, or an idea or a vision that

• 26:31Jemma Sbeg?

  you concoct for it and a real offence. And so just thinking about a previous grudge or a previous thing that happened to you that hurt you. Is equally as triggering as that thing happening to you right now. Because this relentlessly activates your fight or flight system, a very ancient stress response. You start to really feel it in your body. I know when I think back to, you know, a time that I was hurt, I feel it like in the center of my chest. I feel like a balloon that it's getting so big in like my chest cavity that it, I can't burst it, but it won't go away. Like it's a tightness, it's every single one of us can describe this pain. If you think about someone who has harmed you in the past, you feel a sudden tightness in your jaw.

• 27:14Jemma Sbeg?

  You feel adrenaline, you feel this rising in your chest. Like there are physical reactions to things that we think only exist on an emotional plane. You know, the phrase, holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. This is where it is incredibly relevant. In essence, carrying a grudge is keeping your body in a state of stress that it's only meant to be in temporarily. And we continue to keep it in that state for years. You think that by holding the memory of this past offence, you're hurting someone else or you're making sure they're not getting away with it. But they actually don't know how you're feeling. Like you are not actually inflicting any kind of pain or suffering on them because they don't know.

• 27:58Jemma Sbeg?

  You're the only person who is suffering is you. It's experienced solely by you. And beyond these physical impacts, you know, grudges also act as invisible emotional shackles. Because they involve such a great deal of rumination, this anchors us to a painful past. And it actually affects our capacity to connect with new people. In one study published in twenty twenty one, research conducted very in-depth interviews with dozens of people about the grudges they held and who they felt had harmed them in the past. And they found that almost all of them had seen some lingering effect of this feeling on their current relationships, on their friendships, on their quality of life

• 28:41Jemma Sbeg?

  and on how much they chose or could trust other people. Many of them also spoke about being trapped by their grudge. This emotional stuckness is often caused by this lack of resolution. You know, if a grievance is never communicated, or if an apology is never delivered, or if it feels unsatisfactory, the wound remains wide open. As humans, we are such weird little creatures in that we hate stories that don't have an ending. We just. We can't deal with it. It's why it's a whole genre of like uncomfortable TV and uncomfortable movies is movies that don't have endings because it just feels so like weird to us, very naturally weird.

• 29:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Holding a grudge is a story that has not ended. That is why it feels so emotionally painful. Even if they have died, even if we haven't seen them in years, that doesn't matter because to us, the wound still feels like it happened yesterday. That's what means we are unable to move on. Often when we experience these emotional reactions of suddenly being angry 10 years later, suddenly feeling a sense of or a desire for revenge months after the fact, when we feel that, we can be like, oh my god, I'm so immature. Why can't I just like let this go? Like, what's wrong with me? Am I a bad person?

• 30:02Jemma Sbeg?

  That's not the right way to think about it. This is actually a very valid and natural human response. It is a signal that a boundary has been crossed, that an injustice has occurred. It's this thing though, that it's not your fault, but now it has become your responsibility. And how you deal with it from here on out actually has nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with you and how you want to continue living your life. Of course, this is absolutely easier said than done, especially if we haven't been taught how to do this, especially if there's unprocessed pain, especially if you think there is an ongoing threat.

• 30:43Jemma Sbeg?

  But we do have to learn how to shift this narrative from a grudge being about another person to being about ourselves. And we have to shift our ability to deal with a grudge from being like, this person needs to take responsibility, this person needs to feel pain to, I need to allow myself to feel peace. And I actually owe it to myself to move beyond this in spite of them.

• 31:12Jemma Sbeg?

  We can start by firstly, like we've spoken about before, letting ourselves be angry. Anger and rage have been painted as such impolite and dirty emotions, like they're a sign you can't emotionally regu- regulate. And they're a sign that, um, you know, you are just unbridled and you're gonna go off at any given point. Actually, letting yourself feel angry is a sign of emotional regulation. Letting yourself just be upset in a safe way is how you stop an emotion from making its home inside of you. And staying for decades. I think especially for women, I wish we would just let ourselves get fucking pissed every now and again.

• 31:57Jemma Sbeg?

  And not try and silence what that might mean and not try and silence ourselves because we think it makes us a bad or unhinged person. There are plenty of ways to express anger in a way that is very productive, very healthy and very safe. Firstly, you can just scream it out. I remember when I was at university, there was this creek. Um, behind some of the old dorm rooms, like at my college, on my campus and at night, like I have this distinct memory of me and my friends going down there. And I think one of, like some guy had just broken up with one of my friends and we, someone was dealing with some terrible man and some terrible teacher, whatever it was.

• 32:37Jemma Sbeg?

  And we just all like screamed, we just like screamed. I hope there was no one like walking around there who thought that we were distressed, but we were like, we just gotta let it out. And it was definitely like an angry scream, not a fearful scream. And it was euphoric. It felt amazing, like it felt like we were high. Boxing classes as well, such a good outlet, manual labour. If your neighbour needs some yard work done, that is your opportunity. Chopping wood, raking leaves, just like gives those feelings somewhere to go. Some therapists also recommend like full body shaking, where you just let your body go loose and you dance wildly. They say that's a very effective strategy, uh, belting out angry songs in your car, ripping up cardboard, smashing ice, rage rooms.

• 33:21Jemma Sbeg?

  You've got to find your outlet. You have to get over this hurdle of not letting yourself feel the emotion before you can start to consider more complex pursuits. Like forgiveness, like moving forward, like forgetting, because you can never forgive if the emotion isn't ready to be let go or hasn't been released.

• 33:40Jemma Sbeg?

  Let's talk about forgiveness now. I feel like I've been dancing around this topic because I know it's somewhat controversial. I said this in our episode over on mantra, but there is still no consensus within our society about whether it's better to hold on forever, forgive but not forget, forgive and forget. Like, no one really knows which camp is best. Personally, though, I've talked about this before. I think that forgiveness is a form of self-care. Even if it's not for everyone, for me, I see it as a way to address what is hurting me or what is hurting you without necessarily needing the other person to be involved. Not even needing to know that you have forgiven them.

• 34:26Jemma Sbeg?

  Psychologically, you know, forgiveness is a deliberate decision to release resentment, to release anger, to release the desire for retribution towards someone else for your own sake, not for their sake. Because you understand that the burden, I guess, for not forgiving is going to be greater. It's an internal shift from, I think, an emotional state that is dominated by punitive emotions, like anger and hatred and revenge, to one characterized by more positive or at least neutral emotions like peace, um, the acceptance of reality, and even in some cases, like compassion. Now, let's get very crystal clear

• 35:07Jemma Sbeg?

  that forgiveness is not condoning the offence. It is not excusing the person's actions. It's not erasing the memory of the discomfort that they caused. Um, there is a big difference between forgiveness and reconciliation, right? Forgiveness is internal, reconciliation is external. You can totally forgive someone without ever having to interact with them again. In the cases of abuse, repeated betrayal, ongoing harm, forgiveness is perhaps a possible act. Reconciliation will maybe never be a possible act. That's the real difference here. Because your primary responsibility is always going to be your own safety and

• 35:48Jemma Sbeg?

  your own wellbeing and establishing healthy boundaries. It doesn't mean that what happened was okay, and it absolutely doesn't mean that you have to be friends with this person. It just means that you are allowing yourself to be okay with the fact that it did happen, and you're releasing the burden of the grudge.

• 36:07Jemma Sbeg?

  Forgiveness also cannot be forced. If you're not ready, or if the act of trying to forgive actually causes more distress, it's okay to wait or to focus on other things or other coping strategies first. I think it's irresponsible for someone to approach someone else's pain by saying, there is a timeline for forgiveness and you are behind on that timeline, when that person hasn't experienced what you've been through. You may never forgive at all, and that's okay. But it is a gift to yourself if it's one that you feel you're capable of delivering. And I hope you realise that if the time is ever right for you,

• 36:48Jemma Sbeg?

  if you ever want to forgive the other person, they're not going to benefit from that. This isn't a gift for them. Like, again, it's a gift for you. There is this researcher, his name is Everett Worthington. He's a leading expert in forgiveness. And he really emphasises that the essence of this is about finding peace from the pain of the past, not forgetting that it didn't happen, or not pretending that it didn't happen. And research findings will at least tell you, it does improve how you're feeling, and it can lessen the emotional pain. For example, a 2023 study looking into the effectiveness of an intervention to promote forgiveness randomly assigned 4,500 participants

• 37:34Jemma Sbeg?

  to either engage in exercises of rewriting their own story from their perspective, or just to all out try and forgive someone else. And what they found was that the easiest way towards forgiveness is recognising the role that you did not play in this happening. And recognising that the story was written by someone else and rewriting it or rewriting the ending in a way that feels better for you. And research will constantly say, like, when we do it this way, when we focus on...

• 38:08Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't know whether there was a lesson in that, whether there was meaning for us when we focus on the fact that we had no responsibility in it. This is significantly linked to lower levels of anger, lower depressive symptoms, lower levels of anxiety, improvements to sleep, less stress, the sense of feeling light are all things that I think that we can advocate and that we want for ourselves. It also just frees up so much mental space to focus on, on other things. And it means that actually the other person hasn't won. They haven't won by being able to sit in your brain for longer than they deserve and to being able to make, you know, a home in your mind. You have won because they have done this terrible thing.

• 38:52Jemma Sbeg?

  You have accepted that you can never understand why they did that. And yet you have still chosen to choose peace. And that means you have won on a whole other dimension. At least, I guess that's kind of how I see it. So I think to give you a quick guide to how we actually do this, I think there will be good days, there will be bad days. First, the most foundational step isn't to force forgiveness, it's just to acknowledge that something happened and it's to acknowledge that it was unfair and that you do have anger towards it and just consciously kind of respect that, that anger needs somewhere to go and that is completely valid. Next, be honest with yourself.

• 39:37Jemma Sbeg?

  When no one is watching, when no one is around you, do you feel like this emotion is actually making you feel better or is it making you feel worse? Do you feel like the energy you're pouring into holding this grudge is worthwhile? Is it consuming you? Or is there a part of you that does maybe want to live without it? Maybe part of that is also recognizing what the grudge has robbed from you already. Recognizing this personal cost can also really help motivate you to find, find an approach that works.

• 40:09Jemma Sbeg?

  When we then start to ask ourselves, what does this grudge represent is where we really have those breakthroughs. You know, I've noticed that often a grudge isn't about the event itself, but it's about what it symbolizes. Someone rejects you, you hold a grudge against them, but it's not because they rejected you. It's because perhaps it touches on a deeper story you're telling yourself about your worth, whether you deserve love. Maybe someone betrays you and yes, that sucks, but the pain really comes from the fact that you couldn't see it coming. And maybe that means that you're not able to protect yourself and that you don't feel safe. Maybe someone bullied you as a child, um, and you couldn't let it go. It's not really about them. It's about the fact that maybe when you were younger, you didn't feel protected and you

• 40:53Jemma Sbeg?

  didn't feel like you could help yourself. You know, there's always something beneath the surface. What is the story that this grudge is keeping alive about who you are, who you are as a person, or who you have been? And here's a layer of forgiveness we often overlook, but this is where it's absolutely vital. We need to also, in some ways, forgive ourselves. When we hold grudges against others, we frequently, I think, also harbor a silent, corrosive grudge against ourselves. We might replay our own, I guess, role in the past hurt, even though we don't have a role. We might ask very agonizing questions like, oh, how did I let myself get treated like that? Why didn't I speak up? Why did I trust them? When in fact,

• 41:37Jemma Sbeg?

  like this self condemnation has no place here. Like, you were not weak, you were not foolish. This criticism towards yourself is getting you stuck, not just within the grudge, but it's getting you stuck in a place of self blame that is not helpful. Forgiveness towards someone else requires an act of kindness and understanding towards ourselves and recognizing that you did the best you could with the knowledge and the emotional resources that you had at the time. Finally, and this might sound controversial, I know I'm probably gonna get pushed back, but

• 42:13Jemma Sbeg?

  ask yourself, if the roles were reversed, if this was me, would I want forgiveness? Would I want someone to understand the reasons or decisions? Or just plain stupidity that drove someone to do this thing? If I had done this, would I want someone to forgive me? If the answer is yes, the easiest answer we can get, then I think that acknowledgement can make it easier for you to have compassion for that other person, but also compassion for yourself. If the answer is no, that's sometimes just as liberating because it reconfirms that you could never be like them, you could never stoop that low because you are moral and kind and responsible and good. And because you possess those traits and they don't,

• 42:59Jemma Sbeg?

  you have won. You are officially the better person, full stop. And so you forgiving them and choosing to move on, that's something that they are now indebted to you for. You're the bigger person, the braver person, you are the winner. And you know what? I get that that sounds kind of egotistical, but who cares? I think whatever it takes to release the emotional burden, you must do it. Grudges, yes, they cost us, they're also universal and there's something that we can't always control. There is some deep ancient psychology that wants to keep you trapped in a bad thought, in a bad memory, in a bad time. But you also have agency and you have power

• 43:42Jemma Sbeg?

  to rethink whether that is beneficial to you. Rethink, hey, is this actually helping me or harming me? And making that decision. You know, as much as I have given you advice and I have opinions, maybe you don't want to forgive someone. Maybe the anger fuels you, maybe it feels nice, maybe you aren't dealing with the consequences of this like other people are. And if that's the case, that's entirely okay. I think this is such an intimate and personal. Kind of conversation because it is going to differ for everyone. But if a grudge is costing you anything, I think it's important to reevaluate whether that's something you want to give up and whether you're willing to pay your dues to the grudge or it's time to let it go.

• 44:23Jemma Sbeg?

  So I hope this has been a nice introduction into how you can do that, into the psychology behind it. I feel you, I get you. There are grudges that I'm still trying to work through. I don't know, I was thinking about this the other day, like when I was like seven, there was like this group of girls who bullied me as a kid and I like saw one of them the other day and I was immediately angry and I was like, what the heck? Like that was two decades ago, this person has changed a lot, but grudges are irrational. So as much as I'm sitting here preaching, there is still stuff I need to work on. And so hopefully you understand that this advice is also coming from someone who was imperfect and is struggling with just as this, just as much as you are, but I hope we were able to kind of learn something together. You can also share this episode with someone else if you feel like it's something they

• 45:07Jemma Sbeg?

  may need to hear, share it to your Instagram. If you want to give someone a silent message that maybe you're not over something, just kidding, that's unhealthy, maybe don't do that. And make sure you leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening. It really does help the show to grow, to reach new people. Hopefully this episode will reach more people who need to hear it. Maybe not, maybe it just sticks with us, but if you have made it this far, leave a little emoji down below of what a grudge kind of represents to, what it feels like in your body, what it feels like in your mind, what's a visual way that you can kind of deliver that or show that feeling. I also want to thank Elizabeth Colbert, our researcher, for her assistance on this episode.

• 45:52Jemma Sbeg?

  And until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself and we will talk very, very soon.

• 46:09Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights that have made me more intentional

• 46:54Jemma Sbeg?

  and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise, whatever exercise that is.

• 47:38Jemma Sbeg?

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• 47:50Jemma Sbeg?

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• 48:35Jemma Sbeg?

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• 49:17Jemma Sbeg?

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• 50:17Jemma Sbeg?

  I've been approaching my health really differently this year. I used to be really focused on maximizing and doing more. And now I'm just realizing that if I listen to what my body needs, I perform way better. And that's why I am obsessed with my Whoop. Truly, you guys, you know, I'm such a data and information driven person. And I love opening my Whoop app and seeing how my sleep, my stress, my strain is correlating with my mood, with my running performance, with how I'm just feeling day to day. I'm not an elite athlete by any means, but I do really benefit. And I also just really enjoy knowing more about my body. And Whoop also gives me these actionable personalized insights

• 51:00Jemma Sbeg?

  that have made me more intentional and meant that I make smarter decisions day to day about what I need, rather than just putting my foot on the gas and just going, going, going, going. New members can try Whoop with a 30 day free trial before committing to a membership. That's join.whoop.com/psychology for your free month of Whoop. This episode is sponsored by Gymshark. Gymshark has spent over 14 years obsessing over gym clothing and the people who wear it. And let me just say, I think we all know they are very, very good at what they do. No, seriously, their stuff is so good. Their everyday seamless collection is light, it's soft, it's stretchy. All of their stuff just looks good on and it's made for people who love to exercise,

• 51:45Jemma Sbeg?

  whatever exercise that is, lifting, cardio, Pilates, running around campus, maybe just doing errands. Discover Gymshark and find your new favorite gym clothing at gymshark.com.

• 51:59Jemma Sbeg?

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• 52:31Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.