Grudges are complicated things. They occur when someone causes us pain and they can be incredibly difficult to release. Perhaps you don’t want to let go of a grudge because you feel that by ‘forgiving and forgetting’ you’re in some way condoning what was done to you? Or maybe, you’d give anything to be able to let it go but you just can’t. There is one thing we can all agree on – holding a grudge doesn’t feel good. But what can we do? We spoke to Psychotherapist Bernadette Mooney to find out.

So why is holding on to a grudge harmful to us? Bernadette explains that reliving or mulling on a grudge causes our flight-or-fight response to activate, which in turn delivers an excess amount of adrenaline into our bodies.

“It’s harmful to your health because all that adrenaline is coursing through your body and it’s not going anywhere. It needs to be managed or turned off, so you could go for a walk, you could punch a pillow or there is an exercise called seven-11 breathing,” says Bernadette.

“You breathe in to your nose for seven seconds and then out for 11 seconds approximately. The idea is you use all the capacity of your lungs. You do that three times – we don’t want you to hyperventilate. What that does is it turns off that adrenaline so that the limbic part of your brain suddenly says, ‘Oh look, we’re not under attack.’ It keeps your body under control. You see, you don’t control anyone else. You control yourself and that’s enough. That’s a wonderful starting point.”

If you’re currently holding a grudge, learning to release it is essential for your own wellbeing and mental health. Bernie says that it all comes down to a question of energy because the more we think about, talk about and dwell on our grudge, the more energy it zaps from us and the more of a negative impact it has on our wellbeing. However, it’s important to understand that letting a grudge go is not about turning the other cheek.

“It’s not about turning the other cheek because that’s impossible, it’s too much to ask. It’s not about leaving yourself open to any kind of insult. There needs to be a lot of self-valuing,” says Bernadette.

“Even if you can’t let it go, just to be a little bit willing to let it go is the first step and it’s okay to protect yourself, not just turning the other cheek. It’s very important. There is this old religious thing of, ‘Oh you have to put up with it.’ Actually you don’t. Why would you? That wouldn’t be self-valuing.”

The benefits of choosing to release a grudge are numerous but the most important is the immediate relief you’re likely to feel.

“The payback is peace of mind and there is a question. If you bring to mind somebody who bothers you, someone who triggers you, if I was to ask you: who are you without that thought?” says Bernadette.

By focusing on who you are without the negative thoughts caused by the grudge, you can actively begin to focus on becoming that person and, by default, starting the process of healing and forgiveness.

There is the misconception that by forgiving someone, you’re condoning what they may have done to you and Bernadette is quick to stress that choosing to forgive does not mean that what someone did to you is acceptable.

“That would be de-valuing yourself… There’s no way you’d condone it. That’s very important that nobody is expected to do that because it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be honouring yourself,” says Bernadette.

A helpful way to view forgiveness is that it is a selfish act and that it’s something that you do for yourself, not for another person. However it’s important to realise that forgiveness is an active process. It’s a choice you make over and over again. This act of choice coupled with a deep self-compassion is what eventually helps us to let things go. It’s so essential to be kind to yourself as you work on forgiveness but if you’re struggling and you feel as though you’re not ready to do the work just yet, that’s okay too.

“If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. Be gentle. That’s where you really need the self-compassion. It’s not about compassion for them. It’s about compassion for you, because how hard is that for you, that you can’t let go?” says Bernadette.

And what should you do if you find yourself completely stuck or if you’re determined to work through your grudge? The answer is to speak to someone about how you feel.

“Very often it’s to lighten the load. Very often a good friend can do it, but a friend might add to the drama, it might be, ‘How dare they treat you like that!’. They won’t get that with me, it’s, ‘Well how does that make you feel?’” says Bernadette.

“You can reach out and sometimes it just takes time. But bring compassion to the part of you that can’t forgive.”

And if you find yourself feeling the need to forgive yourself, Bernadette has the following tip:

“Be compassionate to yourself and if there is a feeling of guilt, reframe the guilt as regret because we all have regrets in life. If we’ve done something on someone we can always go back and make up for it and try. And if it’s too late [to do that] the compassion is very important there to forgive yourself.”

Bernadette Mooney is a fully qualified and accredited psychotherapist working in south county Dublin. For more information call 01 295 1095 or log on to www.therapydublin.ie