I am a world-class grudge holder. I come to my work honestly, having been raised in a house of grudge-keepers and an extended family littered with relatives who go years, and sometimes decades, without speaking with one another for slights both perceived and actual. And so, it was with great anticipation that I read Sophie Hannah’s How To Hold A Grudge. I can comfortably say I have never come across anyone who has given as much thought to this subject, even though grudges are something we all carry and so much of we interact with other people is colored by how we are treated.
Hannah clinically dissects her own grudge-creating experiences (even rating them based on a point value system I will not even try to explain) as a jumping off point to highlight important points about the need to process these types of events, not allow others to diminish our feelings when they happen, and the thorniest question of all - what to do when they happen. The choices are not always clear-cut, but on the spectrum from “forgive and forget” (or in her husband’s case, “forget the moment it’s over”) to “you’re dead to me,” her default is somewhere in the middle - to wit, forgive, but do not forget.
There is something very British (with a hint of Buddhism and cognitive behavioral therapy) in this advice. Perhaps it is the Brits’ reputation for emotional suppression or the stiff upper lip, but essentially, when you’ve been wronged, Hannah advises acknowledging that wrong, and filing it away as a reminder of the other person’s behavior. To be sure, there are other steps along the way, not the least of which is a twelve-question inventory Hannah uses as a processing tool, an attempt to understand what may have caused the person’s behavior, and acknowledging your own injury without allowing it to become debilitating.
Done right, Hannah argues, this process, which she refers to as the “grudge-fold path,” leads to a metaphorical cupboard of grudges that do not raise your blood pressure, but rather, you look on with some admiration - life lessons learned, healed wounds with a scar’s reminder of pain suffered. Doing so, she continues, also mitigates the control the grudge has over you, it lessens the space that anger and hostility take up and clears a path toward contentment.
There is wisdom in her point of view, but I also felt like there was an easier-said-than-done aspect to it all. I mean, who has the time to do an inventory of every grudge-creating experience, much less pick through the more than twenty different types of grudges Hannah identifies? Can’t I just stew passively in my own bitterness like everyone else? I am only partially kidding, because I think Hannah’s point is that most people do silently stew about things that happen to them without properly dealing with the emotions (much less the people) involved.
I do not anticipate heading down the grudge-fold path myself. In part because while Hannah is reluctant to go the “you’re dead to me” route, I think there is great value in it, particularly as it relates to severe harms done by people close to you. Having survived such experiences, I had no qualms about cutting those people who wronged me out of my life. As for everyone else, perhaps after reading this clever book, I might be a bit more magnanimous.
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