I hold no grudges

Are you holding a grudge? About?

I’m gonna start responding to whatever these prompts are to add some more fluff to this whole thing.

BUT! do I hold a grudge…? No!

I have found that holding grudges only serves to embolden whatever emotion is being felt and tends to just make me a resentful person.

Currently I think of a few people that have treated me terribly and how any grudge that made itself apparent between me and them stemmed from the fact that I couldn’t forgive myself for allowing myself to be treated like that.

From how I’ve grown as an individual the deep meaninglessness that screams at me in everyday life always makes itself apparent whenever I attach myself to material comforts.

Whether it be through bodily or crafted means the attachment that I hold breeds room for resentment and grudges. Particularly when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

When it comes to attachment to my body and other material possessions, it’s nothing but a reflection of my own effort into my experience but still all these things are ever fleeting. Every material object is finite and will be subject to its own kind of withering. And with that comes a choice of how my own happiness can be attained and experienced.

A few years ago in the depths of my depression I ended my winter with one goal in mind. To be happy.

In my journey of searching for happiness I learned of the depths of my own sorrow and the measures I would go to prevent myself from feeling joy.

To summarize what my experience has been so far for letting myself exist with a persistent happiness the shines from the bottom of my heart – it’s based in detachment.

Honestly I don’t remember if there was ever a specific point where the realization came upon me, but it’s clear that material attachment only leads to sorrow if its attachment is not based upon the wholeness of the entity. The wholeness of its lifecycle and methods of expression.

Let’s take my old car for example, ever since it rolled off the lot after being crafted it had been in a constant state of decay and death, with each passing day it had died a little more. Even acting upon it with the language of care and maintenance that material goods require it would only prolong its inevitable death. I wanted to do so much with the car truthfully, I wanted to care for it in different methods and show an expression of gratitude for having it. But I couldn’t afford anything beyond its necessities. And with time it died and I needed to get a new one.

There was once a time where I held more attachment to things. But my attachment bred an unknown expectation of behavior of people and things. Which was unfair to them and myself.

I apply this to how I view myself too. There was once a time when I cared heavily for what my body was. I cared much for the vanity and the immediate result of how it appeared. The ways in which I attempted to cultivate my strength back in this time payed no attention to the ways in which joy was an investment. And as a result, I broke.

I tore my labrum and needed surgery at 19. This event changed my entire perspective on life ultimately.

Because of this experience I was forced to face an ultimate type of detachment. Prior to the injury I had based the entirety of my happiness and expression to be contingent off of my bodily expression. The seed of my current modes of expression were planted but the old hollowed out trees of my past needed to fully decompose to make way for the new growth that was coming.

In the months of healing I toiled with how I needed to be okay with walking away from something I loved. The night that comes to me now that I would say solidified this shift towards complete detachment was fresh after I had fully healed.

I was laying in bed trying my best to relax. Looking up at my pop corned ceiling seeing vivid shadows of the acid induced hallucinations that plagued my teens. And then a loud crack shotgunned out from my shoulder. Immediately after I felt my muscles sliding and moving around in my body. My adrenaline spiked but I was too scared to move. My body tensed, my arm grew firm, I felt sweat starting to pool on my body. And it came to me, I don’t think I can ever go back to the life I was living.

I felt my eyes start to water thinking about how I could never enjoy a passion like wrestling or going to the gym in the same way. And then I said I’ll give it up if need be. This moment is where I feel I opened myself up to finally relinquish control over futile things in life.

It was here in which I chose to follow through with taking accountability for what I could change and letting go of what I could not.

This ideation has only grown with me since then and has blossomed me into a person I’m happy with.

So you might be sat here thinking what the hell does this have to do with holding grudges?..

I say everything! I have come to apply this same kind of thinking to my interpersonal relationships and I feel it has put me in this position of feeling genuine care from others in a much deeper way.

Like I said earlier grudges come from a mix of an unfulfilled expectation and being unable to forgive ourselves for allowing such behavior to occur.

With these modes of material detachment I found myself in I had come to look at things for what they are and nothing more. If someone’s words and action do not align, you are a liar, I see that and keep moving it’s not my issue LOL. I know I’m guilty of lying so I won’t judge or hold a grudge for you lying to me, but I may not want to be around you anymore because that is not the behavior I would desire for those I keep in my life and yadayada it’s ALL conditional.

But basically through only viewing actions as the action for both myself and the other it allows me to see how my authenticity had been received. Acting with my full authenticity puts me in a position of not holding any grudges with myself because I’m being me to the fullest. There is no error in how I express myself because my authenticity is perfect and ever growing for how I live. There is no regret.

So operating with this lets me see how I am treated, if I’m treated in a way that is dissatisfying and tries to push me down a route of feeling lesser, I know that is not because of my expression, because my expression makes me more confident. The weirdness of how others would treat me is more of a reflection of the ‘oddities’ that others are expressing to you. And I don’t take none of it personally! Because why would I? It’s not my issue.

What grudge is there to be had if there’s no problem in the first place? Even thinking about someone who has threatened me and stolen from me. I think back to those experiences and how I still treat them with kindness and firm boundaries now. The vitriol and pain that was spewed at me hurt. And I did hold a grudge against them for sometime because I was so hurt. But I was most upset with myself, someone that I had tried my best to show kindness to did nothing but hurt and abuse me. And I hated them for committing that action but I hated myself for more for even being in a position where it could occur.

In learning to forgive myself deeply I learned of my own strict boundaries. Boundaries that put myself and my needs first, positions of deep grudges couldn’t even be opened anymore. And I am able to detach from adverse action toward me without a care. I can focus on the life I want to make for myself with those I care about in a really cool way.

Anyways I don’t hold grudges anymore because it’s a waste of time from making meaningful action.

here’s a picture