00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 148, "Grace and Grudges in our Relationships." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Alright, hello there, my friends. How you doing? So glad to have you here. Thanks so much for joining me and thank you so much for sharing this podcast with people who you feel will benefit from this, and thank you for joining me every week and being a part of this community for me. It is such a great place for me to be. I know that many of you I have never talked to and I may never talk to, but I love that you're here and I thank you for helping to create for me a space where I can learn and grow and move and share these things with you and hopefully create the same thing for you that you can learn and grow and move as well. So thanks for being here. I appreciate it. 

01:09 

We are talking today about grace and grudges in our relationships. Relationships are just so important to us. It's one of the things in our lives that makes the biggest difference in our level of being fulfilled and satisfied in life. So let's talk about these two words. Grace is an act of kindness or courtesy. When we talk about grace in a relationship, we talk about this kindness, this giving space, for the other person to be a human without a lot of judgment. When we talk about a grudge, we're talking about an attitude of being unwilling to give space or forgiveness or another chance. And if we do give, we give with resentment. So we're going to talk about these two things. They're kind of on opposite sides, at ends of the spectrum, when it comes to our relationship. One of them, grace, moves us to connection and the other, grudge, moves us to disconnection. Also grace moves us forward in life, and a grudge keeps us being stuck or maybe even losing ground, maybe even going backwards. 

02:20 

So let's talk first about grudges. Grudges are a very primitive brain behavior. They are all about protecting us. When we talk, we use the phrase "holding a grudge." This means that we are unwilling to let go of something. We don't let things grow. We hold them back. And this is like I said, a way that our brain tries to protect us from danger, from things that we think are going to create more danger. And so our brain looks at past experiences, things that people have done to us. And our brain says, "whoa, danger. This is a person we don't want to interact with. This is a situation we don't want to get back into because it will harm us, it will hurt us. It will create pain." And the thing is that's not always the case, right? But we do hold this grudge, so our primitive brain wants to protect us doing that. 

03:15 

And another thing that holding grudge does is it gives us a sense of control. We think that we can control whether the situation happens again, or we think that we can control the outcome if we hold a grudge. It's a way of kind of making us think that we can control other people, actually, and their behavior of whether they're going to engage in that behavior again or not. Grudges have a way of harming both people in the relationship. If I'm the one holding the grudge, I'm filled with resentment or anger, and that shows up in my behaviors. It shows up in a lot of different ways. So it hurts me if I'm the one holding the grudge. I'm not feeling the love, I'm not feeling the compassion. But it also hurts the other person because it keeps them trapped in past behaviors. We get so wrapped up in their being wrong that we don't allow for humanness. We don't extend the grace of people being human. So here's some indicators that I found as I was kind of searching around, like looking for more information on grudges. Am I holding a grudge? Here's eight indicators that you may be holding a grudge. 

04:28 

One: you lose your cool over something unrelated. So somebody says or done something, and you totally freak out in an unrelated way. 

04:42 

Number two: you start avoiding the other person. Maybe you don't go somewhere that they're gonna go, or you see them at church and you go around the other direction rather than having to go to the other person to encounter meeting them. 

04:54 

Number three: you still feel bitter. Like the resentment is still there. You can't move forward. You can't get out of it. Okay? Who has the power here? Does anybody have power when there is resentment and anger going on? You know, the other person that you're holding a grudge with has more power, but we lose all of the power when we hold on to that resentment, when we feel bitter. I lose all of my power to behave the way that I wanna behave. And I let the other person control things. 

05:31 

Number four: you still get negative feelings when you think about them. This may be something that happened years ago. Maybe you're looking on a past marriage or a past relationship and you still have negative feelings toward that person, toward the situation. That is going to be an indicator. that you're still holding a grudge. Now that doesn't mean we haven't learned lessons from that situation or from that person. We can definitely look at a person go, "oh yeah, I learned this from that." But there's a difference between having awareness about the lessons learned and feeling resentment and anger. 

06:08 

Number five: there's a huge focus on fairness. We can be very overly concerned with our side being hurt. "I want them to see this." I know that after my divorce, there was a piece of me that just always wanted my kids to see my side of the story, to understand my side of the story. Not very healthy for them and definitely not very healthy for me. But it's easy to see in a situation like that. I was very focused on my side being hurt, things being fair. 

06:40 

Number six: you might even just feel nothing. You may be completely indifferent. Indifference is so fascinating because it keeps us as well in a space of being stuck and not growing and not moving forward. So if we feel nothing or feeling indifferent, good chance that we're still holding a grudge. 

07:00 

Another indicator that you may be holding a grudge is that you engage in last minute cancellations. Like you think "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this," and the last minute you're just like, "can't do it, can't do it. Don't want to go there. Don't want to meet them. Don't want to see them." So that's a good indicator. 

07:15 

And the last one, number eight: you get irritated very easily with this person and with things that happen with this person. 

07:23 

So those are some indicators. And I know that I can connect with every one of those at some point in my life. I can see where I have done that. I'm working on letting go of grudges and cleaning up my thinking about people and situations. And even just a few weeks ago, I saw a situation with my previous spouse where I was still holding a grudge and I was still bringing him into my relationship, not physically, but emotionally, I was still giving him power. Very insightful for me when my coach pointed that out to me, and the opportunity that I've had to start to set that aside and and move into grace rather than continuing to hold a grudge. That's probably why I'm doing this podcast, right? Because this has been in the forefront of my mind as I've been working through this on my own. 

08:13 

So physically let's talk about some of the consequences of holding grudges. Physically, when we are not forgiving, this creates a lot of negative tense energy. And it has been linked to disabling our bodies repair mechanisms, to increasing inflammation and the stress hormone cortisol in the body. So physically holding grudges has negative repercussions for our physical health. Emotionally, holding grudges shuts down all communications, which is the key to every healthy relationship. It also creates this one-up kind of thing. Like, "if I can hold a grudge, that means I'm better than them because I would never do that or they should have never done that. They're below me," right? So it creates this other space of one-up which again shuts down any opportunity for a healthy relationship. Resentment fills our heart, which leaves no space for love. And I know that I experienced this so heavily in my marriage, just over the years allowed resentment to come in and fill and fill and fill my heart. And pretty soon I couldn't have felt love for that, for that marriage, for my husband. I couldn't have felt that for him because I was so resentful. There was no space. So it fills our heart and it takes away our love. 

09:42 

When we hold a grudge, our desire to be right is more important than our desire for peace and relationship. We have this drive to be right. And that's a hallmark of holding grudges. And I just wanna say a quick word before we move on to grace.  We also have a tendency to hold grudges toward ourselves, not just other people. A place where we don't forgive ourselves for our past failures. We don't forgive ourselves for our humanity. We just don't forgive ourselves. We don't allow ourselves to move on. We stay stuck. Holding grudges keeps us stuck. And a lot of middle-aged people that I work with, this is the big deal there, just like, "I just feel stuck." One of the reasons can be because we're holding grudges. 

10:30 

So let's move to the other end of the spectrum. Let's talk about grace. Grace is an act of kindness and courtesy, even when it's not deserved. Grace is a space where we allow other people to be human, where mistakes are allowed, where we create space for that person to be a human without judgment, without anger, without resentment from us. A person who is living in 

a space of grace desires peace. They desire connection more than they desire to be right. So think about the grace of God. We don't deserve his grace, but you know what? He always gives us another chance. He is always willing to move on and allow us to move on. Always there is space to grow and create something new. That's the whole purpose of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, right, is the fact that there is grace there, a space for us to move on, to move forward, to create something different. That's what grace gives us. Grace is judging other people based on their intentions rather than always on their actions. 

11:42 

Now it's not to say that we allow people to have whatever actions they want. That's where boundaries come in. But grace recognizes that people are not always going to act in accordance with who they really are, or their intentions, because they're human. Just like how God knows our heart. Because He knows our heart, He can forgive our actions. Grace is also judging other people based on their present rather than on their past. I know that as I move into relationships, I want to be judged based on the me that is currently in the relationship. I want acknowledgement for me now, not the me in my marriage. Because if I go back 10 years into my marriage, I was messed up. I had so many things that I was not doing that I did not understand that I did not see. And if I was dating somebody now and they were judging me on who I was 10 years ago, that would feel very unfair to me. Because that's not who I am anymore. I'm a very different person. So grace allows us to base our judgment on who they are in the present rather than the past. 

13:07 

And as I move into relationships as well, many of the people that I have dated have been divorced. And I need to do the same thing. I need to be willing to make my judgments based on who they are now rather than who they were in the past. So extending grace creates hope for a better future. It lets us know that there is something better going on rather than keeping us stuck in the past. Grace doesn't deny the hurt, but it extends forgiveness for the mistake. So for example, when somebody apologized for the mistake, we wouldn't say" it's okay," because the hurt is not okay. The action was not okay, but rather we would say something like, "thank you for apologizing. I forgive you." We acknowledge that the hurt happened. We acknowledge that the behavior was bad, but we also extend forgiveness for the mistake. We extend kindness and love even when it's not always deserved. This is what God offers us when He gives us grace. He gives us space to grow and move forward. Right? And this is not about justifying a wrong, but it is about inviting love and compassion and grace into our relationships. It's realizing that when people are in their darkest moments, their weakest parts come out in full force. Look at yourself. When you have been struggling the most, that's when we're the most impatient, where we're the most unkind, where we say things we don't mean, those are our darkest moments and every one of us has these darkest moments. This is when we hurt other people. We don't mean to hurt other people. We're not mean spirited, honorary people. We really do want to be kind, but every one of us has these ups and downs and these dark moments when our weakest parts come out, where we say things that hurt other people. 

15:17 

And this is when other people in our life, when they're in their darkest moments, this is when they most desperately need our grace, our acceptance and our love. And this is when we are most tempted to go hold a grudge rather than give grace. But this is where our work needs to be done in realizing that in their darkest moments, in their most human moments, other people need our grace. They need our compassion. That then is where the connection comes from in our relationships, when we offer this grace. Grace works to heal relationships, to see others as we are, which is a flawed human. We're all flawed, giving people the grace to be human, to make those mistakes that we all make...this is what grace offers in a relationship. And this is what creates an environment where connection can grow. When I have seen myself behaving badly, when I've been in my darkest moments and someone offers me grace, it completely softens and changes my heart toward them. Because I realize that they accept me for who I am, even in my dark moments, even when my weakest parts come out. They see me and that creates a greater love for me and it creates a greater desire in me to move into more of a space of grace  for them as well. 

16:57 

So grace becomes this grace begets grace kind of space. Grace works to heal relationships and in our relationships, this is the work that allows us to circle back and try it again. It's the space that says, "you know what? I'm sorry I did not show up the way that I wanted to show up. Can I try this again? Can I talk to you about this again?" And grace says, "yes, you can. You can try it again. You can circle back and we can try it again." Right? Relationships cannot survive and they cannot thrive without grace. Grace is having a relationship with someone's heart, with who they really are, rather than having a relationship with their behaviors. Grace is seeing people for who they are, embracing who they are, and realizing that who they are is human as well. And a great relationship extends grace on both sides. 

18:05 

Does that mean we're always going to be perfect? No. Does it mean we're not going to move into grudges? No, we are. But grace recognizes that I move into judgment sometimes. Grace recognizes that they move into judgment sometimes. And grace gives space for us all to be working through our stuff and moving toward this better place in our relationship. And one last word on grace. It is imperative that we have grace toward ourselves, giving us space to be human, to make mistakes, to recognize that my intentions are never evil or hurtful or unkind. Giving grace to me, you giving grace to you, saying, "you know what? I'm not perfect. I am a human. I do make mistakes," but being willing to see that and apologize it and apologize for it and circle back around and give it another shot. Grace is what makes relationships work. And I just pray we can move into grace. 

19:13 

If you're struggling with this, if you're holding grudges and you want to move more into a space of grace, I can help you do this. This is a space of maturing and growing up into our middle-age adulthood where we can create more intentionally what we want to create. And this is what I love about this work, is it really helps us see things that we may not have currently been aware of. And it helps us understand how to move into grace, how to move into becoming more the person we want to be the next best version of ourselves. Okay, that's gonna do it for me my friends. I hope you have a really fabulous day and I will talk to you next week. Bye! T 

19:55 

hank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life's coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!