Stop Forgiving People

Are you the type of person who holds a grudge?  What does it really mean to hold a grudge and what benefit do we get when we do?  What are the costs of holding a grudge?  Is there a better alternative?  If any of these questions pique your interest, then grab yourself a coffee and stick around a while.  It’s about to get real in here.

Grudge vs. Forgiveness vs. Revenge

Let’s start with a few definitions. 

• Dictionary.com defines ‘grudge’ as a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from past insult or injury.  
• Dictionary.com defines ‘forgive’ as granting pardon for an offense and to cease feeling resentment for an offense. 
• Dictionary.com defines 'revenge' as enacting punishment for an offense.

As I read these definitions, I was struck by the polarity.  If someone commits some kind of transgression against me, I can hold a grudge, presumably indefinitely.  This doesn’t sound very appealing. Do I really want to hold a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment towards someone indefinitely?  That can’t be good for my mental and physical health, can it?  Let’s see what other options I have available.

I can forgive the other person.  That sounds good, in theory, but doesn’t feel realistic.  The person did, after all, commit some kind of offense against me.  Simply pardoning the other person doesn’t feel fair to me because it seems to neglect my interests, at least within the context of our relationship.  Yes, by pardoning the offender I spare myself the mental and physical anxiety of carrying a grudge, but I wouldn’t have to do that if they didn’t offend me in the first place!

The third option is for me to commit some form of retribution against the other person in an effort to even the score.  Although this may give me some personal relief, my hunch is this will be temporary and will almost certainly result in future friction between everyone involved.  To my mind, revenge is the least skillful option and is pretty much a non-starter.

I don’t know about you, but none of these options appeal to me.

An Empowering Alternative

I wanted to come up with a better way to deal with the inevitable transgressions in a way that honors my own needs and also does something to honor the relationship between me and the transgressor. 

Instead of “insult or injury”, I started looking at things in terms of “violations of trust.” If someone insults me or does something that I disagree with, I can pretty easily make sense of this as a violation of trust.  Whereas “insult and injury” have a very binary feel, a violation of trust feels much more scalable.  By making this reframe, I’m able to view the violation on a scale of severity.  Was it a major violation or a minor one?  

Furthermore, I am able to view the violation with another, most sophisticated lens, which I call the MAP of Trust.  The MAP consists of three elements:

• Morality - These are matters of character and the person’s ability to decide between right and wrong.
• Ability - These are matters of knowledge, skill, and capability.  In other words, was the person “able” to do otherwise or to do what I preferred them to have done?
• Predictability - This is related to the person’s pattern of behavior regarding consistency and reliability.

All violations of trust come down to one or more violations on the MAP.  Determining which elements were violated goes a long way towards being able to release any negative feelings towards the other person.  The reason is that each of the elements has a different root cause and therefore different mitigation techniques.  Depending on the situation, some are easier to mitigate than others.

For example, I find that failures on the Moral line are incredibly difficult to overcome and in these cases I am may more likely to hold negative feelings for a long time.  Violations of Ability and Predictability tend to be more circumstantial and I’m much more able to move on from my negative feelings.  It’s the difference between, the mechanic overcharged me for the work because he is scam artists and the mechanic overcharged me for the work because he was in over his head working on a foreign car when his specialty is American cars.  (NOTE:  Morality vs. Ability) 

Using the MAP of Trust allows me another crucial reframe.  When holding a grudge, it really becomes an all-or-nothing thing.  You have to maintain your ill-will feelings indefinitely.  The MAP of Trust allows me to simply recalibrate my relationship with the other person in light of this new information.  I don’t need to harbor any ill-will, I just trust you differently than I did yesterday.  I factor this into my interactions until I have new information that will cause me to recalibrate yet again.  This allows me to maintain some degree of relationship with the other person, just using new ground rules.  I find this to be incredibly useful, powerful, and liberating.  

The Challenge

1. Identify a relationship where you are holding a grudge.  
2. Analyze that relationship using the MAP of Trust.  Identify the ways in which the person violated the rules of Morality, Ability, and Predictability.  
3. Determine the new relationship protocols based on this new insight and trust assessment. 
4. Declare your old “grudge” to be null and void in light of the new protocols.
5. Notice what new options you have available to you.  Notice any weight or burden that has been lifted.  

NOTE:  I’ve created a Downloadable Worksheet that you can use to structure your analysis. 

 Bonus Learning – There are a few pitfalls when working with the MAP of Trust.  Check out the video to learn a few and to hear some examples of how I apply the MAP to my life. 

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Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash