When You Are Still Carrying a Grudge
For a resentment you have been carrying for months or years and are tired of. It helps you weigh what it is costing you, tell letting go apart from letting someone back in, and put a boundary where the grudge has been standing in for one.
Forgiveness · Anger · Self-Compassion · 9 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Write down what it has actually cost you — a grudge is easier to weigh once it is specific.
- Count how often it still visits your day — the tally shows you who is carrying what.
- Separate letting go from letting back in — you can stop rehearsing it and still keep your distance.
- Write the letter you are never going to send — the unsent version is where the true sentence lives.
- Give up on getting the apology first — waiting for it hands them the timing as well.
- Decide whether anything still needs saying — some of these need a conversation and most need an ending.
- Notice what the resentment is protecting — often it is standing in for a boundary you never set.
- Put the boundary in place instead — a rule you keep does the job the grudge was doing badly.
- Expect it to come back now and then — letting go happens in several passes, not one.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.