Holding a grudge?

Be-Grudging

“To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.”

                                  William H. Walton

“I’ve had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge.  You know why?  While you’re carrying a grudge, they’re out dancing.”

                                  Buddy Hackett

         Many years ago, I was asked to set up a program for children with disabilities in a church day school. The day-school director and some of the board members did not want the program and resented me and the other people who were attempting to bring “those children” into “their day-school.”  It became a bloody battle and the more resistance we encountered, the more determined we were to make it happen.  Long story short, it was a divisive, six-year fight, but in the end we prevailed.  Pre-school children with disabilities were mainstreamed into the ‘church’ program.  Then I went away for a year for some training out of state.  When I returned, the church was dedicating a playground to the day-school director for her tireless efforts on behalf of children with disabilities.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  This woman, who had fought tooth and nail against inclusion, was being honored for something I, and others, had done.  I really resented her.

        

         A couple of years later, I was in a women’s retreat, and one of the exercises was to make a mask of the person we most resented.  I knew immediately whose face I would recreate.  We made the masks and did a little theatrical presentation about the person and why we resented them; we were supposed to act like them for about five minutes.  I really got into the role, let me tell you.  When it was over, the instructor told us about the shadow side of the personality and how this person was part of our own shadow—she represented a side of ourselves we did not want to recognize.  I wanted to run screaming from the room.  I simple could not see myself in her conniving ways.  My resentment seethed inside me.  The grudge lived on, but there was a little glimmer of self-awareness that winked at me every time I thought of her.

         Since then, I’ve learned a lot about my shadow.  Believe me, there are worse personalities than the day-school director living there.  I still don’t like her, but I have ‘owned’ that she belongs to me, and to resent her is to resent some part of myself.  Perhaps she is that part of me that wants to exclude others who don’t fit my image of appropriate, and who knows how to use her feminine wiles to get what she wants.  You know her, don’t you?

         Carrying a grudge is kind of like drinking battery acid.  It eats you up from the inside.  And in the meantime, the object of your resentment is “out dancing.”  Take it from me, it isn’t worth it.  If you’re carrying a grudge, take a good long look at what mirror that person holds up for you.  Usually, even the parts of ourselves we don’t like carry a gift as well as a curse.  Let the grudge go.  You’re gut will thank you if you do. 

                                  Keeping it real,

                                  Jane