I held onto my hatred and anger at my father for more than twenty years. I wrote him off until our paths crossed more than twenty years ago. What I realized is that holding a grudge over someone can make us feel powerful when we had no power in the past.

But that anger eats you up and also is a convenient way of not dealing with your feelings.

How much easier it was to just write off my father because of the past then it was to deal with my own feelings.

Over time, you can use the grudge as a crutch for many different things: Boost you up to feel strong, fuel you to get through a difficult time, deflect uncomfortable feelings onto your memory of a past event—even if that past is not relevant to your present.

Forgiveness is never easy when pain and suffering are wrapped around your memories of how someone treated you.

Blaming others and holding a grudge are the easy way out.

But what’s more complicated is looking at how you were hurt, working through that (with a therapist if necessary) and coming to terms with forgiving the person.

Forgiveness is a double-sided coin. Yes, the act of forgiving can help the person who wrong you, but it also is a means for you to offload the anger and hurt feelings that you lived through.

What’s complicated in an alcoholic and dysfunctional home is that you might learn that the person who mistreated you is also part of the generational effects of alcoholism or addiction. No, that doesn’t absolve the person for mistreating you, but it does help put the situation in context.

Choosing to break out of the cycle and work on self-care and healing, is a much more productive way of moving forward in life than holding that grudge.

Is it easier to work through the pain and change your behaviors to live a healthier life? No, honestly, it’s not.

But the alternative is carrying a lump of coal-fire in your heart your life and that anger and hatred are going to come out in ways that you might regret.

Learning to let go is hard, but healing.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.