Category Archives: relationship

Grudges and Boundaries

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Has someone wronged you recently?  Long ago?  (How) Does it still affect you?  Are you a grudge holder?  Does someone hold a grudge against you?

Last night I gathered with good friends and this topic came up—we go deep, my friends and I.  Of course, it started me thinking and wondering:  What does it mean to hold a grudge?  When I hold a grudge, what do I actually do?  What is the motivation?  What are the consequences?  When/how/why does it resolve, if ever?  As we talked, it felt straight forward at first.  Everybody knows how it feels to hold a grudge—but how do you describe or define it?

Google dictionary defines it:

Grudge: /ɡrəj/

noun

a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment resulting from a past insult or injury.

“she held a grudge against her former boss”

synonyms: grievance, resentment, bitterness, rancor, pique, umbrage, dissatisfaction, disgruntlement, bad feelings, hard feelings, ill feelings, ill will, animosity, antipathy, antagonism, enmity, animus;

informala chip on one’s shoulder

“a former employee with a grudge”

verb

be resentfully unwilling to give, grant, or allow (something).

“he grudged the work and time that the meeting involved”

synonyms: begrudge, resent, feel aggrieved about, be resentful of, mind, object to, take exception to, take umbrage at

“he grudges the time the meetings use up”

 

The more we thought about it the worse it felt to me.  I’m reminded of the saying that hatred hurts the hater more than the hated.  Grudges feel like dark clouds hanging over my consciousness, chilling my soul, or at least casting a cold shadow on my joy, freedom of emotion, and possibility for connection.  My friends and I contemplated the utility of grudge holding.   What good does it do, what need does it meet?  I think it’s protective—a defense mechanism, a way of not being vulnerable again—armor, as I believe Brené Brown would call it.

I asked my friends last night, “So is it holding a grudge, or is it setting a boundary?”  I wondered if they are the same or different.  After all, both make you behave differently toward the other person.  But I think it matters whether and how we judge the other person.  When I hold a grudge, I judge the whole person based on the bad thing (I perceive) they did to me.  I may generalize from my own negative experience and write them off as wholly selfish, ignorant, narcissistic, and unworthy of my compassion and empathy.  Perhaps I start to depersonalize them, make them into an abstraction right in front of my eyes—dehumanize them.  Does that seem like an extreme description?  Even so, doesn’t it still describe the feeling?   When I hold a grudge, I do not—cannot—like or even relate to the person.  I avoid them, don’t want to be in the same room with them.  I don’t trust them.

I listened to The Thin Book of Trust by by Charles Feltman (referenced by Brown in her book Dare to Lead) this past week.  He describes four distinctions of trust:  Sincerity, Reliability, Competence, and Caring.  He suggests that when we find someone else untrustworthy, it’s likely that they have disappointed us in one or more of these elements.  I have assumed for a long time that the person I hold a grudge against simply does not care about me or my well-being.  Feltman suggests that of the four distinctions, this may be the hardest one to overcome when violated.  My story about this person is that they don’t care about me, therefore they are categorically untrustworthy.  So I feel justified in denying the validity of their point of view, minimizing their achievements, and casting them as the permanent villain in my story.

Yuck.  That perspective does not align with my core values.

So what can I do?  Maybe rather than holding a grudge, I can simply reorient myself to our relationship.  Instead of harboring bitterness and ill will, can I instead learn, synthesize, and integrate some new information?  When I’m wronged, maybe I can say, with curiosity more than resentment, “How fascinating!”  Maybe I can take care of my own feelings, connect with people I do trust, and regroup.  Then I can decide how I want to present to this person hereafter.  I can set some new boundaries.

Rather than dismiss the person as uncaring in general and holding this against them, I can do other things.  First, I can withhold judgment on their caring and make a more generous assumption.  For example, I feel un-cared for by them, but perhaps their way of expressing caring is different from how I receive it.  I can look for alternative signs of caring.  Or perhaps they truly don’t care about me, but I need to work with them anyway, so I had better figure out a way to do it—are they at least sincere, reliable, and competent?  How must I attend to myself, so I can honor my core values, get the work done, and not get hurt (or at least minimize the risk)?  Second, I can set clear boundaries in our relationship.  I can point out behaviors that I will not tolerate, and call them out if they happen.  I can set realistic expectations about agendas, objectives, methods, and contact.  I can give honest and direct feedback with concrete examples of words or actions that require attention and remedy.

Many thanks to my thoughtful and engaging friends who stimulate these explorations.  I can feel my grip on the grudge loosening already.

Shoots in the Poop

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It’s December 4th… Time to look back?  Honestly, I’d rather just get this year over with and move on,  because I have already been looking back all this time.  Since January I have counted—weeks and months since the knee injury, months since starting the new job, since surgery, since a spring crisis, since the last this or the first that.  What was it all for?  I think I was just reminding myself that there’s been a lot going on, reassuring myself that I’m not just whining, not being weak for letting my personal health habits slip.

I’ve felt like a relative slug for the last 6 months, despite my best efforts.  I think I must have eaten a pint of ice cream every two days for most of the spring and early summer.  Looking back on the calendar, I stopped using smiley stickers to mark workouts around July—their intensity was only worth hand-drawn smileys.  By and since August they aren’t worth smileys at all—I just jot down what I did in shorthand.  Some weeks it was barely anything.   I judge myself every day—perhaps less harshly than I might have a few years ago, and also less compassionately than I might a few more years from now.  I still struggle with the fear of self-indulgence if I allow myself too much self-compassion.  I am still learning self-compassion.  I know it takes time to rewire our limbic brain patterns with knew learnings from our cognitive brains.  So I will keep trying, because I know it’s helping.  And I’m modeling for the kids.  We can do our best and still fail.  The key is to keep moving.  We can practice admitting we need help, seek it from the appropriate sources, lean on it heavily, and stand back up eventually.  And then we remember those who helped us, and prepare to be helpful in return.

I have leaned on so many this year, I feel almost speechless at the outpouring of support and love.  The only way I don’t collapse from this weight of gratitude is by storing it like a battery—ready to be discharged, full power, when someone needs to plug into me.  This may be my favorite thing about humanity—that we are wired to connect so tightly, to help one another in webs of mutual love and kindness that can extend ad infinitum.

moths on poop

So I’ll look back a little.  This week I feel a turning.  Did I say this already recently?  Oh yes, it was November 12.  I was making more room for books, trying to stay off of my phone, off of Facebook.  Being on the laptop every night to post to the blog stymied that last part, but it also bought awareness of how I find loopholes in the best plans for self-discipline.  And the daily writing practice also contributed loads to this internal revolution.  This was my fourth year doing NaBloPoMo.  It was by far the most fun, the smoothest, and the most rewarding attempt yet (I think I also said this last year?), and now I miss writing every day (definitely have not said this before).  Maybe it was the daily dopamine hit of views and likes.  But I think it’s more than that.  Through the daily discipline, I had a chance to process and synthesize so many ideas and connections that had been marinating for months, maybe even years.  I practiced prioritizing, selecting, and distilling those ideas into about 1000 words each day, more for my own benefit than anyone else’s.  That people read and related to them was definitely a happy bonus.

Besides NBPM, I attribute this turnaround to two books that Donna recommended to me earlier this fall:  Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace, both by The Arbinger Institute.  I have wanted to write about them for the last several weeks, but I haven’t yet figured out how to prioritize, select, and distill the lessons coherently.  The foundational ideas are not necessarily new, but they are profound.  The books are written as modern allegories, and there is just something about the metaphors and analogies that has unlocked and integrated everything I have learned about inner work, communication, relationships, and leadership to date.  And that is saying a lot.  Because of these books, the daily writing, and all the conversations I’m having (with myself and with others) as a result of both, the two most challenging relationships in my life right now have fundamentally improved—mostly because I have been able to shift my own attitude.  As with all things, this new ‘way of being’ will take practice.  I need to keep the training wheels on for a while yet.  But now that I have made this turn, the path looks straight, and I see light.

The manure has piled on all year.  So much fertilizer, oh my gosh.  It’s done its job, though, because I have definitely grown.  I feel strong, healthy shoots of green popping out through the thick, dark carpet of poop.

Recentering—Vaccine post #3

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NaBloPoMo 2018:  What I’m Learning

When you buy a red car suddenly you notice so many red cars on the road.  I write two posts on vaccines, and now I see all these vaccine posts on my Facebook feed. One made me sad for multiple reasons.

Dr. Jennifer Chuang , a pediatrician who ran for the state legislature in New Jersey, posted this:

In 2017, I was moved to run for office in the NJ State legislature because of bills being introduced that were harmful to public health. Among the areas that I stood firm on were the importance and safety of vaccinations, and I was harshly attacked for that, even threatened.
However, NJ should not be proud of introducing the most pieces of legislation that would have made our children at risk for vaccine preventable illnesses. The current measles outbreak in New Jersey has now grown to 18 cases. Legislative decisions have consequences, especially to public health.

“From 2011 to 2017, New Jersey lawmakers introduced the most pieces of legislation that would make it easier for children to skip vaccines, according to a new study by Drexel University researchers.”

She linked to this article, detailing the anti-vaccine legislative history in New Jersey and lawmakers’ rationale, compared to the scientific literature.

I’m sad that there is such a fight against proven public health initiatives, and I’m sad that legislative bodies, who write our health and medical policies, include remarkably few clinicians.  But I’m most sad at the meanness in the fights.

A woman immediately commented, “Shut up already” on Dr. Chuang’s page.  When challenged benignly by others, she replied telling them to fuck off and calling them assholes.  Her page is apparently public, so I visited.  The posts that I could see were vehemently opposed to vaccines of all kinds, at least in 2016 and 2017.  She apparently lost a son this year, in his 24th year of life.  She has posted about eating healthy, self-care, and seeing intelligence as ‘not because you think you know everything without questioning, but rather because you question everything you think you know.”  So while I feel acutely put off and dismissive of her vile reaction to Dr. Chuang’s post, I also imagine that she and I may have things in common and might even be friends, if circumstances facilitated.

Somehow I came across another woman’s page tonight, similarly militantly anti-vaccine.  She and the first woman both posted a lot of memes and sayings implying that people who advocate for vaccines are brainwashed and ignorant, and not worthy of engagement.  Huh.  Sounds to me just like many of the ad hominems hurled by vaccine advocates against women like them.  It’s exhausting.  Who does it help, this mutual shit-flinging?  In Rising Strong, Brené Brown points out the pitfalls of false dichotomies and binary decision trees.  If you hear people shouting that you have to choose one side or another, that it’s all or nothing, be suspicious.  Look for the beneficiaries of that feud.  Often it’s the politicians who leverage our warring tendencies to stay in office.  Or maybe it’s physicians who, when they refuse to care for patients who decline vaccines, can feel decisively self-righteous rather than uncomfortably ambivalent.  Or maybe it’s the anti-vaccine parent, who feels embarrassed to express fear and uncertainty (because she has been shamed too many times for questioning a sanctimonious medical community), and so finds her voice in combative rage instead.  And could it be that anytime one of us shows up in attack mode, we incite our counterpart to take a mirroring stance, even if that was not their original intent (this is a rhetorical question)?

Regardless, I’m tired.  Social media and loud, mean, public debate are not venues that yield any meaningful interactions (I see the irony of my writing this on a blog).  It feels too slow, but experience teaches me that we win hearts and minds face to face, quietly, intimately.  Nothing good ever comes from a collision of two oncoming bullet trains.  It’s wildly destructive more than anything else.

Thankfully, my good friend posted Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata” tonight.  I first read, transcribed, and posted this poem on my wall in high school, and have not seen it in a couple decades.  It really captures the essence of inner peace and right relationship, with self, humanity, and the earth, and it soothes me.  It’s a late Thursday night of another long week.  I leave you with Mr. Ehrmann’s master work below.  Good night.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.