“Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

Oh my goodness, what an emotive quote that is.  

Attributed to Buddha and one which rings true on so many levels for so many of us.  It certainly does for me.

I also think that it’s not just anger.

• Hurt
• Embarrassment
• Resentment
• Fear 

It’s the same for all these emotions.  

Holding them close in your body in the now when the incident and indeed the perpetrator are long gone into your past really doesn’t work for anyone.  

Least of all you.  You avoid, second guess, hide from things.  It’s exhausting too. 

This very week I’ve worked with 2 brilliant women affected by this… 

Both on the Board of their company and both holding themselves back by hanging onto emotions from a bad work situation that happened at least 5 years ago for each.

Here’s the thing that’s most annoying and worth remembering.

The person/protagonist/pain-in-the-pants person – they’ve likely completely forgotten about you and or the incident.  If they even ever knew.

They’ve moved on, getting on with whatever their life’s like.

You, however, can keep those feelings really alive to you and, as I said to one client “drag him around with you from pillar to post and he has no idea NOR cares if he did”.

So how do you let that go, let that person go?

By deciding you will.  By deciding it’s time.  By deciding “enough already, off you go”.

They were a teacher to you.  A teacher for some form in how not to do or be someone or something.  Now you’d do things or respond differently.  Forgive them.  Forgive yourself.

It’s gone and the kicker question I asked was

“So what will it be like without second-guessing yourself now you’ve decided X isn’t important to you anymore?“

Boom.  

“I’m free to be more of myself and let myself go for things” was the along-the-lines reply from both.  Now that’s something worth hanging on to.  Worth focusing on…

In other news…

=================

Douglas Puppyhound sleeping soundly through these kind of tough conversations in my office.  He’s a teacher to me too.  I often come off a call and join him on the sofa for a snooze or a pause too!