Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about letting go of a grudge. So we've all had times where somebody said or done something that we felt really hurt by. You know, so very often when this happens, what we tend to do is we tend to just continue carrying around this hurt and anger inside of us. So, you know, there might've been the initial event that happened, but then in our minds we continue mulling over it, fanning the flames of resentment, anger within us and keeping that heartache alive.

And we can kind of harden our hearts into having a grudge with this person. Sometimes we might keep carrying a grudge by the way for, we carry it with us for two years, 10 years, 20 years, still walking around thinking about that person, what they did to us, playing it over and over again in the mind, getting more angry, thinking how wrong they were and holding this ill will towards them. And as we travel through life, you know, I think it's really important to remember that difficulty and misunderstandings and disagreements with other people. It's a pretty inevitable part of life. And we are not ourselves angels.

We make mistakes too. We let people down. We hurt other people, even if it wasn't our intention to do so. We can't really avoid these things. But what we can do is choose not to carry the grudges with us.

So we can begin to let go of grudges in three ways. First is to see the situation with understanding. And we try to understand why that person might have did, or said what they did. Try to see things from their perspective and understand what might've been going on with them. Second, is to simply make space for imperfection.

Make room for the people in your life to have flaws and moments when they're not at their best. Now this doesn't mean excusing unacceptable behavior, and just putting up with things that are, for instance harmful. But it does mean recognizing that none of us are perfect. And just seeing, if you can bring a bit more acceptance to that. Three, make the choice to forgive.

Now, forgiveness is not meant at all to negate, deny or minimize what happened. It's simply the choice to let go of carrying the hostility we're hanging on. So that's the invitation for today. If you find yourself feeling a grudge towards another person, make understanding, accepting, and forgiveness your intention. For as you let go of resentment towards another, you find greater peace within yourself.

As always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And let's settle in for today's meditation.