I’m not normally the person who gets into conflict.
If you called me a “conflict avoider,” you wouldn’t be wrong. That’s been my MO for most of my life.
Except…
I don’t like being told what to do. Call it a hidden rebellious streak, but when somebody tries to tell me what to do without my permission, my fangs come out.
It’s not an issue in the outside world, but at home? Well…
I live with someone who puts a tremendous amount of thought into the best way to do things, and he likes to share them with me.
Imagine me struggling to get the last drops out of the carton of almond milk, with Olly watching.
“You know you can cut the corners off and it comes out easily,” he says.
It seems he always knows a “better” way. And it’s not the way I’m doing it.
So the next time I’m emptying out the almond milk, I deliberately refuse to cut the corners off the carton. Humphf. I sure showed him!
The thing is, he’s usually right. His way of doing these things is more efficient and effective. My ego just doesn’t like being corrected because it feels like criticism.
I was the one creating the conflict in my mind, keeping score, carefully waiting for Olly to slip up so that I could pounce.
It felt awful.
Since I know that what we do always makes sense, given the thinking that looks real, I knew that had to be going on with me.
But I couldn’t stop until I saw what was really going on.
I thought I needed to rebel to protect myself. Giving up the argument meant being controlled and losing myself.
But that wasn’t true.
In clinging to resentment, I was sacrificing peace of mind just to win some an argument about cartons, dishes, and garbage.
When I saw that clearly, I let it go. For real.
It wasn’t forced. It just made no sense to keep hurting myself.
That shift came to mind at a recent event in London…
One of the participants joked about starting a new business:
Grudge Storage.
Your Grudge gets written up in great detail, and you hand it over for secure storage. You pay a monthly subscription, and you can pick up your grudge whenever you want. Bulk discounts are available for multi-grudge storage, and the heaviness of the grudge determines the price.
“Can you imagine the cost of a grudge to someone like Jeff Bezos?” she said.
Dump your stale, used grudges with us. Walk away with complete peace of mind, knowing you can pick your grudges up whenever you want. (But why would you?)
It was a hilarious concept, but also, strangely accurate. We hang on to resentments like they’re valuables, even though they only weigh us down.
“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”
The truth is, it won’t make sense to drop the fight until you see that it’s the only thing standing between you and peace.
“In order to return to the truth of us, we need only sense the clenched feeling of having left our true self and wandered back into a habit of thought. It’s that simple.
Be still. Let all the mental noise recede, settle down, and dissipate. That’s the door back home. That’s when you remember who you are and where you can experience the oneness with all things that people who have reclaimed their wisdom have been pointing to forever.” – Mavis Karn
I’m glad I finally got it.
Just yesterday, I asked Olly if he knew a good way to squeeze the remaining tomato paste out of the tube.
“Yes! Let me show you,” he said with a grin.
If you’re carrying resentment or anger—at a parent, an ex, or even at life itself—let’s talk.
If it’s peace you’re after, I know the way. And it’s never far.
I’ll be in the U.S. from June 10 – July 8, with stops in New York City, the Hudson Valley, the Tampa Bay area of Florida, and Los Angeles (so far).
If you’d like to explore 1:1 coaching or a small group workshop while I’m in town, just hit reply and tell me where you are. Let’s see what magic we can create together.
Yours in love and play,
Steph
