The Positivity of Grudges

After being inspired by Sophie Hannah’s talk at the 2023 RNA Conference on ‘How to be a Happy and Successful Writer’, I went in search of self-help books by Sophie. I found ‘How to Hold a Grudge‘. The title didn’t inspire me – I was of the mindset that grudges are all about bitterness and negativity but I started reading anyway.

Sophie writes in the same chatty, amusing way that she speaks and the book is very easy reading. And she does not advocate any bitterness or negativity! In a nutshell she advises that when someone acts badly towards us, we should:

Recognise that a wrong has been done to usAcknowledge that we feel angry and/or upset and that it’s OK to feel like thisDo not try to immediately forgive, forget and move onRecord the grudge and learn from it. Simplistic examples of this are: accept that Fred is always late when you arrange to meet and therefore turn up a few minutes late yourself instead of waiting angrily, or learn to stop lending books to Jane because it upsets you when they come back damaged. This learning protects us from future hurt by these people.Having taken the above steps, we will find that the anger, bitterness, and upset we feel towards that person will diminish.

(Apologies to Sophie if I haven’t got the above spot on. There’s a lot more advice in the book than those few bullet points!)

The book is an absolute delight to read – especially the details of some of Sophie’s own grudges which, having learned from them, she keeps in her ‘grudge cabinet’. However I would say that a much better (and more realistic) title for the book would be ‘The Positivity of Grudges’.

I’ve also read (and learned from) Sophie’s more recent self-help book, ‘The Double Best Method‘, which is all about how to make decisions – great for ditherers like me!