The Grasshopper woke me up with this: “All your grudges die when you do.”

Wow! No more grudges! “But do I have to die for them to die?” was my question.

The answer is “yes” and “no.”

Yes, the energy has to leave our body to die but, no, we don’t have to physically die for the energy to leave a grudge.

Letting a grudge lose its energy will take more than a declaration on your part, but it’s a start. Recognizing that a grudge zaps more energy from you than does digesting Thanksgiving dinner is reason enough to craft a plan for its demise.

Recognizing that your grudge is hurting you more than whomever you’re holding it against is helpful in getting you started on the process. You gain extra credit if you notice that the grudge you’re holding is against someone who’s already dead. When that becomes “laugh out loud funny” to you, you know your grudge is at death’s door.

I don’t have a step-by-step method to offer but I do have one exercise that’s worth practicing. I call it a “Grudge Match.”

You can physically do this exercise or just do it in your imagination. It will have an effect either way.

Write down your grudge on a small piece of paper or draw a picture or symbol that represents your grudge. Next, go to a nearby sink and set fire to the paper and watch what was burning you up, burn up. If you’re afraid of setting the house on fire, do it in your imagination. Again, either way has an effect.

The flames represent the energy necessary to keep the grudge alive. As you watch them die out, your grudge begins to move to the great beyond.

You can be lectured from here to eternity about the sinfulness and ill effects of grudges but that hasn’t worked on you so far, so I offer one little match that has more burning power than Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow.

You’ll probably have to do this exercise more than once to get a lasting effect but the results are to die for.

All the best,

John