Don’t Hold Onto Grudges

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

This week, we talked quite a bit about the horrible, horrible complications of drug abuse. With somebody that was close to my family passing away this week due to an opioid overdose, it got me to think about the different ways in which that person found themselves in that position. One of them is that this person couldn't let go of grudges. One of the worst possible things that you could do with your life is to hold on to a grudge. To keep yourself from moving forward in your life because you're holding something against another person.

Now, I hear you. There are a lot of really bad people out there. There are a lot of people who wrong others in so many ways, and there's probably been quite a few people who've wronged you in some way. But the thing is, holding on to grudges doesn't really hold hurt the other person. Doesn't hurt the other person at all.

What it really hurts is you. It keeps you from focusing on what's important. When you're holding on to a grudge, when you're holding on to heat in your heart, it keeps you from focusing on the good things in your life, your family, your good friends, the people who love you and who care about you. And a lot of times, it keeps you from getting more of those people into your life. If you're holding on to a grudge, you're not focused on helping yourself, you're just focused on tearing the other person down.

And when it keeps you from focusing on yourself, that's the most damaging part. It keeps you from doing things that could put yourself into a better position. It keeps you from taking care of yourself. It keeps you from moving forward in your career, moving forward with your business, moving forward with your life because you're so focused just on tearing the other person down and you're not focused on pushing yourself forward. And this way, it keeps you from ever improving, keeps you from ever getting better, keeps you from becoming stronger, and it puts you into a position of constant weakness because your hate is your Achilles heel.

Anything that person does, anything that person does with his or her life, they're making their lives better, that's that's an affront against you. And so with every event and everything that happens, you take it as a scar or a bruise. It's not the way to live your life. The way to live your life is by focusing on allowing yourself to become better, by focusing on pushing yourself to become stronger, by focusing on bringing success to your life and to those who are around you. Grudges don't add value.

Hate doesn't add value. Work and dedication to a real purpose, that's what adds value to a life. So what I'm talking about here, it sounds true. Right? It does.

It definitely sounds true. And you're probably agreeing with it, but you're probably telling yourself, well, this still happened. This person wronged me in this way or or this thing happened. Right? Maybe your sibling didn't treat you the way you wanted to be treated when you were younger.

Maybe an ex girlfriend cheated on you and ran away with your best friend. Those things are are damaging. Right? You hold on to those things. But how do you get over them?

And the truth is that the way you get over them is to stop focusing on that other person and to start focusing on yourself. Do things to make yourself better. Get yourself fit. Go out there and train. Get out there and start doing things to make yourself smarter.

Reading, taking classes, working at things. Because the fact is that when you hold on to a grudge, what you're really looking for isn't to tear down the other person because obviously, you sitting there and hating that other person really isn't going to do anything to them. What you're really looking for is attention. And by constantly putting your attention on that other person or on that group of people who might have wronged you in some way, you're constantly putting yourself into that mode as the victim. And the key here is to start paying attention to yourself, to what you really want out of life.

And so, when you do things like training, getting out there and exercising, improving your body, improving your mind, doing things to make yourself more successful. Those things take your mind off of that other person and onto things that can construct. Because when you become successful, that allows you to get into a position where you can make other people successful, where you can add value to other people's lives. And that in turn can bring new and valuable relationships to you. People who are going to support you, people who are going to push you to become better, people who are going to depend on you for leadership.

And that's where you get that attention and that power that you crave. You don't get it by sitting there and putting yourself into a bad mood because this other person did one thing or this other person did that. You get it by bringing value to this world and to other people's lives, but that starts by bringing value to your life. So at the end of the day, what I'm trying to say in this very short recording is that the only thing that ever comes out of a grudge is a life of bitterness, a life of feeling like you have a hole in the middle of your chest that can't ever be filled. And the only way that you can fill it is by letting go of that grudge and then pushing yourself to become better.

I hope that all this makes sense to you. And you're more than welcome to send me questions. You're more than welcome to talk to me about it. And if you want to talk to us about it on the community, I started a new group. It's called the Warrior Soul Podcast on Facebook.

You can head over to that group, and that's where we'll be discussing what we learned from these sessions here on the Warrior Soul Podcast. If you're new to the podcast, just a couple of things before I close. Number one, thank you for listening. The reason why I put this podcast together is to deliver tools, tactics, and strategies to The US military veteran community to help to make their lives better. And I do this because of the rising rates of veteran suicides and homelessness and chronic disease, and because I served as a US Marine, and I got sick and tired of watching my brothers and my sisters go down these dark roads.

So what I try to do here is present solutions. I don't try to raise awareness about these issues. I try to present real solutions that you can use after every episode. If you learned something, if you found something that was helpful, all I ask is that you share these episodes out and that you write us a written review on iTunes. It really helps to spread the word about the show and about this movement.

Finally, I just wanna say that this podcast would not be possible without the good people at F Bomb Nutrition. They make awesome delicious packets of macadamia nut butter, mix them up with chocolate, with sea salt, with pecan butter, and they've just released a new product. They're Cheese Crisps. They flavor them with buffalo, with chili lime. Really delicious.

Go check them out at www.dropanfbomb.com. Use the code Warrior Soul at checkout to get 20% off of your first order. And to catch up on past episodes of the Warrior Soul podcast, you can head over to www.warriorsoulagoge, that's agoge.com. And you could find all of our past episodes, our merch, and our blogs. With that, I'll be back to you this coming Monday, Christmas Eve with an awesome interview with mister Remi Adeleke, US Navy SEAL and actor who just had an amazing role in the movie Transformers: The Last Knight.

Till then, get out there and live your best lives while you can.