The most expensive thing we own?

As a teenager in the 90s, I was lucky to have access to some of amazing music. And heavy metal and grunge were the outlets for me to feel things I didn’t always know how to explain.

Metallica, Pearl Jam, The Chili Peppers and, for the deepest of questions, TOOL.

TOOL has never been everyone’s cup of tea. They’re darker, heavier, stranger, and harder to explain. But that was part of the appeal: their music often felt like emotional archaeology. Heavy on the surface, but underneath there was always some deeper meaning to uncover.

One song that has been resurfacing for me lately is The Grudge.

It asks a question that might allow us to live with less emotional weight and baggage: “What is the most expensive thing we hold onto, that didn’t cost us anything to acquire?”

It’s a grudge.

A grudge is unresolved hurt we keep carrying, often disguised as protection, justice, or proof that we were wronged. It’s the clinging to something that no longer serves us. And the problem (as the band suggests) is that we often wear that grudge “like a crown”. We hold onto it so much that it becomes our identity.

And the simple advice that we should “let go” is the right way forward, but that’s not always easy to do.

What does a grudge actually cost?

First of all, a grudge costs us energy. It’s mentally expensive because it keeps the event active. Every time we replay the conversation, imagine the comeback, retell the story, or rehearse the injustice, our body reacts as if the threat is happening again. The moment may not be in front of us anymore, but our nervous system struggles to tell the difference. That’s why grudges are exhausting. They create emotional noise.

They also cost us presence. A grudge pulls the past into the present. We might be having dinner with our kids, sitting in a meeting, trying to sleep, or driving home, but part of our attention is still stuck in that old moment. And that’s a heavy hidden cost. A grudge can steal attention from the life we’re actually trying to live.

And finally, grudges can cost us identity. This is important. Sometimes we linger onto a grudge because they help us preserve a story about ourselves. Perhaps we feel we were wronged or someone betrayed us, or we swear that we will never let that happen again. Some of those stories may contain truth, but if we repeat them for long enough, they become less like evidence and more like identity. And the big question we should be asking ourselves is: Who would we be if we stopped carrying this?

How to let go.

“Let it go” is usually good advice delivered badly. The reason is that our nervous system doesn’t release something just because the mind says it should. (if only it was that easy!)

And a grudge often stays because some part of us still believes it is doing an important job. We feel it could be trying to protect us, or it might even be trying to make sure that we never forget the lesson.

So instead of asking, “Why can’t I let this go?” a better question to ask is what is this grudge trying to protect? Asking that question shifts the tone from shame to curiosity. And it’s also a good one when trying to understand why others might be holding onto a grudge (good for leaders to be thinking about!).

Here are a few ways forward…and to help us “let go”.

1. Name the bill. 

   What is a grudge currently costing us? Something might have happened days, weeks, months, even years ago, but it might still be a recurring invoice. Is it costing sleep? Focus? Trust? Patience? Energy? Joy? Identifying the ongoing tax we’re paying can help move the grudge towards something visible and tangible. We’ll struggle to release what we haven’t named. When we name it to tame it, we begin the process of weakening it’s hold over us.

2. Separate the lesson from the load.

   A lot of people are scared to let go, feeling that it means losing the lesson. But we can move on and learn our lesson without carrying it around with us as excess baggage. What did we learn that we still need, and what did we learn that we no longer need? An example might mean that we need better boundaries, but we still carry the weight of an exhausted (costly) mistake. Keep the lesson. Drop the load.

3. Take one clean step.

   So much of resilience is awareness. It’s an attentive understanding of what is happening and a conscious decision to move forward anyway. That step forward is one of the most powerful things we can do. It’s an ignition and shift from vague emotions to real movement. It doesn’t have to be a massive allocation of energy, but just something to get started. An honest conversation, a boundary set, a decision to not engage next time.

4. Listen more.

   I’ve heard one argument that mental health in men has declined in correlation to the number of rock bands in the top 100. Whether it’s true or not, I cling to that idea because I understand the outlets that music provided me as a young man. And I also know how therapeutic it can be to unleash when an absolute banger comes on. There’s a reason that Pearl Jam’s ‘Black’ is making a resurgence in popularity 30+ years after it was first released. It’s hitting a chord with a new audience who want an outlet in this crazy world. So one thing we can do is to crank the tunes and pay attention to why it resonates.

A grudge may be the most expensive thing we own because the payment is invisible and we often miss the interest accumulating. 

But we certainly feel it. We feel it in our shoulders, our sleep, in the sharpness of our replies and in the stories we keep telling ourselves about people who probably moved on long ago.

So let’s keep the lesson and drop the weight.

Until next time friends, let go and stay resilient.

Carré at Resilient Minds

PS - If you’re so inclined, have a listen to The Grudge

Here are the lyrics:

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate
Desperate to control all and everything
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen

Clutch it like a cornerstone
Otherwise, it all comes down
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end
Clutch it like a cornerstone
Otherwise, it all comes down
Terrified of being wrong
Ultimatum prison cell

Saturn ascends, choose one or ten
Hang on or be humbled again
Humbled again

Clutch it like a cornerstone
Otherwise, it all comes down
Justify denials and grip 'em to the lonesome end
Saturn ascends, comes 'round again
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten
Ignorant to the damage done

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate
Desperate to control all and everything
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen

Wear the grudge like a crown
Desperate to control
Unable to forgive
And sinking deeper

Defining, confining
Sinking deeper
Controlling, defining
And we're sinking deeper

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let's you choose what you will, will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent

Saturn comes back around
Lifts you up like a child
Or drags you down like a stone
To consume you 'til you choose to let this go
Choose to let this go

Give away the stone
Let the ocean take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor
Give away the stone
Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold (gold, gold, gold...)

(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)

(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
(Let go, let go, let go, let go)
Let go!