Degrudging myself one feud at a time
A link to the sites and sounds of this week's podcast appearances and a look under the hood with a psychologist who explains the costs that come with holding a grudge.
I did some talking this week so let’s provide some links before we get to me and my continuing quest to give up the grudges that have held sway over my life.
First, my weekly appearance with Mitch Levy on Mitch Unfiltered:
Then there’s the Say Who? Say Pod, which this week features Tony Castricone. He’s the play-by-play voice of the Washington Huskies, and while we didn’t make him critique his call of the decisive play in Washington’s victory over Oregon that wound up happening and I did my best to explain why I enjoyed that call specifically and his presentation in general.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time over these past two years thinking (and writing) about grudges. More specifically, my tendency to hold them.
Much of this dates back to the anger I held toward my stepfather. I was hurt. I suffered a wound, and that wound didn’t heal right, and it became a template for how I handled being wronged. I held onto it.
The most public manifestation of this tendency was the way I felt about Dave Mahler, whom you might better know as Softy. I written about that before, but I’ve also subsequently spoken to Dave and hope that we’ve squashed any lingering animosity between us. I appeared as a guest on his radio show earlier this year.
My column in Seattle Magazine focused not so much on what made me mad, but why I stayed mad, and more importantly, how I came to understand the negative impact this was having upon me.
One of the people I spoke with for the column was Amy Mezulis, who is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is based in Seattle, teaches at Seattle Pacific University and is the co-founder of Joon Care, which seeks to support the mental health of teens and young adults.
She explained some things that I found very helpful, starting with her response to a question about whether there could be a healthy or even harmless grudge.