When people suggest to you that you should forgive someone who has wronged you do you think that they’re not living in the real world. “It’s all right for God botherers”, you think, “but the real world is grittier than that.” It goes against everything you feel. That person has wronged you. In your mind the equilibrium has been lost and it’s up to the other person to reset that balance.

However, it may be that they think they’ve done nothing wrong. Maybe you overlaid your relationship with a bond that wasn’t there; you thought you would each put yourself out for the other but in fact the other person saw no such bond, so saw no reason to reciprocate. They might have just assumed you were always that helpful. Perhaps your actions were interpreted as hostile: your ‘joshing’ came across as hurtful.

Your ‘perception’ is actually only yours. Everyone has a different perception and different set of values. In fact the only person you hurt by bearing a grudge is yourself. It feels, though, that that grudge is what is protecting you from getting hurt next time. It’s actually your inner chimp driving that particular feeling.

The chimp is always on the look out for threats; labeling other people as ‘enemies’ or as ‘being in your debt’ appears to be a simple way to keep track of those threats. It’s valuable to be aware of the potential for danger: your inner ‘human’ can use the experience to be a little circumspect next time, maybe, but if you don’t put the barriers up completely you may be able to see beyond the hurtful action to the other person’s inner human.

What’s really important, though, is that you learn to forgive yourself. We’re particularly poor at understanding ourselves. The last place we look for what’s making us unhappy is at ourselves. At some level or other, anger at other’s behaviour is anger at yourself for ‘being so foolish’. How could you let yourself walk into that situation? You must be a coward for not standing up for yourself. I can’t control this feeling of anger I have…someone else has made me do it.

The secret to happiness is to forgive yourself. Let go of the hurt. Be wary if needs be but don’t let a grudge blind you to the beauty around you.

That’s one of the benefits of coaching. It helps clients separate perception from reality, understand where they are causing themselves pain and how to see through that. One client I had said that she didn’t have any friends from school because they ganged up against her. As we talked, though, it turned out that only a couple of classmates – ironically those who were a waste of space anyway – had made some nasty comments. Her real friends were just guilty of not being more obvious in their support. She was actually still in touch with them but her chimp response at the time had coloured her view of her whole time at secondary school. With a little forgiveness we were able to re-frame the whole school experience.

You will never speak to anyone more than you speak to yourself in your head. Be kind to yourself.