Love Trumps Hate: Why And How You Should Release Grudges & Anger

It’s common to want to hold onto anger and negative feelings and thoughts after someone wrongs you; feeling upset by a hurtful situation is natural and often a part of the healing process. However, if these emotions remain strong and linger over time, they could have negative effects on your emotional and even physical health. 

Many people believe that love trumps hate and anger, but find it hard to let go of the pain of being wronged. In cases like these, there are some strategies that may help a person move toward acceptance, forgiveness, and even love. Below, learn how holding on to feelings of anger and hate can impact you, plus suggestions for releasing them—from reframing the situation and practicing mindfulness to working with a therapist.

What does it mean to hold on to anger, hate, resentment, or a grudge?

Anger, hate, resentment, and grudges are feelings you may have toward someone who has wronged you. Naming your feelings may help with emotional awareness and emotion regulation, so it can help to understand each of these:

• Anger is “an emotion characterized by tension and hostility arising from frustration, real or imagined injury by another, or perceived injustice.”
• Hate is “a hostile emotion combining intense feelings of detestation, anger, and often a desire to do harm.”
• Resentment is “a feeling of bitterness, animosity, or hostility elicited by something or someone perceived as insulting or injurious.”
• A grudge is “a feeling of deep-seated resentment or ill will” toward a particular person.

All of these emotional experiences can be related, and each one has the potential to result in harm to you or another person if it’s not meaningfully addressed. 

The potentially harmful effects of holding onto anger or hate

The point he’s making is clear: Keeping anger blazing in your mind or heart doesn’t do anything to the person you’re angry with. Instead, you’re the one who feels the pain and experiences the negative effects. Strong, persistent anger can negatively impact mood, daily functioning, and relationships. It could also contribute to mental health conditions like depression, and nursing a grudge may even impair your cognitive skills. 

Also, a 2024 study indicates that frequent anger may increase your risk of coronary heart disease—likely because anger triggers the body’s stress response, which releases cortisol. While adaptive in the moment, a chronic stress response can harm the body.

Why is it so hard to let go of angry feelings?

Many people realize that holding on to anger and hostile feelings over the long term may affect overall health, but evidence shows that many do it anyway. According to Forbes, nearly 70% of Americans report holding at least one lingering grudge—and that roughly the same percentage believes that holding a grudge is bad for your health. So why can these feelings be so hard to let go of? 

Why the brain prefers certainty and blame when you feel hurt

One theory for why it’s hard to let go of a grudge is that it may boost our own self-image as part of the threat response, albeit in an unhealthy way. A 2021 study identified feelings of “moral superiority” and a “need for validation” as crucial components of holding a grudge. Some people also feel as though releasing their anger would be letting the other person “off the hook” in some way. 

As discussed above, while it may feel like self-protection, this attitude is often counterproductive. Clinging to feelings of resentment might help you feel a bit better in the moment because they can impart a sense of certainty, but the evidence suggests it will make you worse off in the long run due to the chronic stress it can cause.

Forgiveness vs. reconciliation: a note about boundaries

Releasing anger or a grudge doesn’t mean approving of what happened. Instead, it’s about processing your anger and transforming it into something that doesn’t harm you.

Forgiveness sometimes develops alongside reconciliation, which is when you and the person who wronged you work together to repair the harm caused to your relationship. However, reconciliation is not feasible, desirable, or even safe in every situation. It can be possible to practice forgiveness and choose love while maintaining boundaries with the person who hurt you to prevent further harm.

If you’re struggling to move forward after being hurt, an online therapist can provide emotional support and coping skills.

Tips for cultivating acceptance or love instead of hate

While it’s fairly easy to understand how harmful a grudge can be on a conceptual level, overcoming it emotionally can be a more difficult task. Some of the suggestions below may be helpful. 

Try to accept your feelings without judgment

For many people, a crucial first step in letting go of anger is accepting it instead of trying to fight it. Rather than being harsh with yourself about your angry feelings, it may be helpful to acknowledge their existence with nonjudgment—which a mindfulness practice can help you cultivate—and watch them potentially subside peacefully over time.

Resist the urge to ruminate

It’s not uncommon to mentally fixate on the things you dislike about someone who has wronged you, or to replay the situation in your head again and again. Psychologists call this behavior “rumination,” and it may play a role in maintaining unhealthy anger. Studies indicate that rumination and the intrusive thoughts it can create may lead to elevated stress markers in a person’s body. If you find yourself slipping into rumination, try to avoid judgment and instead consider simply making the conscious choice to focus on something else. 

Practice forgiveness

Another potentially effective tactic for releasing anger and improving your health is forgiveness. Research suggests that actively working toward forgiveness after being wronged may help decrease symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Again, it’s possible and can be healthy to maintain firm boundaries with the person who wronged you, even if you’ve chosen to let yourself practice forgiveness. If someone has abused you, for instance, you can forgive them by working toward eventually releasing your resentment, but also never putting yourself in a situation where they could harm you again. You have the right to make your safety and well-being your top priority.

If you or a loved one is experiencing abuse, contact the Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Support is available 24/7.

Reframe the situation

A technique called “compassionate reappraisal” may help with the process of letting go of negativity. The idea is to find a different way to think about the situation that caused your hostile feelings—like thinking of any positive things that came from a negative experience, such as something you learned. Or, it could involve considering the perspective of the person who wronged you—not justifying their behavior, but recognizing them as a flawed and suffering human who made bad choices. Either or both of these approaches may help you choose love over hate moving forward. 

Focus on what matters to you

If it’s true that we hold on to grudges as a way to puff up our own egos, choosing love instead may require other sources of self-esteem. Many have found that focusing on their deeply held values helps them rebuild a healthy sense of self, an approach known as self-affirmation. You might begin by simply writing down a list of the things that matter most to you in life, like: 

• Close, loving relationships
• New experiences
• Self-improvement
• Creative expression
• Helping others
• Learning new things
• Building a career
• A rich spiritual life

Many people find that just writing down their core values helps them feel more in touch with their own self-worth and identity. 

Put your energy into positive relationships

Another way to prove that love trumps hate is to express love toward others. When you’re having trouble letting go of someone you feel anger or hatred toward, you might focus on investing more time and energy into the positive relationships in your life.

How to regain calm when you feel a spike of anger or hate

When you feel hate or anger starting to build, trying some emotion regulation strategies can help you manage it and avoid acting in ways you may regret. A few practical steps to consider include:

1. Find a way to relax your body. Breathing exercises, grounding techniques, and relaxation exercises may help you do a quick de-escalation and “body reset.”
2. Name the feeling. You can use mindfulness to identify and precisely label the emotion you’re feeling (“betrayed,” "violated," "pressured," etc.) without judgment, which research suggests may help reduce the intensity of the emotional response.
3. Remove yourself from the situation, even temporarily. Stepping away to a place where you can pause for a moment by yourself can give you the space to let the emotion pass.
4. Express anger constructively. While it may not be safe or helpful in every situation, it can sometimes be productive to then verbally express (calmly but firmly) to the other person involved why you feel angry as a first step toward accountability, positive communication, and conflict repair.

When to get help for persistent anger or hatred

If you’re struggling to tolerate or release strong feelings, like anger or hatred, it may be time to reach out to a therapist. Seeking professional support for anger management or emotional regulation can be a sign of strength. 

Your provider can help you understand where these feelings are coming from (such as low self-esteem, past trauma, a mental health condition, etc.) and develop strategies to manage them and meet your own needs. If necessary, they can also help with safety planning and related resources.

It’s often recommended that you seek the support of a therapist if:

• Your anger is affecting your relationships
• Your anger is affecting your work or daily functioning
• You feel unsafe or at risk of causing harm

If you need urgent support, you can contact the 988 Helpline or Crisis Text Line for free, 24/7.

How therapy may help you release anger and hatred

A therapist can use a number of different therapy modalities to help you redirect your anger, shift your perspective, and improve emotional regulation, such as:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which teaches clients to recognize and shift distorted thought patterns
• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), which uses mindfulness to help clients develop distress tolerance skills
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which encourages mindful, values-based action in response to frustrating situations 
• Compassion-focused therapy, which helps clients cultivate self-compassion instead of shame in order to improve emotional regulation

Exploring online therapy

Online therapy can be a more convenient way to get support from a therapist, whether you’re looking to learn DBT skills for anger management or mindfulness skills for emotional regulation. With BetterHelp, you can meet with a licensed therapist virtually, via phone, video, or chat. Since there’s no commuting required, this format is convenient and accessible, and it can make it easier to keep up with your care plan.

Research suggests that web-based therapy is often just as effective as meeting with a counselor face-to-face. Specifically for strong emotions, one study suggests that four weeks of online therapy aimed at anger management “resulted in significantly lower levels of outward anger expression, aggression, and anger rumination.”