How To Stop Being Vindictive

What does it mean to be vindictive?

Vindictive is essentially a fancy way to say someone is vengeful. Being vindictive means you are inclined to pursue revenge against others. It can be a dangerous way of thinking and it’s important to resolve and overcome your feelings if you struggle with this.

Vindictiveness can consume people and harm their mental health. On the other hand, overcoming it allows for recovery and inner peace.

Why is being vindictive a bad thing?

Being full of a drive for vengeance can take its toll on your mental and physical health. It’s a burden that people unnecessarily carry when they make the decision to become preoccupied with revenge. Most often, vindictive people are not helping themselves when they pursue vengeance.

What to do if you are vindictive or vengeful

It is important to know that if you are indicative but you want to overcome this then you’re automatically on the right path. It is not impossible! Here are some ways that can decrease vindictive tendencies.

1. Forgive

The path of forgiveness is the first point here for a reason. This is the most honorable way to overcome your vindictiveness. It is also one of the most genuine and effective ways to move past your feelings and grow. In reality, the person you feel wronged by may not have intended to wrong you. They may have grown or even regretted it. Even if they did intend it or they don’t regret it, find it in yourself to forgive. You may not know what they were thinking but you can take ownership of your ability to simply let them off with what they did.

Forgiveness doesn’t have to mean forgetting; you can remember what happened to you and use it to prepare for future situations. The goal of this is simply to be able to be okay with what happened and be okay with what the other person did. You don’t have to make yourself like it, just forgive it.

2. Understand your emotions and why you feel wronged

Vindictiveness presents itself via a series of emotions. Take the time to understand why you feel wronged (i.e. what exactly the other person did) and why you feel what you do. Do you feel anger? Why? Understand this and use your knowledge to counter it. For example, you may feel anger because someone insulted you. What is it about the insult that angers you? Once you understand this you may realize that the solution need not be revenge.

It is important to also let your emotions flow once you’ve acknowledged them. Resisting emotions carries with it the risk that they will simply become stronger. For example, if you feel hurt, take a few minutes a day to really understand this and then allow the hurt to flow. If you need to cry, do so. This can be surprisingly relieving.

3. Take it as a lesson but don’t let it bother you

If something is making you spiteful and bitter it is important to learn a lesson from what happened. This does not mean overreacting next time it happens but it does mean setting boundaries and preventing such a situation from happening again. What you should do is separate the memories and lessons of what happened from the emotions attached to it. Learn from the past but do not let it bother you, upset you or whatever else.

Think of something that makes you vengeful (or any emotionally charged memory) as a piece of paper. Imagine yourself splitting the paper in half. One side is the emotion attached to the memory and the other side is what you learned from it. What you learned should be objective data (i.e. it doesn’t cause you any emotion, you just learned from it). Imagine yourself ripping the paper in half and throwing out the emotional side but keeping the lesson side.

4. Understand that taking care of yourself is the best revenge

Seeking revenge can be harmful to your own mental and physical health. Anger, rage and vengeance consume time and energy you could be using to care for you. One of the most “decent” and “noble” ways to get revenge is by simply focusing on yourself and directing your energy towards self-betterment. This way no one gets hurt because of you, you don’t do anything you might regret and you gain from an otherwise negative situation. Use your anger to better yourself. Let your own happiness be your response to this injustice.

5. Look at the bigger picture (not everything is a big deal)

Did someone wrong you? How big of a deal is it? Will it matter in 5 months? 5 years? 30 years? When we look at the bigger picture we may often see that many of the things people obsess over are really not worth giving even a minute of our time to. No matter how big it may seem, it probably doesn’t matter that much. Even if it does, time will most likely show you that it doesn’t.