It is interesting to observe with coaching clients how questions that ask them to be REALLY intentional about their way forward helps to facilitate their direction.

I have a couple of thoughts that I would to offer. The first comes from Peter Senge, a moment of awareness, and is something that I regularly use (with productive outcomes) when mediating.

What is gong on right now?
What do you want right now?
What are YOU doing to prevent yourself from getting what you want?

Second is the good old finger of blame (the clenched fist with one finger accusingly pointing forward). The question is quite simple, how many fingers are pointing forward, how many are pointing backwards. It sometimes prompts thinking along the lines “Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?”

I also agree with Dale about systems language: my belief is that a well formed question can be a change event in its own right. The challenge is to ensure we use the right words to evoke the change.

I say this because we may be making assumption about the impasse of the conflict. The basic issue may be pride; in my experience it is often about not seen to be losing. However, I don’t know until I ask. Nancy Kline’s ‘Time to Think’ is a good study in this area.

Was your question, “Why should I be curious about the other person….” in this context meant to be rhetorical? It sounds as though you are supporting the view that helping people gain insights into how grudges work for them and reflect meaning for them is what really matters in understanding their grudges? And not also, understanding the impact of carrying grudges on others. Do I have that right?

Why should I be curious about the other person, or about processes that enable me to learn and move forward while the grudge I bear colours my motives, decisions and behaviours?

And grudges are fascinating. People carry around the most bizarre grudges, sometimes trivial, sometimes not. Many grudges are decades old and some are still green, only just finding their feet and the power they can wield. And what power it is.

Caring grudges has resonance on two fronts, it seems to me.

In my book Grudgeology I am exploring how we actually care deeply for our grudges and they pay us back in return.

Secondly, behind the grudge stories we tell are often very sensitive origins that speak of commitment, love and regard, of shared hopes that failed to materialise, and the disappointments, manifesting as wounds, that remain.

At the end of the day, and in the words of Sting, if we love our grudge, set them free; free, free, set them free (repeat and fade)