by Dr. Lynne Wooldridge

Vernon Howard said, “The truly practical is the also truly spiritual.” The part of us that wants spiritual freedom yearns for useful and workable guidance in navigating our inner world and the world of people. These teachings provide that and much more.
It always struck me when Vernon Howard tried to get through to us how confined our mental and emotional lives are. That describes the state of pettiness perfectly. It means living in a cramped and enclosed inner space that refuses to see anything beyond itself and its own demands and desires. It can be characterized as a personal attitude that constantly focuses on trivial details, often with an insecure or spiteful motive. It’s also associated with overreaction, oversensitivity, self-concern and narrow-mindedness. One common result is that the petty person is literal-minded and consistently misses the forest for the trees. The attitude can also reflect an underlying insistence that the personal self must be a “winner” in every situation. There is a very wrong part of us that actually gets delighted and excited when it can be the intimidator and, even briefly, lash out at a hostile world.
Pettiness is a very common human characteristic; everyone has engaged in petty behavior at one time or another. An amusing example was given in a New Life class recently. A student who does a lot of driving for work said before he starts out for the day, he feels like broadcasting a message over a loudspeaker telling everyone to “get off the road because here I come!” Everyone laughed but also realized it was a perfect description of how the “entitled” false nature operates.
Here’s a valuable experiment to use when you go to the store, when you’re interacting with people in the office, when you’re driving your car, when talking with friends and acquaintances, and when you’re all alone and are miffed or upset about a particular person or situation. Watch how much petty behavior you can catch both in yourself and in others when just casually observing.
You won’t have far to look. Here’s a list of some of them.
That hard look from another driver
The toss-away remark that’s really a thinly veiled insult
Behavior on the part of a so-called “friend” to get revenge for a perceived slight
Using sarcasm to score a social advantage over someone
Holding a grudge
Refusing to let go of inconsequential matters
Blowing a minor inconvenience way out of proportion
Take the use of sarcasm to put someone down or to get some sort of an advantage over them. Know that you’ve won in this way hundreds, maybe thousands of times but have come away with nothing of permanence. The temporary thrill wears off, and the ritual begins again perhaps with a new target. There is nothing in this outcome that nurtures the right part of you. On the contrary, when letting the pettiness infiltrate the mind and emotions, the crabby, peeved state is strengthened and hardened inside.
People can hold petty grudges against someone else for years and absolutely refuse to let go of the animosity directed toward that other person. Grudges create tension and hard feelings. Vernon warned us to never hold a grudge because it poisons the spirit. It also painfully and unnecessarily ties you to a person or situation that is no part of this present moment where there is real life.
This work is a process of letting go, letting go of every attitude and behavior that confines, limits and puts boundaries on the inner essence, the essential you. Recognize that petty revenge thought when it comes up in the mind and say a resounding NO to it. Catch yourself about to make the pointed, snippy remark and stop yourself. By the way, Remain Silent is our annual exercise for 2026. Just think of all the trouble and bad will that could be avoided if we simply remained quiet at the right time.
Sharing the pain is also a popular pastime. When someone else is petty toward you, remember that they are hurting themselves by trying to make you feel what they’re feeling. And if they do succeed, realize that work to rise above the old defensive, retaliatory nature is what will break the spell of the attack. Leave their badness with them because that is where it belongs.
Work with the higher principle that the power of choice has been given to us. If we suffer from anything, we are choosing to suffer. I was recently in a waiting room and picked up a popular magazine. There was a story inside that was most unusual. It was about a well-known woman who had lost her husband of many years and was very depressed. She met another woman at a social function who had lost both her husband and a young daughter and asked her how she was able to remain so cheerful. The lady said she had made a conscious decision to not waste the rest of her life in sadness and grief, but to rise above it and to enjoy the rest of her time here on earth. What a rare and refreshing statement to make, especially in today’s social climate where suffering is being elevated to an art form. The power of choice is always with us, no matter what the situation. Use it to put an end to the hardening process that makes us become permanently fixed, frozen and very unhappy inside.
When we let go of the self-concern at the core of pettiness and many other negative states, an entirely new world will appear, one in which there is lightness of spirit and a realization that we are being taken care of and protected by a power a million miles above this physical world.