I’ve been thinking about guilt all week because of my workshop today on Healing Religious Guilt.  One thing I’ve seen for sure from many folks in my life is that it seems impossible to be a parent and not have some guilt.

That’s why I call the prayer at the end of Chapter 5 in the text of A Course in Miracles the parents prayer.  I’m not a parent, but I used to quote it to myself almost daily:

“I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. I want to decide otherwise because I want to be at peace. I do not feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let him. I choose to let him by allowing him to decide for God, for me.”

The first sentence is the doorway:

“I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace.”

Whenever I’m not at peace, this is true. I made a decision somewhere. I decided to judge. I decided to take offense. I decided to interpret something the worst possible way. I decided to assume the past is happening again.

These were all active choices. Not always conscious. Yet active.

If we’re not at peace, we decided not to be.

That’s hard to take in at first. Yet it’s actually liberation. Because if I made the decision, I can make a different one.

Just as actively as I decided to judge, I can decide to release the judgment. Just as actively as I decided to take offense, I can decide to remember the truth about the other person and about myself.

The Higher Holy Spirit Self does the heavy lifting. I just have to be willing.

When I work this prayer in my own mind, I change the pronouns. I say:

“Higher Holy Spirit Self, undo all the consequences of any fearful choice I’ve ever made. Any unloving choice I’ve ever made. Undo them all, in all directions of time and space. I’m willing.”

And then I trust the undoing is occurring, even when I can’t see it yet.

I place my trust in Love.

Here’s the truth: we’re not stuck. We were never stuck. We’re always one decision away from Peace.  We let go of the block to Peace and discover Peace was always there.

The block to Peace is a story we made up.
It’s a story of sin, of lack and attack.
The story has no power unless we invest in it.
That’s the good news.  We can divest ourselves of the stories.
The Higher Holy Spirit Self knows how, all we have to do is be willing.

If you’d like to practice this kind of inner work with me, please join my Healing Religious Guilt Deep Dive Workshop TODAY Saturday, May 16.

TODAY – SATURDAY: Let’s do this together. My Healing Religious Guilt Deep Dive Workshop is TODAY, Saturday, May 16. Many of us are carrying religious guilt we don’t even recognize as religious guilt. It’s just woven into our sense of being “not good enough.” It’s the belief in sin.

New Series: Change Your Mind About the World – with Alan Cohen, James Twyman, Michael Mirdad and Lisa Natoli – early-bird bonuses until May 22nd. Click here for more info.

NEW PODCAST EPISODE:  I Wrote the Script  What if waking up doesn’t have to hurt? This week I’m continuing in one of the most foundational sections of A Course in Miracles – “The Dreamer of the Dream” – and we’re turning from diagnosis to medicine. Why do so many of us secretly dread real spiritual awakening, afraid it would cost us everything? What’s the quieter dream I’ve come to trust the Holy Spirit gives us first, before the bigger waking? And what’s the single question I now ask myself that changed how I meet every painful moment? This is part two of a two-episode arc.