My favorite lesson in A Course in Miracles is Lesson 68:

“Love holds no grievances.”

That one sentence is so valuable to me. Because for years and years, I was such a grievance holder.

Judge, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge, judge.

That was the tune I sang all day long.

If we sit quietly with ourselves for a moment, many of us will recognize that same melody in our own minds. The replay loop. The list of who did what to whom. The case we’ve been silently building for years.

ACIM tells us something we may not want to hear:

“Love holds no grievances.”

Which means every grievance we hold is a moment we’ve stepped out of Love.

Not because someone else made us. Because we made the choice.

This is hard to take in at first. We choose to keep our grievances. Even though they cause such pain. They feel like protection. They feel like proof. They feel like the only thing standing between us and being taken advantage of all over again.

But here’s what’s actually happening: the grievance keeps the pain alive in us. It doesn’t punish the other person. It punishes the one carrying it.

Here’s something that’s helpful to understand: I was very protective of my loved ones. I had to learn, and to heal, the part of me that thought anybody needed protection. The part that always saw an attacker. The part that was always ready to defend.

Giving up the attack. Giving up the defense. It’s been a journey.

What I can tell you is that releasing the grievances felt impossible at first and then it became wonderful.

It became light. It became clear. It became free, and so did I.

If we’re tired of holding the same grievances against the same people, year after year, we don’t have to keep carrying them. Love holds no grievances. And as we lay them down, we discover Love was waiting for us underneath the whole time.

THIS SATURDAY:  If you’ve got some grievances you’d like to lay down before Mother’s Day, please join my FREE Forgiveness Workshop on Saturday, May 9. We’ll work it out together.

NEW PODCAST EPISODE:  The Friend You Forgot  What if the very thing I love most is the thing that’s hurting me? I sat with Chapter 26, Section 6 of A Course in Miracles this week, and one sentence grabbed my interest. I share the story of my own bottoming-out moment – when something I’d poured years into didn’t go the way I hoped – and what I had to learn the hard way about attachment, illusion, and the friend I’d forgotten I already have. Why does almost everything we strive for eventually disappoint us? And what does it actually take to stop digging up the seed before it has time to grow? Listen with me on Episode 736.