Grace VS Grievance

The book "A Course in Miracles" explains that what takes us away from the 'awareness' of grace (because we can never be truly taken away from the reality of it) is a Little thing we do that it calls GRIEVANCE. Essentially, this means that we look at our reality and judge it to be 'not right' in some way.

Grievance can take a great many forms, including complaint, self pity, believing that we need to change things, and trying to take control of events. It can also be found in a great many of the 'new age' philosophies like positive thinking, creative visualisation, 'creating your own reality' and some of the resurrected older philosophies like spell casting. Even the act of praying can be a form of grievance if we are asking the divine to make our life different in some way. That isn't to say that these things are necessarily based in grievance, because we do them naturally all the time. Most everybody finds themselves daydreaming possibilities for their future and motivating themselves to action with bright imaginings of the things to come.

However, usually when people sit down to consciously try to apply these techniques they are doing it because they have decided that something in their world needs to change, that something is not right. So, what's the problem with grievance? Well, this is a classic example of the distorted egoic mind trying to make itself the boss in life. Its attempting to usurp the role of the natural faculties of feelings, intuition and inspiration, which are the ways that grace guides us in life. Through our natural sense of attraction, desire and excitement we are guided to follow the path that is right for us. Through our natural feelings, aversions and pain responses we are guided to avoid that which is harmful to us. When we are aligned with these natural events, we have no need for grievance, no need to resist our reality, because we are able to 'gracefully' respond to it.

It can be hard to tell the difference between grace and grievance because grievance often takes these natural signals and uses them as evidence for its attempt to take control. For instance, if I am in a career that is unfulfilling to me I will feel naturally dissatisfied and want to move towards something else that attracts me more. My distorted ego can take this and turn it into a 'problem' which it has to sort out, rather than allow the normal flow that would bring graceful change. When this happens I have stopped responding and started reacting to the situation, I have stopped trusting in grace.

Tricky isn't it? Do not worry though, 'A course in Miracles' also offers us the sure way to tell the difference, what it calls the test of truth. It states that the truth will always leave you feeling fearless and peaceful. In other words, you can always tell when you are in grievance because it always carries a sense of stress and suffering with it. From a place of grace we know ourself to be powerful and creative. From a place of grievance, we believe ourself to be vulnerable, powerless and at the effect of life.

The obvious question now is how do we return to a state of grace? the first step is to recognise that we are in grievance, and to understand that the suffering we are going through is not because of the situation, but because of the way that we are seeing it. To echo the words of Echarte Toll (in his book 'A New Earth'), "the minute you can recognise that you are insane, you are just a little bit saner".

The second step is to recognise that grievance give me an opportunity to bring love present to my reality. Grievance is the act of resisting reality, which denies the situation the energy that is needed to continue it's natural evolution. There's an old saying, " what you resist persists". I believe that this perfectly defines the effect of grievance. When I judge and resist my reality I am attempting to create distance between it and me. I do this because I believe that reality has the power to threaten and harm me. While ever I believe myself to be less powerful than the situation, I negate my natural creative resources and give my power away.

The completion of that saying is "what you embrace, evolves". When I meet my reality with love, I transform the consciousness in myself that is bringing that reality into being. I rediscover my power and I am once more aligned with my natural resourcefulness and creativity. From this 'grace place' I organically come to understand the lessons and opportunities being presented, and to heal my perceptions of self limitation. When I respond with love I once more recognise that I am the power in this situation.

If the above ideas make sense to you this naturally leads to the question of "how do we respond with love"? There are many forms of love, but one of the most powerful for me is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a funny thing, the more I do it the more I realise just what I have to be grateful for, which leads me to do it more. I had a very strong experience of the power of gratitude about ten years ago. For over 12 years I had been working in hospitality, of which 11 were spent in a state of grievance and resistance. I hated my job, seeing it as demeaning, unchallenging and beneath my potential. For 11 years I had been unsuccessfully trying to get out of it.

One day I grew tired of constantly complaining to myself and decided that it wasn't really all that bad. I was well paid, worked hours I mostly enjoyed, was making a valuable contribution to other peoples enjoyment of life, and wasn't harming anyone. I resolved to appreciate my work, to be grateful for what it gave me. That day turned out to be my last shift in hospitality. Two days later I found myself working in a completely different field and my life underwent radical change in every area, without me doing a thing. After fifteen years of struggling to 'get out' I discovered that I had to 'get in' before any thing could change. I finally stopped resisting my reality, and it rapidly evolved in directions as yet undreamed by me.

In my next posting I will talk more about how grievance gives us an opportunity to grow, heal and find fulfilment. For now, I'd like to finish with the invitation to see what happens when you stop believing those thoughts of grievance and limitation and meet your reality and yourself with a choice for gratitude, which is another word for an attitude of grace.

Together we rise.

Adam Blanch