In A Course in Miracles it says we can have a grievance or a miracle but we can’t have both. We can either identify with harm that was done to us, or with our capacity to move beyond it. In either case, future circumstances that confirm that we were right. Whichever perspective we choose to give power will greatly influence what happens next.
Sometimes victimhood becomes our schtick, however subtly, and in today’s world there’s lots of support for that. The belief is frequently introduced into our consciousness that we will forevermore be defined by past traumas. We then surrender to our own diminishment and weakening by enrolling in the thought that whatever damage that was done to us is now part of who we are.
Enlightenment - or miracle-minded thinking - changes that, shifting our self-perception from body-identification to spirit-identification. The body can be hurt, even destroyed, but the spirit cannot. The spirit is unaffected by anything in the past except love that was given and received. To recognize this heals both body and soul, re-minding us that nothing but love can permanently affect us.
And what of our wounds?
They will constrict our hearts or open them; the choice is ours.
Our wounds become sacred wounds, when we allow them to be portals to greater understanding and compassion. I can focus on what I didn’t receive as a child, or I can focus on making sure that children in my midst today receive the blessings I did not. By choosing the latter, I’m not only changing someone else’s childhood, I am also changing my experience of my own. That hurt part of my consciousness, now flooded with love for someone else, will shift from victim to victor, crucifixion to resurrection, weakness to strength, and pain to joy.
To forgive is to enter the present without bringing what A Course in Miracles calls “shadow figures” from the past. This releases the present and future to be unlike the past, recalibrating our destiny like a cosmic reset that releases new beginnings. Forgiveness is an act of love because it recognizes someone’s innocence despite the evidence of their guilt. It releases a power that is stronger than fear. It is not a weakness; it is strength.
