From grievance to gratitude

How to play "The Grievance Game"

Photo by Carlos Quintero on Unsplash

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I was in the backseat of my sister's car when I experienced a miracle.

I was in Atlanta for my mother's funeral back in 2015, and we had just picked up my other sister from the airport and were headed back home. That's when the argument began. They started complaining about the president – which, at the time, was Barack Obama. Back and forth they went, airing their grievances against this "secret Muslim" in the White House.

In the past, I would have told them just how wrong they were – armed with political facts that they would refute with right-wing talking points they heard on Fox News. This time, though, was different. I just sat and listened – and became increasingly amused instead of angry and defensive.

On the trip down from South Carolina, I had been listening to A Course in Miracles teacher Marianne Williamson. She reminded me of this axiom from Chapter 17 in A Course: "Only what you have not given can be lacking in any situation."

What the situation with my sisters has always lacked has been peace. I was determined to bring peace to our relationship, even if it was just for this short time together as we laid our mother to rest. This moment was my first test.

It was miraculous to behold. Without me fueling their fire of grievance, it quickly burned itself out – a flash in the pan. They agreed with one another and had nothing to argue against, so their grievance tornado lasted only a couple of minutes. When Sturm und Drang died down up front, I finally piped up and redirected the conversation: "So, tell me what's happening with your grandkids."

Off they went telling me about every detail of what their grandkids were up to. We laughed and had a great time all the way back to the house.

This proved for me another teaching from A Course: You can have a grievance, or you can have a miracle, but you can't have both.

Lesson 78 in the workbook puts it this way: "Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And if you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead." [CE W-78.1]

After that incident with my sisters in the car, all I wanted from that moment on was a miracle, and if all it took was to let go of grievances, I was all in. Since then, I have developed a spiritual exercise I call "The Grievance Game."

It's a fairly simple game: Whenever you become aware of your mind beginning to dwell on a grievance – such as a complaint, a criticism of self or another person, a feeling that you've been wronged, or an old situation that still makes you angry or sad, you simply tag it by saying out loud, or thinking to yourself, "Grievance!" and let it go. You refuse to follow it down its grievance rabbit hole.

That's the single rule, but I'll admit, the game can be difficult at times. There are some grievances that we LOVE to wallow around in. They make us feel good. They make us feel superior to others. They make us feel like we're right and others are wrong.

I could not make it the entire time with my sisters without poking the bear once or twice. They'd go at it again, complaining about the president or the state of the world, and I'd toss them a bone – some opposing idea to gnaw on and spit out. Then, I would remember my pledge to be the peace that was missing and let it go, asking them to tell me a memory or two about mom.

Whenever I switched back to giving whatever was missing in the situation, miracles appeared. I heard stories about mom that I had never heard before and I got to see my sisters reminisce about good times. In those moments, they left behind their grievances, and we all experienced the miracle of remembering a love that bonded all of us – our mother's love.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, Martha Beck, in her Gathering Room podcast, says that at the end of his journey through the seven levels of hell, he finally arrives at The Garden of Eden after divesting himself "of all his sins and bad habits and self-recrimination."

"To be fit for Paradise he has to be dunked in both sides of a river,” Beck says. “And on one side, it makes him forget everything he's ever done wrong. And on the other side, it makes him remember everything he's done right. And once he's been in both those places he can remember he's not allowed to have any regrets, but he's also not allowed to forget anything he's done right."

This is the point of The Grievance Game – to rid ourselves of all recrimination against us and others and remember only the things we've done right – only the loving, mindful, thoughtful, and fruitful things that have extended peace and joy into the world.

According to A Course, this is also the essence of forgiveness: "To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten." [CE T-17.III.1:1-2]

The ego protests that is a denial of the real wrongs that others have done to us – or an excuse for bad behavior. It is neither. It is simply an acknowledgement that what we tell ourselves about others and their behaviors is OUR story of what's happening. We don't know the motivations of others or even their intentions. We're completely making up a story about everything we see in the world. If we could absolutely know the intention of another toward us, perhaps we could be justified in holding a grudge or having a grievance, but we don't.

I think the ridiculousness of holding grievances – the miracle that happened to me in the car that night – hit me when I realized that absolutely nothing in the world changes when three middle-aged women bitch about politics on the drive home from the airport. What does change is the dynamic between those individuals. They are either expressing loving thoughts or unloving thoughts – or they are reacting to the expression of loving or unloving thoughts.

Every unloving thought, A Course says, "is an appeal for healing and help … regardless of what form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help?"

Even the person you hate the most because of some perceived slight or injury they have done to you is not beyond redemption. Whatever you perceive as the wrong they have done to you is "an appeal for healing and help." Responding to that unloving thought with anger is never the right answer. Responding with compassion, with healing, with love, is always the right answer.

Squabbling with my siblings over politics only deepens the separation we feel from each other – it produces unloving thoughts that we then internalize and project into the world making a more unloving place for all of us. The miracle here is when one of us (which A Course calls "the sanest one in the moment") hears the appeal for healing and help and answers with a loving thought, word, or deed.

My sisters are concerned about the state of the world, just as I am. They have a right to their opinions, just as I do. What we do not have the right to do, however, is to ignore calls for healing and help. If I fought with them, I would do more damage to us all. By not fighting with them, I offered a chance for us all to heal. The miracle I received was twofold: I saw the futility – and real harm – of unloving thoughts, and I got to spend one of the most delightful times ever with my sisters.

An exercise Beck suggests is to take time to write down everything you can think of that you have done right in your life. Doing so "pushes out the memory of all the things you've done wrong."

This also happens with The Grievance Game. Once I start bemoaning to myself about something my spouse, or someone else, has done – or left undone – I tag the grievance and let it go. Then, I add a step, and remind myself of just how grateful I am that spouse or other person is still here to do those things that cause me to have a grievance in the first place. In that moment of gratitude, I see the "grievance" differently and it becomes a vehicle for being thankful – which is always a miracle.

As A Course says in Lesson 90 of the workbook: "The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle." [CE W-90.1:4-5]

I invite you to try out The Grievance Game this week. Whenever you feel tempted to go down the rabbit hole of some of your favorite annoyances and grudges, stop yourself, quietly tag the thought as a "grievance" and let it go. Then, if possible, do the turnaround, and see how you can flip from grievance to gratitude. I guarantee, you will experience a miracle.

Let me know how it goes!

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Music for the Journey:

“Ordinary Miracle” - Sarah McLachlan

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Past Guest Speaking Gigs:

This is the sermon I delivered at the Unitarian Church in Charleston, S.C., on January 28, 2023. (Stick around at the end to hear my original song, “I Believe.”)

Looking for a guest speaker at your spiritual community? Contact me!

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About the Motley Mystic:

The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution, or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true Divine Self.

Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.