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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 3. 3-21-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 3
3 The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it is. For having been made real to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and by withdrawing your investment in it, to learn to let it go. No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. Yet the attraction of guilt has value to you only because you have not looked at what it is, and have judged it completely in the dark. As we bring it to light, your only question will be why it was you ever wanted it. You have nothing to lose by looking open-eyed, for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind. This host of God can have no real investment here.

Journal
Because guilt as a tool to control relationships is so common and so automatic, we must learn to recognize it and to recognize that guilt is not part of love and has no value. Looking at the part guilt plays in relationships, the first thing I notice is that guilt always stems from fear. Without fear, guilt would no longer have any value and thus would not be part of our thought system.

I thought about the use of guilt in the parent/child relationship. I wonder if any parent has avoided this behavior altogether. My parents certainly used guilt and used it frequently. They were afraid for me and so used guilt to control my behavior. They were afraid they would let something happen to me and this fear was very strong so it seemed to justify guilt as a parenting tool. They never considered this an error, and in fact, I expect they thought it was good parenting, certainly necessary.

When my kids were young, I did the same thing. Even after I became a student of the Course and was learning to recognize guilt in all its forms, I still fell back into the habit at times. At other times, the use of guilt became subtler and not as easy to see. Guilt has been a hard habit to break. I see that I still believe in it because I catch myself making guilty or feeling guilty. It astounds me, really, that I have such an attachment to it.

I have stopped trying to reason with myself about making myself guilty and making others guilty and then trying not to feel guilty or see the other as guilty. I simply accept that it is harming me and that I want to let it go. I know that guilt is not part of God and therefore it is not real. If I believe I am guilty, then I must believe I am not part of God. I know that I am part of God and so I must not be guilty.

In fact, if God is not guilt, then He did not extend guilt as part of creation, so guilt must not be real. It must be something I made up, perhaps an unintended consequence of choosing to experience something unlike God. Since it is unreal, I don’t have to believe in it. I can change my mind about anything I made simply because the power that made it is still in me. I have the power to undo what I made.

What would happen to my relationships if I no longer had guilt as a tool? I would have to rely on love instead. The ego mind is so attached to guilt that it has stopped believing in the power of love. This is why I have found it necessary to let go of guilt slowly. For instance, I used to use guilt in the way my parents did.

My child would do something wrong and in my fear, I would try to stop this behavior by making the child feel bad about what they did. At first, I had no other tool and so it seemed reasonable. But later as I began to let go of guilt, I felt helpless without it. I had to learn to trust my Inner Guide to show me how to use love instead.

Here is an example. My granddaughter was watching TV while I did some work in the other room. I went into the kitchen for something and saw that she had just poured the cleaner for my glasses out. I asked her why on earth she would do that, and she didn’t seem to have an answer. I asked her how she expected me to clean my glasses now.

That statement was an effort on my part to get her not to do this kind of thing by making her feel guilty for doing it. Jeez. I walked away for a moment allowing my mind to clear, and to allow Spirit to send me guidance. When I came back into the room, I noticed that she had been watching a YouTube of someone her age making concoctions and immediately realized that it had been the source of inspiration for dumping the eyeglass cleaner. She was about to give it a try for herself.

I said, “Oh, I see why you are doing this. It makes sense now.” She was clearly relieved that I understood. I then told her that I could see why it would seem interesting to try it herself but she would have to resist the urge, and next time she would need to talk to me about it first to see what was acceptable. This was the way to use love to handle the situation and it felt so much better than using guilt.

The more often I have done this, the easier and more natural it has become. My goal is to move from disrupting guilt one situation at a time to giving up the belief in guilt altogether. I am getting closer to my goal and I am grateful for the Inner Guide that helps me to recognize the use of guilt and that shows me how love is a better option.

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