I occasionally come into contact with people who have been taught to “let it all out,” to deal with emotional turmoil and angst held within. If they are angry, they should voice it, the reasoning goes. If they are mad, then they should get mad and be mad, they may argue. They should not keep negativity bottled up within and allow it to choke the life out of them because they are not being honest about their feelings, the logic may state.
I have also seen others severely hurt as a result of this let-loose-approach to whatever bothers one. Plus, the one voicing the evil may start to believe they have permission to say whatever they want to say without regard to how it affects others.
There’s a better way.
Angry emotions, resentments and frustrations can be honestly faced up to and effectively handled without causing harm to one’s neighbor or family members. They can be brought to the surface and moved out of consciousness without making another person a victim of their internal strife.
The “enemy” is never another person. It’s the negative emotion. And negative emotions are best dealt with when they are dissolved, not let loose to cause even more negative emotion in others.
Learning to love more is the solution.
Love is forgiving. Love sees all the good in oneself and in others.
Love is compassionate. Love does not get hung-up on the shortcomings, but sees the blessings, the good to be acknowledged, and then honors it.
Love is honest. It does not suppress anger, harbor frustration or carry resentments. It recognizes them as evil states of thought to be dispensed with promptly and replaced with forgiveness, patience and goodwill.
God is Love, which means love is more than a positive human emotion that may or may not be able to deal with anger. It is a divine power that reigns supreme over anger and wipes it out. Jesus Christ demonstrated this truth on the cross. He was attacked by vicious anger of the carnal mind, but he responded with love, and overcame it all. He did not harbor silent anger at his enemies. He loved them, and love saved him from their evil intent.
Love is what saves us from the evil intent of the carnal mind to bog our thinking down in negative places our thinking does not belong. Anger is not a necessary emotion. It is not a required state of thought that we are helpless to deal with. It is a lie about God’s man, and we all have spiritual power from Christ to dissolve it with love.
So, let your love all out! This is what blesses you and everyone around you. It’s love that masters anger. It’s love that dissolves resentments. It’s love that makes you feel better and sets your thought free from negativity.
This is such a powerful message today! How important it is to keep the LOVE flowing outward!
Thank you Evan!
MarySue Harris
Thank you Evan! I couldn’t agree more. I’ve had discussions with people who advocate that being extremely emotional is a good thing. But it occurred to me that emotions are a lot like fire. A “controlled fire” is a good thing whereas a fire that is out of control is a bad thing.
I have been working over many years to control anger. 99.999% of the time I’m a very calm person. But on very rare occasions someone will do something that makes me get so upset I literally start shaking with emotion. I typically get mad at myself when this happens because I realize it is so stupid to allow myself to get so worked up. But at the same time I have struggled to come up with the truth that will enable me to control my emotions in these cases.
On Monday of this week I had one of these episodes when a project lead at work required me to do something I thought was dumb and would result in project delays. This happened on a conference call fortunately so nobody else had to watch me start shaking with anger. But afterward I sat quietly and just reached out to God asking “what am I missing…what do I need to know to prevent me from having these types of reactions in the future?” At first I got no answer, but I kept at it periodically throughout the day and eventually I heard an angel message saying “Brian, you need to remember that God is in control”. Ah Ha! For me, that was the answer I needed.
After getting that answer I was able to humbly start the task the project leader had asked me to do knowing all the while that God was in control and therefore the activity I was being asked to do must have a good purpose…or…if it wasn’t a right activity I could trust that God would provide a way of bringing that to light. After having partially completed this task, I can now see that it is a right activity and that I was wrong to question being asked to do it.
So another facet of the Love Evan has described in the blog today is the truth that because God, Love, loves us dearly, we can trust that God is in control of every situation in which we find ourselves. I love how Mrs. Eddy used the word Principle as a synonym for God. To me when I think of God as Principle I just get this warm feeling that everything is in harmony, controlled by God. One of my favorite statements from Science and Health is on page 275, and I’ve shortened this statement below to bring out the truth I realized in the episode described above:
The starting-point of divine Science is…that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.
One other point I’d like to make is that it is important to differentiate between reality and unreality. Human experience seems to be a combination of good and bad. For example, I seem to be a spiritual identity that is living in a material world and therefore I’m subject to the chance of experiencing the bad things that sometimes happen in a material world populated with many other minds. But by understanding that in reality there is only one experience, a good, harmonious experience controlled and governed by God and populated with individual identities all reflecting the one Mind, we can realize that experience more and more in our lives. So if somebody wrongs you, you don’t have to love or forgive a “material person with a separate mind that did a bad thing”. But instead you can realize the idea of a person wronging you is not real, not created by God, and therefore instead change your focus to loving the real idea that God created and doing that will enable you to realize (experience) that right idea where previously there appeared to be its opposite. In other words, knowing the truth DOES cause a change in our experience by allowing us to see, or realize, the one creation that God created.
Thanks, Evan. With a cabinet and a union meeting today, I could use the reminder. I hope you know how thankful some of us are that you help us stay on the “straight and narrow.”
Excellent article, Evan! This “dumping” of emotions all over social media is a curious trend. How much kinder, gentler, more intelligent and healing is the idea that man/women/children are not required to act out his their so called human emotions but are truly required to image forth their Father Mother God in all our dealings with others (and with ourselves). Blessings for all.
Beautifully stated, Evan. Thanks so much!
Thanks, Evan! What a Great Topic and not one we usually hear discussed in the C.S. periodicals. Thanks, also, to Brian for so generously sharing his personal experience with anger and how he worked it out. The psychological viewpoint that it’s healthy to feel and express our emotions is something I’ve struggled with a lot! I’ve felt that a lot of C.Sers aren’t very in touch with their real feelings and often “pretend over top” of them that All is Well, God is Love and they don’t have any angry feelings. This always comes across as fake and hypocritical to me! I don’t think anger is an evil state of thought…..it is just a feeling on the human path and we do need to acknowledge it when we feel it. The difference is in knowing what to DO with the feeling. We can feel our anger and then choose not to act on it and to ask God to guide us in the right action. But to “pretend” that we don’t even feel anger would not be honest……most of us just aren’t at that High State of Thought most of the time, as Jesus was! Feeling our feelings is a normal condition of being Human, the spiritual part comes in asking God to help us deal in appropriate ways with our Feelings. Thanks for this Great Topic and for all the Good Comments!
Thanks for pointing this out Bevi. I have been struggling with ill health for some time now, and lately I’m starting to see that for many years now I’ve stuffed down my negative feelings–often suppressing them as incorrect, therefore invalid. Lately I’ve been questioning that. Even with the sense of illness–since I’m trying to pray about it, I feel that I have to stuff down the suffering and put on a good face as best I can, and not let others know what I’m going through lest it interfere with the metaphysical work. There must be a balance some place and I need to find it.
Hi Anna,
I find that openness and honesty are always the best policy. But be wise about who you share with. Will they be supportive? Or will they react negatively and give you even more negative thoughts to deal with.
Suppressing evil thoughts is not healthy. Exposing them and then dissolving them with love and truth is the healthier path. But they can be exposed without causing harm to others. Love finds a way to do the healing work that blesses rather than causes more turmoil and angst.
Putting a “happy face,” on illness can be superficial and dishonest. Just be honest. If I’m not feeling well, and someone asks me about it, “I tell them that I could be feeling better.” I don’t try to hide it and fake it, but I also have no desire for it to be built up larger and larger and give myself more to handle metaphysically. The sooner it’s reduced to its native nothingness, the better! I will tell people who I know will pray with me and help me out with their prayers. I find that very supportive.
I love the photo that goes along with today’s Blog. It lifts the spirit with its bright, sunny, yellow leaves. I used to live on a street that looked like the sun was shining even when it wasn’t. Thanks for the photo as well as the Blog.
GR
thank you. I think in the beginning we need a time when we at least recognize our anger or hurt feelings and not squash them down. We do see that we do not feel much better after letting it all hang out. When I used to get to that point, I would try to pull myself, in consciousness, back from the situation and watch it like a movie, a bad one., sometimes a bad Italian movie .HA ! That distancing helped me to get a grip on my thinking. I think what always impressed me, an still does, is there is more time than I think to respond. Love is important at these moments. But I am still defining what that word means. I used to say What’s the most intelligent thing to do right now? I always got a good idea, even if it meant saying nothing. My peace of mind was restored.
“Love is reflected in love.” It may take time, but I’ve proved that continuing to love in the face of criticism brings harmonious results.
Something I ran into somewhere on JSH online is “don’t react, respond”. There was a lot more to the article but this is the little gold nugget that has enabled me to check myself quickly when tempted to get caught up in a lie; error. Those words have also made it easier to recognize a lie. The instant I feel like reacting is the same instant I know I am headed in the wrong direction. Stop and correct my course until I can respond with love.. Easy-peasy.
Thanks Trula for the mention of the article on JSH online. I went there right away and found the article, by Edwin G Leever. The paragraph 4th from the bottom really says it all, about our demeaner we present to the world. It’s our responsibility to uphold Christian Science to the highest standard, isn’t it?
http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/1985/3/87-12/don-t-react-respond
And thank you Brian for your inspirational message you shared today. And most of all Thank you to Evan for creating and maintaining this blog for all of your followers. It’s the first thing I open each morning, and then I read all the comments from all these lovely readers.
Have a wonderful day everyone!
Thank you Evan! This is so true! I have a more determined resolved attitude to Love my family, my neighbor and all who are out there doing their best to make this world a better place. If it’s raising their children, taking care of family, a co-worker, friend, neighbor, or someone on the street or just plain doing their job to the best of their ability. Everyone needs Love!
Thank you Evan for sharing. Blessings to all with great Love.
Thank you Evan for your explanatory note to Anna, also meant for the rest of us. It’s very helpful.
Always grateful.
This is just amazing Evan. I think I have found the solution of how to deal with anger. Love, love and more love will enable me to dissolve all anger, hard feelings and feel so much lighter, happier, and more free.
Yes, since God is Love, Love has all the power and it empowers us to deal with negative emotions effectively. This reminds me of Mrs.Eddy’s quote “Love dissolves the adamant of error” and “Love is the Liberator.”
Daily if we affirm this truth that in reality we are the reflection and expression of LOVE, (another name for GOD) and identify our true selfhood as the expression of Love, we can effortlessly express more love for all, and that would dissolve any hard feelings and keep anger at bay.
The time for thinkers has come. Clearly this is a substantial post by a very clear thinker. As one who in graduate school had to deal with these issues of anger, your post is a treatment for anger’s relief and compete healing. Thank you Evan.
Sometimes my phone receives no service. I tried to open this lesson and couldn’t .this morning it opened right up. I’m so grateful that it did. So much love was shared. Brian, I always gain so much from your comments. This daily blog is always so nourishing. Evan we are so blessed to share this. We all thank you for it. Love is always the way to stay on track. Just Love and the rest will follow.
Wonderful article Evan. All comments great but especially appreciated those by Brian, Bevi, Anna/Evan, Nergish, Trula/Jennifer. Thanks for the link Jennifer.
WOW! This is just what I needed. I feel so much better from just reading this, love is welling up! I am printing it out and reading it over as needed. Thanks for the medicine of Mind! (=