I was reminded yesterday how important it is to not rehearse error over and over in thought.

Have you ever done it?

It happens in many different ways.

Growing resentment over an injustice, mentally telling our boss off (or our spouse) and practicing different ways of doing it, feeling sorry for our self about some hardship and seeking sympathy from our friends for our suffering, dramatizing health woes, are a few ways mortal mind would lock hold of our attention and accentuate the pain.

In drama or the arts, why do actors rehearse? Isn’t it to get better at what they do?

Too often we let mortal mind run rehearsals of error in our thinking about hardships we face or dread. Afterward, the problem only looms bigger and bigger on our horizon. And we unwittingly don’t realize the harmful effect of not checking this vicious cycle of self-destructive thinking. The rehearsals need to stop before an error that is not that big of a deal becomes a big deal.

As the revised saying goes, “Practice makes permanent.”

Jesus instructed, “Watch!” He didn’t mean watch for evil and dwell on it. He meant watch for good and understand it better. Be alert to the spiritual truth of being so it can heal you.

If we spend mental time ruminating over error, the pictures of evil can start to dominate our perspective and limit our experience to the narrow scope of those false views.

Letting mortal mind depict error in our mental chambers over and over again makes it more real to us and prolongs our demonstrating over it. This rule applies to physical disease as well as conflict. Conflict is just another form of dis-ease.

“A physical diagnosis of disease — since mortal mind must be the cause of disease — tends to induce disease.” Science and Health

When we rehearse disease, or dis-ease mentally, it’s like we’re re-diagnosing the problem. The effect is to build it up, whereas the goal in Christian Science is to tear it down and obliterate the belief into its native nothingness through an understanding of omnipresent Love.

So, if you want to rehearse something, rehearse the good, repeat the truth, practice dwelling on the spiritual facts of being. It’s much healthier, and the final “show” will elicit a glorious standing ovation.