Don't Stress – Express!

Photo by Radu Florin on Unsplash

When olive oil is pressed out of the olives it involves the exertion of force. But the expression of Spirit in man comes by rest – the very opposite of force! It's a little more like letting Spirit rest on us than forcing it to come out.

"Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love. Soul is the substance, Life and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to Spirit.  Man is the expression of Soul." So writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures on page 477.

One week, not long ago, I was becoming stressed about all I had to get done. Things were beginning to weigh heavily on me during the work day. When I saw a friend at lunch she immediately said: "What's the matter, you're upset!" I had been oblivious to the state of my thought being outwardly projected, but she saw it instantly, painted in my body language. I had to wonder how I could have been so unaware of what was being painted, by thought, all over this canvas, so to speak, called the body.

Gratefully, this alert stopped me in my tracks and I reached out to God to learn more from this situation. I wanted to let Spirit, the great Animator, rest upon me. I also like thinking of Spirit as the divine painter or, as Mary Baker Eddy refers to Spirit as "the great architect". Spirit brings out everything that is needed in His spiritual ideas – including me! 

Sometime we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has created men and women in Science. We ought to weary of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which hinders our highest selfhood.

(page 67 of Science and Health)

Only good and harmonious thoughts, originating in the divine Mind, can really appear in our true identity. I needed to let that identity, the masterpiece of the divine Creator, be naturally expressed in me.

All infinite Soul's good ideas and capacities are imaginatively expressed in a way that delights! This other counterfeit painting – the image produced by material thinking – was not the genuine work of art. By accepting both good and bad as a natural occurance I was not recognizing my real God-made individuality.

I'm happy to say that my work day resolved into a very peaceful conclusion when I gave up the stress and let the Spirit rest on my thoughts.