Rehearsing, Rehashing And Outlining

Difficult problems seem to have a life of their own. Hard as we may try, we treat them spiritually and the next thing we know they are back in the forefront of our consciousness, dominating our thoughts. Typically these thoughts creep in silently, we only become aware of them after they have gained purchase in our consciousness. One of the most insidious ways this happens is through outlining. The world teaches that we should think things through, weigh pros and cons, talk it out, but just as “the grouch and the brainstorm are the dubious luxury of normal men” so is outlining. This generally starts out innocently enough, just weighing those pros and cons, talking it out etc but in short order we begin outlining how a situation or trouble should work out, in essence telling the universe how to solve our problems, on our terms of course. If you don't think you do this, then you have never "rehearsed" or "rehashed" a conversation."If they say this than I will say that and then I will have them" or "I should have said this when they said that and that would have shut them up." Oh, this holds true as well for those one sided conversations with radio and TV personalities who tick us off as well.

This type of outlining builds up our expectations and feeds our resentments for “the level of my serenity is directly proportional to my expectations.” Living on the Spiritual Basis our expectations and resentments are placed in God’s hands and on His shoulders, so when we find ourselves outlining we stop as soon as we become aware and thank God for knowing Him better. To quiet the mind we repeat some simple set prayers like “Be still and know that I am God”, “There is no power greater than God” or simply “God is with me.” When I ran the world I outlined constantly, for it needed my help. Living on the new basis, I leave the running of the world, and my life, in His hands for He does a much better job of it than I ever did, for today I have ceased fighting everyone and everything and know in my heart of hearts that “God is with me.”