No reasoning about it is going to do us any good. No
passing back and forth in front of it is going to free us. We must
yield first and then we can see clearly and reason justly. We must
yield first and then we can go back and forth in front of it, and it
will only be a reminder to yield every time until the habit of
yielding has become habitual and the strength of nerve and strength
of character developed by means of the yielding have been
established.
Let me explain more fully what I mean by "yielding." Every
annoyance, resistance, or feeling of resentment contracts us in some
way physically; if we turn our attention toward dropping that
physical contraction, with a real desire to get rid of the
resistance behind it, we shall find that dropping the physical
strain opens the way to drop the mental and moral strain, and when
we have really dropped the strain we invariably find reason and
justice and even generosity toward others waiting to come to us.
There is one important thing to be looked out for in this normal
process of freeing ourselves from other people. A young girl said
once to her teacher: "I got mad the other day and I relaxed, and the
more I relaxed the madder I got!"
"Did you want to get over the anger?" asked the teacher.
"No, I didn't," was the prompt and ready answer.
Of course, as this child relaxed out of the tension of her anger,
there was only more anger to take its place, and the more she
relaxed the more free her nerves were to take the impression of the
anger hoarded up in her; consequently it was as she said: the more
she relaxed the "madder" she got.
Pages:
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49