The Secret to a Stress-Free Life

by Roland Trujillo

   The truth is a marvelous thing. How fortunate we are to hear it.

   The wonderful thing about Christ’s message is that it actually helps us with everyday problems.

   For example, most of us are stressed out because we react to our fellow human beings with resentment.

   The more resentful we are, the more tense we feel. Resentment also makes us feel inferior and guilty. And when we are resentful, we lose our power to be cheerful and kind.

   Christ said “Resist not evil. Overcome evil with good.” His words are just as true now as when they were first spoken. In fact, the truth of His words is proven in our own experience. Whatever resentment is, it is a form of resistance that ruins the good life, destroys relationships, and makes us bitter.

   If you resist (resent) others, resent their shortcomings or even their cruelty—you become guilty and a slave of guilt and what you resent.

   Any resentment leads to sensitivity. When we resent, we find ourselves becoming upset (increasingly irritable). We then make the mistake of resenting again by blaming the other for our condition. We then resent and struggle with our symptoms. Finally we might even resent ourselves.

   Can you now see the wisdom in Christ’s words? All you need do is drop your resentment. Let it go. Make it unimportant. Don’t resent your symptoms. Don’t resent yourself for your weakness. Don’t resent whatever in your environment is reinvoking your symptoms. Drop your resentment against whoever you first resented that set you on the path of increasing struggle and failure.

   We often resent and struggle with whatever our current symptom (emotional upset, sickness or sensitivity) is. This is a distraction from seeing all the way back to the original cause, probably in childhood, involving the trauma of hating another person. Now you must drop your resentments, one by one, as you see them, no matter what the resent is toward.

   “Forgive” in other words. Christ told us to love our neighbor. Can you now see how? Don’t resent him. Love by not hating. Love by not resisting with hostility and anger. Love by dropping your grudges. Love by letting another’s shortcoming pass without jumping at the opportunity to resent them.  

   When you do—when you really and truly forgive a person by giving up resentment—you will be gradually set free from guilt, tension, anger, and a whole host of other symptoms and problems that have arisen due to the resentment.

  Most of us resent (and judge) our husband, wife, child, neighbor, or coworker. We feel justified in our resentments because they may have done something unfair or cruel. But remember: resentment and judgment only serve your pride. The Bible is full of seeming paradoxes that have mystical meaning. Christ said that we should lay down our life to gain life. The life that we must willingly lay down is the life of pride so that we might gain eternal life. Can you now see that when you exercise your “right” to judge and resent another, you forfeit the spiritual life?

   The Prophet Jeremiah was told by the Lord to tell the people, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”  We must choose wisely. Christ makes it clear: we must forgive (drop our resentments, grudges, and judgments). When they asked Him how many times to forgive, He basically said “every time.”

   Bear in mind that your faulty ego life has been built up millions of resentments, so there is much to see. Therefore, take it easy. Be content to go about your daily affairs but quietly watching for little resentments to appear.

  Go now and be aware. Watch for resentment. When you see it rising, stand back and observe it calmly. Remain neutral to it. Stand in quiet disagreement with it, until it loses its power over you. When you refrain from indulging the resentment, it will indeed feel like you are giving up life. It will pain your ego to not indulge the resentment. But if you can stand back with a little mental distance and let it go—lo and behold, you will be a little freer. By not indulging the hatred of another, you will gain God’s approval and will feel His love welling up within you.