True spiritual work is not to “prevent” sadness or anger, anymore than a true musician or artist tries to prevent a new impression from coming into the moment of creating whatever is at hand. If one senses the truth of this idea, then it’s best to remember the following insight and ponder it’s importance because within it is a secret of great magnitude for those who aspire to know the nature of freedom: resistance is negative attraction. This means that getting negative and “not wanting” some state that presses into us is the same as unconsciously strengthening both that state and the level of self that thinks the rejection of a problem is the path to freedom from it. 

Add to this last idea the following: all things have a reason for being… or they wouldn’t exist. This holds as true for “dark” thoughts and feelings, imagined problems, etc., as it does for the light of awareness through which these same conditions may be properly seen, realized, and released. So, the task… the real interior work that leads to liberation… is not to push these impressions away as they appear in one’s consciousness, but rather to bring them into the light of our awareness, bringing them into the greater Presence that exists when we are present to what each moment presents to us inwardly and outwardly. If we will do this, then the light of this awareness (which is “heavenly” in its origin) acts upon the negative state and transforms it, creatively, into something authentically nourishing… much as does the bright sun turn dark earth into a nursery ground for the flower that will grow in its light.