The shared responsibilities of coordinating an event had me overwhelmed. I found myself with mental commotion brought on by preoccupation with the personalities involved and trying to please others instead of listening for the guidance of God, divine Principle and Love. Overall, the event went well, but by an hour or two afterward, I was suffering from an intense headache. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me.

That evening, after attending the weekly testimony meeting at my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I was still ruminating over the interaction of personalities I’d experienced—and the intermittent headache was persistent. When I told the practitioner about my continued discomfort, he shared this passage with me from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “You say that indigestion, fatigue, sleeplessness, cause distressed stomachs and aching heads. Then you consult your brain in order to remember what has hurt you, when your remedy lies in forgetting the whole thing; for matter has no sensation of its own, and the human mind is all that can produce pain” (pp. 165–166).

Obediently, I stopped rehearsing the event in my thoughts and ceased looking for causes of my discomfort in the interactions or judgments of people. I acknowledged that God is the only cause and that divine Principle, not human personality, governs all.