I am a firm believer in allowing yourself to be angry and finding a way to outlet it. For myself, when I am angry or upset, if I can talk about it, write about it, or just get out of the house and "drive" it out of my system (literally, in the car), I feel a lot better and often the anger dissipates.

The Christian (and probably not just the Christian) religion is suppressive when it comes to negative emotions. Jesus did teach us a lot about love and kindness. But you can't ignore the emotions when they come up, you have to deal with them, let them out, so they don't foster and grow inside of you. Once you've outlet it, you can often see things more in perspective, you get advice from other people, you deal with the issues, and it's not as intense as it was before.

I think it's when you try to suppress these negative emotions that the physical problems occur as a result. If you are bitter about something, just say it, "I'm bitter about this event and I don't care how horrible it sounds.", or whatever, seek advice from friends or family and then, oftentimes, you can get past it.

For which reason I have found crossfire and moving on to be very therapeutic, I have vented and said things that a few years ago I would never have done, and it has been healing.

Charlie, I would be interested to know more about your conclusions of what drove you into and then out of the group.

> About what DB said in "Sex Works"
> " FEAR, TENSION, HATRED: ALL BREED THE
> VARIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL AND NERVOUS DISEASES
> as well as the natural physiological
> diseases like heart trouble and arthritis
> and stomach ulcers, all of which can be
> caused by worry and fear. Nearly all people
> who have severe cases of arthritis, if not
> caused by some infection, the arthritis is
> usually caused by bitterness and hatred and
> a negative attitude toward life."