A lesson · The Pull You Feel — In Tune or Out?
Age 21+The Pull You Feel — In Tune or Out?
A strong pull toward someone — even an inconvenient or uninvited one — can be tested, not just obeyed or suppressed.
Assumptions & Caveats
Before you begin
What you should know
Adults navigate this at every life stage — dating, an established marriage, an inconvenient pull toward someone who isn’t a spouse or partner, a “close friendship” that’s quietly drifting somewhere, dating again after divorce or loss. Attraction doesn’t stop being relevant once someone is settled; if anything, the stakes and the people affected multiply. This lesson treats a strong pull as real data, not as a verdict on someone’s marriage, character, or self — and gives a concrete way to test it before it becomes a decision with consequences other people carry too. Nothing you don’t already have for prep.
This lesson is not a substitute for marriage counseling or therapy, and shouldn’t be treated as one if something more serious surfaces — see “If it’s not going well.”
Why “the out-of-tune pull,” not “lust,” in the facilitator’s own words: the word “lust” only ever appears here inside a direct quotation from scripture or Science and Health — never as this lesson’s own label for what a participant is feeling. Adults carrying a pull they’re not proud of are often already carrying plenty of self-judgment about it; a heavy word repeated back to them adds shame, not clarity. “Out of tune” keeps the conversation about discernment — what is this pull made of, and what does it want to become? — rather than about verdicts.
What we're assuming
- Participants are at a range of life stages and relationship situations — married, single, dating, widowed, divorced, in a relationship that’s struggling. No assumption is made either way. - Some participants may be sitting with something live and current (an emotional pull toward someone who isn’t their partner, restlessness in a marriage). This lesson should feel safe and non-shaming to sit through regardless. - This applies identically regardless of gender, orientation, or relationship structure.
Learning goals
What they walk away with
1. Leaves able to notice a pull toward someone — even an unwanted or inconvenient one — as information, not as evidence of failure or a verdict on their marriage or self. 2. Leaves knowing that a strong feeling isn’t the same thing as a true or right one, at any age or life stage. 3. Leaves with a repeatable test they can apply to real, sometimes high-stakes situations — and the habit of widening the test to everyone the choice would actually touch, not just the two people in the moment. 4. Leaves with a working understanding of temperance as an ongoing practice, not a one-time test of willpower.
How to hold the room
Before you start talking
- Keep this a discernment space, not a confession circle or a marriage-counseling session. - If someone pushes back — “so is desire itself the problem?” — clarify plainly: no. The lesson is pro-discernment, not anti-desire, at any age. - Offer a private-reflection option for anything that feels too live to say aloud in a group. - Don’t assume marital status, orientation, or relationship history.
The lesson flow
Step by step
Each beat alternates a little input, a little doing, and a little reflecting. Skip, slow down, or stretch any of these to fit your group.
Naming an inconvenient pull
Ask (private reflection, not spoken aloud): “Has a pull toward someone ever shown up somewhere it wasn’t invited — inside a marriage, a committed relationship, a friendship? You don’t have to name it, just notice whether that’s ever true for you.”
“Noticing that pull isn’t betrayal. It’s just noticing. What you do with it next is where the real work is — and that’s what today is about.”
Naming the out-of-tune pull: animal magnetism
Read together (facilitator note: the quote below uses the word “lust” — that’s the source text’s own vocabulary; it’s not a label this lesson puts on anyone in the room):
“DEVIL. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness, and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of the flesh, which saith: ‘I am life and intelligence in matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind, — a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image.’”
Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 584:17
”‘Animal magnetism’ and ‘hypnotism’ are this tradition’s language for a kind of spell — a pull that narrates urgency and exclusivity so convincingly it can override what you actually know to be true. This lesson calls that spell the out-of-tune pull: the feeling of being tempted, not aligned with who you are, not comfortable in your own thoughts. It always sounds like: ‘this is different,’ ‘this is the one,’ ‘I deserve this,’ ‘no one would understand.’ That narration is the tell, not the feeling itself.”
Discuss: “Where have you seen that narration show up — in your own life, or in someone else’s?”
The dial, at adult stakes
Introduce the dial (same tool as the 14-21 version — hand out or reference the shared handout):
| Out-of-tune end | Love end |
|---|---|
| Needs secrecy to survive | Can stand in daylight |
| Urgency — “now, or never” | Patience — can wait, isn’t afraid of time |
| Wants to possess or control | Respects the other person’s freedom |
| Focused on getting something | Wants to give, not just receive |
| The world narrows to this one craving | You’re warmer toward everyone, not just this one person |
| Leaves anxiety, self-doubt, secrecy | Leaves harmony, more sense of self |
Add the adult-specific extension: “Run the test again, but widen the lens — does this bring harmony and peace not just to the two people in the moment, but to everyone the choice would actually touch — a spouse, kids, the wider circle? The out-of-tune version of this test only ever asks about the two people in the room. Love’s test doesn’t stop there.”
Then:
“There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence; man and woman unchanged forever in their individual characters, even as numbers which never blend with each other, though they are governed by one Principle.”
Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 588:9–19
“This is also the antidote to a controlling or codependent relationship — real love never requires either person to dissolve into the other. Two whole people, governed by one Principle, still fully themselves.”
Growing it, not gritting it
Read:
”...that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and...”
II Peter 1:3–6 (to 2nd “and”), King James Version
“Temperance here isn’t repression — white-knuckling a craving until it passes. It’s governed strength, built the way any skill is built: added onto, practiced, over time. Nobody arrives at this instantly, and nobody’s expected to.”
Closing
Read:
“Love makes the spiritual man, lust makes the material so-called man, and God made all that was made; therefore the so-called material man and these personal senses, with all their evidences of sin, sickness, and death, are but a dream, — they are not the realities of life; and we shall all learn this as we awake to behold His likeness.”
Christian Healing, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 17:7
“Whatever pull you’re carrying out of this room — it’s real enough to feel, and testable enough not to have to obey blindly or fight blindly. That’s the whole practice.”
What you'll need
The materials
- Paper and pens (or shared doc for virtual)
- The “Which Way Is It Pulling?” handout — printable, letter page, shared with the 14-21 band
If it's not going well
When this one gets heavy
- Silence is normal and often means the room is actually thinking about something real — let it sit. - Pushback or disagreement is welcome, not a problem — engage it honestly rather than defending the lesson. - A strong emotional reaction — someone actively navigating an affair, a betrayal, or grief over a relationship may react strongly. Pause, ground the room, and offer a private conversation afterward rather than continuing to probe in the group. - A disclosure of real harm — active infidelity harming someone, a coercive or abusive dynamic, or anything involving a minor — stop facilitating the group activity, respond pastorally and privately, and refer to a counselor or pastor in addition to following the site’s mentor safety guidelines and your own local mandatory-reporting obligations. This lesson is a starting conversation, not a substitute for professional counseling.
For the fuller tiered guidance — including what to do if someone discloses something serious — see For Mentors.
Help this get better
Teaching this to a group we haven't planned for?
Tell us — this only gets better with your eyes on it. We read every one of these.