690 (DISCERNMENT/ STRESS/ PRESSURE/TRUTH/LIE/ SIN/ SOBRIETY) Truth, having God as its source and origin, comforts and soothes the soul; whereas falsehood and error, having the devil as their father, disturbs and angers it. Anxiety, which is a kind of mental compulsion, cannot by itself originate from God; it is rather a combination of our fallen nature and the enemy of our souls, the devil. The same also happens with everything that puts an inner pressure and violence on us.
That is why we say that sin has its origin in anxiety, an inner violence that does not let our soul alone until the sin is committed. So let us be sober and pay constant attention to ourself so that as soon as we see the first seeds of stress and inner pressure to appear, we run away before it gets worse… And remember, that such feelings and such mental states as described above, no matter how plausible they may seem, are – as we explained at the beginning – a big lie...a deceptive and false view of matters and situations!