42 On Quieting the Heart
Beloved Roberta,
Love.
What you can tell your husband, and must understand for yourself, is that
emotions are not a result of actions.
Emotions are functions of environment.
You are no more responsible for your emotions than you are for feeling
sleepy, or having to go to the bathroom.
In other words, you could repress emotions, but you cannot create emotions.
However, you are responsible for you react to emotions!
It is funny how many people feel responsible for their emotions, but
claim to be completely helpless for their reactions to emotions.
They think its their fault they feel mad or depressed, but once they are
they think that there's nothing they can do about letting anger or depression
control them.
They allow emotions to overwhelm them.
You must take responsibility for how you react to your emotions.
You must take responsibility for when you choose to allow emotion to overwhelm
you.
And you must admit to what makes you react to emotional energies, to be
overcome, to slip out of the moment and into behaviours that are not based
on awareness.
Emotions just come to exist.
Taking responsibility for them would be like taking responsibility for
your circulatory system.
Or for the sun.
But you can decide how to respond to these emotions.
Love
Swami
