YOU, yes YOU... are responsible!

An ordinary man does not hold anybody responsible for what he thinks. Not so, emotions. When you feel emotional it’s always on somebody else’s account, i.e., their actions caused your upset. Men never take any responsibility for their emotions. And realization of this never occurs to a man; men don’t even think about it. How could life get along if the same attitude were operative re: your physical body? How can it be that men are oblivious to this fact, aren't struck with how ridiculous it is to attribute their emotions to external causes?

Given the choice of thinking better or feeling better, everybody would opt for feeling better (i.e., happiness). And, as men erroneously believe, if emotions are contingent on the actions of others, ipso facto they are out of our control; we can’t do anything about them, right? Here we have the perfect underpinnings of hapless victimhood.

The ordinary thinking that flows through you has no focus. Such mechanical thought always has an emotional basis; arises from an emotional experience. Without focus, the brain, like the heart, will operate, like an engine idling, in the form of daydreaming or repeating song fragments: the noise equivalent to the wind-sound of the lungs and thump of the heart. To be conscious in the moment stops this dynamic, mitigates the extant mood by bringing clarity and focus. Emotional upset can be used as a reminder, a hairshirt, for being in the moment. Whenever you’re filled with energy as a result of notable emotion, to realize that YOU’RE RESPONSIBLE for it, brings clarity and consciousness of the moment.

--synopsis of a talk given by Jan Cox, 9-3-96 (#1643)