How do you feel?

Life is about learning. Every challenge we face brings about growth and transformation. Without those challenges, we would sit and stagnate and not expand ourselves in this lifetime to a greater understanding of the world around us. This is what life is all about - experience. It is up to us to experience as much as we can. From experience we learn. From learning, we expand. It is all connected. Experiences are all good. Each challenge, though it may seem difficult while in the midst of it, is a positive experience. The reason why they are difficult is so that we can fully appreciate them once we are able to look back at them and be able to see what the lesson was that was presented to us. Without difficulty, we would not remember what we learned.

My most recent lesson has been one of emotions. It is a lesson that I just had a refresher course in because, even though I had the lesson before, I needed to learn it better. Thus, a new challenge was issued and I flailed around until I figured out what I needed to learn.

Emotions belong to each of us. Each emotion that we feel is ours. We are the only ones who can feel our own emotions; we are the only ones that can create our own feelings about something or someone. We own them. We are their creators and we must take responsibility for them. No one can make us feel anything we don't want to feel. This is a hard realization for most people to make, and it's something that I still struggle with even though I've just had a few lessons in it. If we own our own emotions and are responsible for them, then why do we feel as though we must be responsible for other people's emotions as well? This was my lesson.

I am not responsible for anyone's emotions but my own. I cannot make anyone feel anything; it is not something that can be forced. Thus, I cannot say that someone has made me feel a certain way. I must own my emotions. I must remember to say, "I felt ______ when this happened." and not "You made me feel ______ when you did this."

Most importantly, I must remember that whatever it is that someone else feels, whether it be towards me or towards anything else, whether it be good or bad or indifferent, - I am not responsible for it. I am also not responsible to try to make that person feel any differently. This is not my job. My job is to see to my own happiness.

It is always my choice. I choose to feel the way I feel towards a person or a thing. I own it. If I don't want to feel a certain way, I won't. Why? Because I can.