No one can cause emotions in another1
In learning to understand ourselves we must learn to become very open to and accepting of all our
emotional reactions. If what we have said about our emotions is the key to personal understanding, then
we must learn to listen to our own emotions if we are to become growing persons. The basic belief which
I must repose absolute faith in order to understand myself by understanding my emotions is this: no one
else can cause or be resonsible for my emotions. Of course, we feel better by assigning our emotions to
other people. „You made me angry … you frightened me … you made me jealous,“ etc. The fact is that
you can‘t make me anything. You can only stimulate the emotions that are already in me, waiting to be
activated. The distinction between causing and stimulating emotions is not just a play on words. The
acceptance of the truth involved is critical. If I think you can make me angry, then when I become angry I
simply lay the blame and pin the problem on you. I can then walk away from our encounter learning
nothing, concluding only that you were at fault because you made me angry. Then I need to ask no
questions of myself because I have laid all the responsibility at your feet.
If I accept the thesis that others can only stimulate emotions already latently present in me, when these
emotions do surface it becomes a learning experience. I then ask myself: „Why was I so afraid? Why did
that remark threaten me? Why was I so angry? Was my anger really a disguised way of saving face?
Something was already in me that this incident called forth. What was it? A person who really believes
this will begin dealing with his emotions in a profitable way. He will no longer allow himself the easy
escape into the judgment and condemnation of others. He will become a growing person, more and more in touch with himself.
- Powell, John. The secret of staying in love (Niles: Argus Communications, 1974), 95–96. ↩︎