changing your life by discovering the source of your emotions

In the last text, we examined shortly how emotions are formed: that they are the result of a thought. We also saw that the basis of all emotion is love.

In this text, we will delve deeper into the creation of emotion and, most importantly, see how we can change our emotional experience in everyday life.

In order to begin, let us again turn to a life story. This time the story will not be from the present but rather begins at the end of World War I in Great Britain…

The Great War is now over, and it has changed British society in the deepest manner possible. Of the 5,397,000 men who entered Great Britain’s armed forces as a result of the war, 1,663,000 were wounded and 703,000 died. Cora Bateson’s husband was one of the killed. The young bride was married during William’s short leave from the trenches in France in 1917. The couple’s marriage was consummated during William’s leave, and Cora became pregnant. She never saw William again; he died in a gas attack.

Jack Bateson was born a few months before Armistice Day in November of 1918 to a rather bleak future. His mother, Cora, had served as a maid in a household not far from Richmond in North Yorkshire. His Lordship did not approve of single mothers working as maids in his household, so he insisted that Cora leave the household, with severance pay, of course. But, His Lordship’s attitude propelled Cora and the still-to-be born infant into a life of poverty…

Jack grew up with some very hard attitudes. One of the “backbones” of Jack’s personality was based on His Lordship’s attitude toward single mothers of the lower classes, that they should not be seen in the households of the upper class.

So, Jack grew up loathing the upper class. He personally blamed anyone of means for his childhood of poverty and hardship. As a teenager, Jack began to turn his loathing into action. You could say that he became a pugilist, which means a prizefighter. At age 20, Jack got into professional boxing. He had a very short career and won a few fights in North Yorkshire. Jack’s career ended in his first fight a few months later in London, however. It was a knockout, and Jack remained unconscious for several hours until he came back to life.

When Jack regained consciousness, he realized he could not fight professionally anymore. He decided to enlist in the army. It was 1939, and Jack was 21. The war had just broken out. Jack reasoned that if he was lucky, he could get into some “real fighting.” He did. But this “career” turned out to be even shorter than Jack’s dash with boxing.

Jack was never happy in his short life. His hatred for the upper class ruled his life and his emotions. He couldn't keep a relationship with anyone, male or female, for Jack fought with anyone who got close to him. It was an unhappy and lonely life that ended in the next war. Jack died in the same country as the father he never met, in France in 1940, during the British retreat from Dunkirk…

What does Jack’s life have to do with our main theme here: “changing your life by discovering the source of your emotions”? A great deal, for we see here how emotion is formed. Jack’s hatred of the upper class was the moving force in his short life. Jack’s hatred was formed by a single thought: that single mothers of the lower classes should not be seen or work in households of noble birth. This thought was not even Jack’s. It came from his mother’s employer before Jack was born. But Jack took on this thought and turned it around to something even simpler: “I hate the upper class.” Jack’s hatred of the upper class was so strong that it became a non-specific hatred, and the simple thought became even simpler to: “I hate the world.”

Thought and the emotion are like symbiotic twins: One cannot live without the other, and it is rather hard to distinguish one from the other.

Jack died a long time ago. There is nothing we can do to help him. But, there is something you can do to help yourself. And, you can learn from Jack’s life, if it is your wish.

For, your life is ruled by emotions, too. Almost everyone’s life is ruled by emotions. Jack would not have had fuelled his life with hatred, had someone taken the patience and the time to explain to how emotion is created and how you can move on by healing it.

Right now, I am taking this time with you. So, you may wish to read with attention and care here.

In our last text, we discovered together that emotion is the result of a thought, and we have discovered the same here in Jack’s life. Had Jack realized this, he could have had a much happier life. And, his life might have been longer, for without the hatred, Jack would not have enlisted. He would have waited until he would have been drafted into the army somewhat later…

If Jack had recognized that the source of hatred was His Lordship’s thought turned around, he could have dropped his hate, for he would have realized that the hate served no good purpose.

Please take some time here…

What emotions rule your life? What propels you through life? What are the thoughts that create the emotions in your life?

This is going to take considerable patience and time, if you wish to discover the truth. If you expect to find a “quick fix” by reading these texts, you are in the wrong place. For, there is no such thing as a “quick fix,” and I am not some sort of “fix-it-guru” that is going to get you on the “right path”. Not only is no such as thing as a “quick fix”—I am not a “guru.” I am simply someone with certain knowledge, certain abilities and certain experience, just like you have certain knowledge, certain abilities and certain experience. If my knowledge, abilities and experience can help you, it will make both of us happy. For, my purpose in writing these texts is to help you.

Now, please continue examining your own life and the emotions that rule it. Are you happy with these emotions? Do they enable you to create the life that you wish to have?

If this is not the case, then you need to go deeper. You need to discover the thoughts that created the emotions in the first place. This is a lot less difficult than you may think, for, in order to keep on having the emotions, you must continue to think the thoughts. 

Thought and emotion are truly a kind of symbiotic twins. They are intricately entwined. Emotion cannot exist without thought.

The thoughts creating your emotions are rather conscious. You know them. It may be that you do not wish to admit them, though, not even to yourself. So, you are going to have to be patient with yourself here and dig deeper.

When you discover the thoughts creating your emotions, you are going to realize that these thoughts are from the past. You must then ask yourself if it is wise to fuel your life with thoughts from the past.

If it is not your desire to propel your life with thoughts from the past, you will surely wish to decide to enter the present and let go of the thoughts from the past.

There was never truly any good reason for Jack to embody His Lordship’s attitude toward the lower classes. It was in reality Jack’s choice. But: It could have only become a conscious choice when Jack discovered it. Jack did not have the tools or the knowledge to make this discovery when he was alive.

But, you now have this knowledge… Please use it wisely and well.

In the last text, we discovered together that the basis of any emotion is love. Even Jack’s hatred had its origin in love, as difficult as it may be for you to understand this. The hatred that propelled Jack Bateson’s life was the energy that Jack used to survive in the world. At a very young age, Jack discovered that he could survive by nurturing this hate. He could turn it into the drive that made him want to become a prizefighter, and it was later the drive that made him want to become a soldier.

Yes, the force was destructive, but it kept him alive during his short life. The drive to live is a strong expression of self-love.

If you begin to examine your life and your emotions more deeply, you are going to discover that the forces that propel your life are in their deepest essence a form of self-love.

Within the next texts, we are going to use this knowledge to turn what you feel in your daily life into love. Please be patient and take the time to do the necessary self-discovery I describe here first. Soon enough, if you continue to read these texts, we will be going down the road together to self-love.

Andrew Terker