Taking Control of Our Feelings
“You cannot tell me how to feel,” the little girl shouted mid-tantrum.
“I’m not telling you how to feel,” retorted the parent. “I am telling you how to behave. And how you are behaving is completely out of line.”
Although the volume made the episode observable from almost anywhere in the store, it was the message that caught my attention. The assumption intrigued me: One cannot control another’s feelings. Although obvious enough, I began to suspect another underlying assumption: We cannot control our own feelings. While I was not brave enough to interpose myself between the she-bear and her cub to ask, I suspect the mother sought to govern her child’s behavior because that alone could be governed.
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