Once you get to know that you have control over your own emotional life, you realize that all the emotions you feel and actions you take are your responsibility. When we start to look into what is causing our feel- ings, we learn that we are causing them by our own belief systems and our own unwillingness to pay attention. If we allow our emotional life to really live in its truth, then we can decide if we want to continue to feel a certain way or not by changing the actual cause of the feeling. The good news about this is if you are responsible for all your emotions, you can become responsible for the actions that cause them and change. You acknowledge the feeling and feel it without reacting, and then you determine what you are doing to cause it so you can chose to do something differently. For example, if someone says something mean to you, you can chose to not believe it. You can choose to go into yourself and find what you really believe. Many times, I believe that other people’s unsolicited opinions of me are none of my business; it is my opinion that matters. Each thing in life only has the meaning you give it. How you choose to interpret an event can determine how you will feel. In the next chapter, you will learn that how we interpret events is determined by what 104 • If IAm So Smart, Why Can’t I Lose Weight?