V: Emotions remain, emotions change

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The Second Law of Conservation: Emotions remain, transformed.
A husband comes home late. His wife asks why he hasn't called. She is worried; he hears an accusation. Within minutes, they are arguing about something much larger than a telephone call. Fear becomes anger, embarrassment becomes defensiveness, and old disappointments enter a conversation neither quite understands. Our emotional selves forget nothing.

But what happens when these emotional responses become familiar patterns? How much of what we call our personality is actually the accumulated history of our emotional responses?

In our continuing Axioms for a Wholistic Life, we explore the Second Law of the Emotional Life: Emotional energy changes form. Our previous conversation on Conservation suggested that emotions have histories. Transformation asks what becomes of those histories as feelings acquire new expressions, become habits, and gradually shape the people we are.
The ancient idea of habitus offers a useful insight: repeated actions cultivate dispositions. What begins as an emotional response may eventually feel like an enduring feature of our character.

Through familiar encounters and three practices—Notice, Translate, Choose—we explore how we might participate more consciously in what our emotions become.

Our emotional lives have histories. But those histories need not determine our futures. Join us for a quiet hour of thoughtul inquiry.