I was driving home the other day and really looking forward to seeing my dog Becca For those who may wonder why I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my wife, I should say right here that she was out of town.

Becca is a 10-year old Golden Retriever. I imagined coming into the house and finding her in one of her two usual places: curled up on the bed in our bedroom or on the couch in the living room. In my mind, I saw her big, brown eyes, her tail wagging as she saw me and the feel of her soft fur as I petted her. I felt a warm glow of unconditional love deep in my heart.

It occurred to me, as it has occurred to many people before me, that the unconditional love I was feeling did not come from Becca. I can only guess what Becca or any animal without language is actually feeling. All I could be sure of is that being with Becca allows me to experience what I call unconditional love.

It further occurred to me that this is true for any of our feelings. We imagine that our fears, sadness, anger and happiness exist somewhere “out there” in the world and are produced by our experiences in the world.

This can’t be true. If it were, then all over the world, similar events would produce similar feelings. But we know that not every culture mourns a death. Not every culture celebrates a birth (for a long time, baby girls in China were hidden or outright murdered). Even within our United States culture, not all of us get happy, angry or sad at the same things.

We imagine that we “fall” in love when it is more accurate to say that we experience a feeling and call that love (some comedians have claimed it’s only indigestion that will pass if we wait an hour). Then how do we know it’s love? Because we say it is in the same way that I call my feeling for Becca “unconditional love.”

We actually have it backwards. We invent a feeling and project that feeling out into the world.

Why is this important? Because knowing that our feelings are invented, frees us from being the victim of our feelings. That fear you feel isn’t “out there” in the world, it’s “in here” and it’s something you invented. That anxiety you feel when delivering a talk isn’t “out there” in the audience, it’s “in here” as your invention. You’re not stopped from asking for what you want because the person to whom you’re asking is “scary.” It’s more accurate to say that you are scaring yourself. That delight you feel in seeing an old friend is something you created and you can keep creating being delighted even when that old friend has left.

I hope realizing this gives you a sense of how powerful you are. We are able to invent feelings out of thin air. What else might we invent if we put our minds to it?

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan http://www.larrybarkan.com