Kinship And The Dark Side Of Man by Theodore J. Smith, MD and Kim Smith, MD, father and son, is a comprehensive discussion of how life works, the origin of emotion, and how to transform our emotional experience. Our emotional responses always reflect the meaning we assign to the events, people and circumstances around us. For example, if we interpret someone cutting us off in traffic as an act of aggression, rudeness and discourtesy, then we can feel resentment toward that driver. If we truly have a different interpretation of the event, that all driving styles are to be expected from time to time and some require more adjustment from us than others, then braking to let the other fellow into our lane is merely one of the many tasks we do to drive a car and we are not in the least upset. Notice that neither of these beliefs about the significance of another car moving rapidly in front of us on the freeway is any truer than the other. They are both arbitrary and only as true as we hold them to be. They are two different stories about what just happened and they invoke two very different reactions from us. The reality is that our emotional responses are determined by the stories we have about what different things mean. This, in extreme brevity, is the origin of emotion. Notice this means that all emotion ultimately comes from us because we are the sole authors of our stories. However, we as a culture endorse the mistaken view that events, people and circumstances can cause our emotions. When we understand how and when and why we made up our stories about the most fundamental facts of our life such as our self-worth, the availability of love, and what we deserve in life, then we can take a huge step forward toward the fulfilling life we desire. We can start taking full conscious responsibility for our moment-to-moment experience of life and finally be in the driver's seat in creating the life of our highest ideals in every area. Although this sounds intellectual, the process is purely physical because the limiting beliefs that cause our automatic emotional responses and moods are subconscious and therefore structured in our bodies. The process is described in detail in this book.