Thanks for your thoughtful response and I completely agree about the balance part. But to be clear, I’m not advocating responding emotionally — I’m advocating noticing what your emotions are and with a good sense of what they are trying to convey to you, making thoughtful responses.

People typically do a lot better when they give themselves the time to completely feel what they are feeling and then move through it. Trying desperately to not feel what you are truly feeling means it’s more likely to hang on for a longer time and run you from behind the scenes. As Jung famously said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”