But all of us are subject to the entire range of human emotion, and that itself is not a problem that needs to be fixed. I wonder how many interactions we have daily with clerks, cashiers, co-workers, and friends who are, at that moment, doing their best to appear okay.

To cease to know what we feel is to cease to experience what things mean to us, which is to be cut off from our own context. And it is just this state that most of us, as children, were educated to regard as normal. Let me emphasize that I am speaking here and throughout about feelings and emotions, not about actions. I am not suggesting that we sh

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Emotional suppression can be a great short-term coping strategy. The problem, long-term, is that it is not surgically precise. I know you can’t suppress pain and anger without also deadening yourself generally. When I started to release my childhood resentments, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by brighter colors.