Many men (and women for that matter) in our society don’t deal with their emotions well. As a result, most of us are walking around carrying an ever-increasing accumulation of emotional baggage that can get triggered even in seemingly innocuous situations.
People who are upset need empathy, not judgement.
For an example where this happened to me, check out my recent story on Why I Got Upset In Guitar Class. I’ll wait here while you do that…
… OK!
Dealing with people who are upset can be very challenging. Part of what makes this challenging is that other people’s emotional upset is likely to trigger our own unresolved emotional baggage. This is why many people try to shut down expressions of unpleasant emotions in other people or resort to “rescuing” behaviors intended to stem the flow of another person’s feelings that are making us uncomfortable. Naive rescuers often think they are “helping” because they see the upset person appearing less outwardly distressed; but the upset person is simply internalizing their emotional pain which has disastrous consequences for everyone in the long run.