alt Hacker News> In the medium term, if you aren't going back and holding the emotions you set aside, you are doing it wrong. Stoicism sells as "magical no emotion land" but you are flesh and flesh has emotions. Both reasonable and unreasonable. You job is to manage and integrate them effectively.
I think it's helpful not to identify with your emotions. You may experience emotions, but you are not your emotions. That's the difference between saying "I'm angry" and "I feel anger arising within me."
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That is a dissociating mode, a more mindful one, but still intentionally distancing yourself from your experiences. It works great for improving your perception of yourself and being mindful. Its a meditation.
It also isn't really available in a crisis, in the moment. All our long term work is really to train the anxious idiot part of ourselves who runs the show most of the time how to cope with what the world and body are doing right now. That person is very much connected to their emotions, no matter what story we make up about it. You need practice being that person feeling those emotions as well as practice analyzing them.
I guess what I don't get about this is: couldn't you apply the same mode to other internal states? "I understand this," vs "I feel understanding arising in me?"
Maybe that is good, now that I write it out. I think "understanding" is actually a pretty dumb mental state to invest a lot in.