Growing up I think most of my emotions were welcomed. I was an observant kid but I was still a kid. One time though, I got lost in cernauti in Ukraine when I was 5. After mama found me, we were walking a little bewildered on the sidewalk, and I hit my head on an open window. As a small person I rarely hit things like that because in my country people didn’t keep such low windows onto the sidewalk. Anyway, I cried. Mostly because the day was still tense from my getting lost and found. And my dad grumbled and my mom corrected him. 

My parents didn’t have an easy childhood either. And their parents didn’t label or make abundant room for their emotions. But they did a good job doing better for our generation. But, one emotion expressed was not tolerated. Ingratitude. Unnecessary prolonged displeasure. And as i ponder this, I realize how it now triggers me too. Not just because I think one can try to control it, change it slowly at will, but because it’s poisonous if we just wallow in it.

As a kid, I remember my mom trying the kind and encouraging approach. Sometimes it worked, if I had s good reason to be upset. But if it was just tiredness or moodiness it didn’t. In this grumble, her encouragement only made me complain more. It was not an antidote, it was an exacerbation of my bad mood.

As an observer of inner things too, I became aware of my own trigger. And what shocked me out of it. It was not the patient repetitive sweet talk but a firm boundary of “enough!”