I’ve worked hard to get my emotions on a more even keel. To put a pause between stimulus and response and tackle whatever comes up that seems unreasonable. It’s going well.

Something that I’m struggling to get a hold on though, is what happens when I appear to face a lose-lose scenario. It feels like the last decade has presented a number of these in full-blown life-impacting scope and as soon as my subconscious brain senses another, I jump to incensed and combative before my conscious thinking has caught up. Precisely because these scenarios involve people I care about deeply, angry and self-centred thinking (even if only defensive) is not going to provide the best answer – I need to find a better way to deal with life’s inevitabilities.