I think it depends on the emotion and the cause of the emotional reaction. One of my major 'over-comings' was to validate my right to express myself, especially if it is contrary to someone else's view of how I should act or think. My ex used to say I always over-react to everything. Since BP does trigger hyper emotional response sometimes I bought into his assessment and over the years stiffling my feelings took a greater and greater toll on me.

It wasn't until I was able to say 'BP aside I have a voice and I have a right to express my feelings about this and to talk about why I feel this way'. This empowered me to find a way to put a voice to my emotion. What caused me to get angry? What part of that is valid and requires others to hear about it, or make an adjustment. What causes me to feel sad? What part is valid and requires others to hear and what adjustment or accommodation could they make or what can they do help me deal with the sense of sadness.

To prevent myself from getting absorbed by the emotion I try to figure out what is the real issue and how do I address that rather then getting stuck in the feelings. The feeling is there to get my attention is sort of how I look at it. Getting lost in the emotion, melting down, raging, blaming, feeling sorry for myself, dwelling, adding insult to injury... those responses don't work. They only magnify the feeling and never bear any light on the real issues for me. They only come back again and again without ever exposing any understanding.

Asking the emotions 'hey what is up with this?' has become a useful question for me to ponder when an emotions overwhelms me. Sometimes its easy to figure out. I know the trigger. Finding a resolution can be the tricky part. Sometimes it means reprogramming my thinking, sometimes it means employing a coping mechanism and sometimes it means using my voice to talk about it with whoever in tangled in the emotion.