I think rainbow rose and Rapunzel had good answers. I'm glad you asked this question because this conflict hadn't occurred to me before, but it is confusing. How do you know when to explore versus validate versus sit with feelings? I don't know. Sitting with might be when they're strong and uncontrollable and leading toward something negative that wouldn't be good to act on. When you've already explored and analyzed. That's whats coming to mind, but I don't actually feel sure when to sit with feelings very often. There's only one time I felt confident that was the right thing to do and I did it.