But by definition, earthquake events also run the risk of paralyzing us, suppressing our emotional agility and making it that much harder to absorb what we’ve learned about ourselves, much less channel it productively. As management professor Morgan McCall observes, the emotionally laden nature of these situations tempts us to distance ourselves from them: we may get defensive, blame others, become more cynical, overcompensate, shut down, or give up. To protect against this, as McCall and his colleagues advise, “we must absorb the suffering rather than react to it.”
