These defenses exist to minimize the experience of uncomfortable or painful feelings, such as anger, hurt, fear, terror, sadness, and grief. They often operate below our conscious awareness. Hence, we rarely think: Hmm, I’m starting to feel some terror about knowing life is impermanent and I’m going to die. I’m also feeling deep grief about my brother being ill. Now, to defend myself against these feelings, I’m going to maximize my stress about work and focus on my upcoming project as if it’s life or death. Instead, we just feel stressed about this damn project at work, check our email
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