The emotional brain is highly attuned to symbolic meanings and to the mode Freud called the 'primary process' - the messages of metaphor, story, myth, the arts.
The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth. It continues to shape itself through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood.
When I say manage emotions, I only mean the really distressing, incapacitating emotions. Feeling emotions is what makes life rich. You need your passions.
Remember, empathy need not lead to sympathetically giving in to the other side’s demands—knowing how someone feels does not mean agreeing with them.
True compassion means not only feeling another's pain but also being moved to help relieve it.