Rewrite the Interpretation
That's one way to read this. What are two others?
Write the interpretation that's driving your emotional reaction in one sentence. Below it, write two alternative interpretations that are equally plausible. Generate them before deciding whether to believe them. Notice how the emotion shifts when the story has competition.
You're stuck in one interpretation of an event and it's generating a strong negative emotional response.
Your interpretation is based on hard evidence that doesn't support alternative readings.
Why it works
The emotion isn't responding to the event — it's responding to your interpretation. Change the interpretation and the emotion changes automatically, without suppression.
Your emotional response is not a reaction to what happened. It’s a reaction to what you decided it means. The same event — a cancelled meeting — produces frustration under one interpretation (‘they don’t value my time’), relief under another (‘I needed that hour’), and anxiety under a third (‘something’s wrong’). The event didn’t change. The meaning did. Reappraisal targets the source: instead of managing the emotion after it forms, you change the interpretation that generated it. Positive thinking is the wrong model. The aim is to disrupt a monopoly. One interpretation unchallenged feels like truth. Three competing interpretations feel like options.