Yeah, I had to learn to decouple my emotions starting when I was
   11 years old, well, actually by 8, but at 11 I could do no more
   on my own and my mother sent me to biofeedback training for a
   few months once a week. I learned to breath through my feet, be
   a warm bottle in the sun, listen to these strange cassette tapes
   with new age (early 80s style... and... new age style really
   hasn't progressed) and breath.

   It was called the "QR Method" which doesn't really exist
   anymore, but the 'gist' of it is as old as the hills.

   I'll be 43 in a couple of weeks, and while I've added cigarettes
   to the breathing method sometimes, just the same, I still do it
   to this day. It works.

   I also have a mental slogan: "You will not emotionally
   manipulate me."

   I wanted to punch Sarah McLaughlin, the ASPCA (or whoever did
   it) for their Arms of an Angel commercial, because I know just
   how MUCH research and psychology goes behind emotional
   manipulation for advertising. And when I felt a slight "choking
   up" feeling in the first commercial, I mentally stopped myself,
   and was simultaneouly impressed by their success, (I was like,
   "You ALMOST got me, you ....") and annoyed because of all the
   millions of dollars they were going to rake in by emotional
   manipulation techniques.