I will suggest that this is where genuine compassion comes in. Empathy is about understanding, even experiencing, the emotions of another, in this case the young David. In fact, when you are triggered, you are already empathizing to some degree. Compassion is about 59 year old David helping young David understand and process his emotions. Compassion literally means “to suffer with”. You suffer with the other one and jump in their boat to help them. That has worked quite well for me. My 2 cents.

Great read, as always.