Releasing emotions through awareness

[aklacor727]

Hello all!

Over the past couple months,  Ive really been working on emotional awareness and taking time to just sit and feel what is going on in my body, or if I'm feeling triggered to take that opportunity to feel into those sensations..

Theres only been a few times so far I've really been able to sit with intense emotion,  but just from that I have felt enormous release of anxiety in my every day life (though alot is still there), so I'm going to keep going with this practice and wanted to share with you all how helpful it has been. Also I wanted to see if anyone else has experience with doing this, because I want to make sure I am getting the most out of it that I can. 

For example, yesterday I had a conversation with someone that was going through alot of things that brought up painful memories of my childhood.  Later on in the day, I was thinking of it and started focusing on the sensations it was bringing to me, which was a burning stabbing feeling in my chest.   As I sat with it, the feeling got more and more intense and brought back memories of heartbreak,  that had to do with my moms passing and a heartbreak of my first love. I proceeded to just try to console myself and try recontextualize the situation with my more present understanding and compassion for what happened. Felt the feeling a little longer, but it was probably only 15 minutes in total and the pain did not dissipate on its own during the meditation. 

If this is something you have done or currently do, do you have any tips on how I can better embrace this practice/get the most emotional release? For example,  should I ideally be sitting with the emotion until it dissipates on its own, or I wonder if it will just continue to get stronger...

Or anything other practices you have found are very helpful?

Thanks!! ?