First I'll share a thought I received from Paul Scheele this summer. He said something like," if you make a claim like you now love everything in the world equally, then you can expect every horrible and disturbing thing in the world to jump in front of you and say, "Do you love me too?"" This fits well with how I believe the Buddhist see the mind operating. It would say the mind would setup these distractions or events to ensure their own existence, which is challenge by you changing beliefs.
Okay, that was getting a bit too far off base, but it is the first think that cam to my mind when I read your post flipstick. You have come a far way, but don't expect the world to stop being what it is.
I like spiral's method for dealing with emotions. I use it a lot myself. However, I don't see emotions are defenders. I see them as messengers. The stronger the emotion the more important the message. I note the emotion and figure out what the message is. Then I decide if the message is suitable, many of them are generated by beliefs that limit me and don't support me. An example would be I notice a small free of public speaking... I'm now a Toastmaster and feel much more empowered. However, sometimes it is a defender, it is saying you must respect yourself enough to not let others direct your life (well for me anyways). Those are times when I choose not to release anger, but to use it. I don't like doing it, but like spiral at times it is most effective.
This week I have been looking at emotions (eg. thoughts filled with power) as a tool, as a road marker. I have a thing called a Motivader (a count-down vibrating timer) and I've been setting it with the intent that when it goes off I will put myself in a happy joy filled state. I'm now choosing to create my state (my emotions). Before I usually just had the idea of hoping they would evolve that way, now I'm choosing to make them that way. I expect that with repetition a pattern and a habit will develop. I'll see the shift being smaller and smaller steps. The intensity of joyfulness become greater and greater, and the times periods spent in periods of joyfulness becoming smaller and smaller.
Just sharing some of my own evolution.
You are perfection,
Iam2