staying with emotions

When I am angry, I am anger. I stay with anger. I become aware of anger. Anger then loses it’s strength.
I am afraid. I am fear. I stay with fear. I am aware of fear. I perceive it and become bold enough to play with it. The fear fades and subsides.
If I stay with the mood, with the emotion, the emotion does not erupt into thoughts that reinforce the mood to sustain it. It is thought that helps the continuation of a mood or emotion.
But, if the mood is a pleasant one, like say, a feeling of elation, that also fades and vanishes on being aware of it. Naturally I want to retain the pleasant ones and avoid the unpleasant moods. The trick is to allow thoughts arising from pleasant emotions to go on. It has of course, the risk of allowing thoughts to become a habit, thereby bringing in unpleasant thoughts also by force of the habit. After all, mind is a complicated, intricate maze!
I am told by a friend that my Radio Talk on ‘Aging Gracefully’ was very good, and he congratulated me on that. I feel happy and elated. I stay with the happy mood and observe it. Slowly it starts fading. But if I go on thinking about it the elation gets continued for some more time. Even after it is completely faded, the happiness can be revived for small intervals by thinking about it. If it had been an unpleasant incident like a derogatory remark, I would have tried to avoid thinking about it, and failed in the attempt. The unpleasant emotions attached to derogatory remarks are much more powerful and do persist. Complete conscious awareness can however eliminate all of them. The mechanics of how emotions erupt are to be understood.
I have to be aware of the whole process working within me. If I allow the thoughts to erupt and continue without being aware or conscious of the process, then I am either being miserable or indulging in pleasure, as the case may be. In pleasure or misery, one is not consciously aware. But in pure joy, one is fully aware.
In sexual pleasure with an element of guilt, it is the lack of conscious awareness that makes it mechanical indulgence and not joy. In the union of love there is awareness and joy.