Pride creates judgment which roadblocks emotion. But its not a free-for-all. Indulgence is no good either.

I can still find myself telling myself things that 'disallow' some sort of emotion on the basis that ? ..
It is not 'spiritual',
it is 'wrong'
I am just being 'negative'. Etc etc.
Various reasons that all amount to the same thing.
'This is WRONG, and you shouldn't be doing it'

This is what I call 'Judgment'. Or a value judgment.
When I say ANYTHING is RIGHT or WRONG I am essentially making a JUDGEMENT.
For me I first learned about judgment in step 4 and 5. The way I was shown how to do step 4 and 5 meant that I learned that Pride was the defect of character that made judgment possible. I'm not going to explain step 4 here, as that would take too long, but I'll explain how my understanding of that relates to my emotional life.

In order to get round this ? Booby trap'. I think a lot of it comes from being able to suspend judgment. I first learned it in step 4 when I learned how to identify and take stock of my pride. As for me pride is the root of judgment. Its not like a magic wand, but basically I am to 'practice these principles in ALL my affairs". So that means it applies to my emotional life too. All I know is I have to 'practice' suspending my judgment (stemming from pride) to my emotional affairs. Basically not find fault with them. If I do that I can feel emotions guiltlessly.

Fear is the wrong word but I am 'wary' of the danger of 'indulging' a negative mind states. But striking the balance between repression and indulgence is not easy. Like most things in life, the more you practice, the better you get.
To be honest, I'm not sure if you would do a very good job of this BEFORE the end of step 5, as I think you might be too ? Unstable. I think you need a bit of strength to do this. So don't try this if you are new. You will tip almost immediately into 'indulgence' and cause more harm to yourself. Best wait till you are on more solid spiritual ground, and can 'hold steady' better.

Also, it is unwise to have TOTAL faith in emotion. Sometimes emotion is pure KACK. For some reason we have this idea that all emotion is reliable. Often it is NOT. It comes from our BAGGAGE. So don't go putting emotions on a 'pillar', thinking they are always right, or 'true', or useful. Even when they ARE 'true', there can be times when they are a TOTAL LIABILTY. For instance when you step outside your comfort zone. Jeez. If we let our emotions dictate our lives at THAT point, we would never do ANYTHING. So like I say, sometimes they are total BS, other times they are true AND useful. Other times they are true but totally USELESS. Sometimes they are true but we are ''learner driver' and this vehicle is just a bit too big for us to try driving just yet.
You see? Its NOT THAT SIMPLE. Ha! Like most things in life..
Yeah, I get fed up too with the 'no shortcuts'. 'no easier softer way' thing. Jeez I would LOVE it if life were simple. BUT IT ISN'T.
Just when you think you have figured something out, along comes something ELSE which proves pretty much conclusively that you DON'T.
Ah well. Nothing wrong with being a work in progress. EVERYONE is evolving. Even the Dalai lama is evolving. (Bless im). So there's NO SHAME in it.