Emotions are the interaction of thoughts and of sensations in the body.

To open in a loving way is to let awareness notice that tightening.

It may sound lovey-dovey, but there's research showing the positive effect of meditation on parts of the brain that control emotion.

Unless we're completely awake, have a degree of that. We tense against love and hold on in a way that doesn't let it flow. When that's really strong, the key piece to freeing our hearts is self-compassion.

I think the reason Buddhism and Western psychology are so compatible is that Western psychology helps to identify the stories and the patterns in our personal lives, but what Buddhist awareness training does is it actually allows the person to develop skills to stay in what's going on.

If you let someone know you appreciate him or her, especially when you're going to disagree, it gets that person's defenses down.

I would say both Western psychology and Eastern paths would recognize that we get caught up in feeling like a separate self and an unworthy self.