The idea that emotions are a kind of gas that you build up and need to release has been debunked for quite a long time. In fact it has been shown to be actively harmful. If you think carefully about what emotions are, that is, a nervous response to stimulous- it is a thing that happens. Not a substance. Emotions aren't a physical thing you can collect in a canister. The idea is kind of silly and outdated.
My experience says otherwise :). But we can agree to disagree.
Regarding your bicycle metaphor: just as a balloon releases gas into its surroundings, a bicycle - when we stop adding to its kinetic energy - transfers energy from itself to its surroundings until it stops. I think it's largely irrelevant whether we use the release of a physical substance or energy as a metaphor, but whatever works for you.
I also realize that I missed an important point in my previous post, which is gaining the ability to stop thinking when thinking isn't needed. This is basically the development of an awareness of thought activity. Since, as you correctly say, thoughts create emotions and vice verse, releasing emotional energy will not work if you keep creating new emotional energy through unconscious thinking. But this is really an integrated part of the release of emotions; the two things happen simultaneously. Indeed, some emotions cannot even be released/experienced until you become conscious of the previously unconscious thought patterns that held them back.
> The correct analogy is not of a balloon releasing gas, but a bicycle slowing down.
I guess part of my point was that just as the bicycle wheel doesn't stop immediately after we stop propelling it, emotions don't disappear immediately either even if thought activity subsides completely. There is an inertia left that can make us experience emotions related to an incident long after it has happened (even with no thought present). Very much like the remaining momentum of the bicycle wheel in the analogy.
What I mean is that, "venting" the traditional process of "releasing" emotions, rather than releasing the gas in a balloon, is actually just pedalling the bicycle, adding more energy to it.
Of course emotions have a long lasting effect. Unless you are a psychopath, you probably know that. Have you never been disappointed and wrestled with that for a long time? Like being left from a girl-friend or whatever?
That may be no "building up" (ie 10 times being left from a girl-friend does maybe not build 10 times the emotion from being left once), but it is not just a fleeting response to stimulus either.
Thoughts cause emotions and emotions cause thoughts. The brain is an engine and a feedback loop, an organic computer that can program itself. The correct analogy is not of a balloon releasing gas, but a bicycle slowing down.
