focusing on your heart chakra can fill you with love, learn to forgive yourself and others, and help you keep balanced.

the meditation i learnt was to focus filling yourself with light, breathing it in, and expelling the negative out with your breath, as you do this imagine your heart ( in the middle of your chest, not where the phyical heart organ is) as a flower bud. as you breath in light and breath out the dark, imagine this bud unfolding...and gradually blossoming into a rose or lotus....whatever you wish.

try this daily in your meditation. i put up a link to a different type of heart meditation in the meditation forum that may be of use also.

if you are really fearful of opening too quickly though, i would heed your intuition and look for an experienced teacher to help you through and guide you.

sri chinmoy meditation is a good introduction to meditating on the heart chakra and is free with many groups around the world. google it to see if there are meditation lessons near you.

fosucing on love for yourself and others is very healing. i'm sure you'll come a long way there :) *hug*