Standard disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional and I don't even play one on TV, but I do have a fair amount of experience dealing with my own unwanted negative emotions.
I've used CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) to great success and if you can accept the following two ideas then it may help you work through issue 4:
- You own your thoughts and emotions.
- If you want to, you can modify how you feel.
The following is a (simplified and highly contrived) example of how you might used CBT to mediate and modify your negative emotions:
- Identify the thought that triggered the emotion: "I'm an awful person, I just cheated on my wife"
- Asses the emotions you are feeling and their intensities (i.e: loathing: 10, guilt 9, embarrassment 7)
- Peel away the layers of the mental onion that wraps that thought, i.e: What does it mean or say about you that you just "cheated on your wife". Often you will find an extremely hostile thought at it's core, i.e: "I am a lying, cheating, worthless, piece of shit, who always hurts the ones I love"
- Now, do an assessment, can you honestly say that core thought is true? Wasn't your wife aware, and even encourage you? Didn't she enjoy herself? Weren't you completely honest with each other about what was going to happen? etc.
- Re-asses the emotions you are feeling and their intensities
- By confronting the negative thought, you can often greatly reduce the intensity of the associated negative emotions.
There are several very good books that cover CBT in great detail (Mind over Mood is one Mind Over Mood) and I have also benefited from the coaching of a good therapist.