Is it my emotions or my feelings?

Why does the difference between emotions and feelings matter? An emotion is a physiological experience, or state of awareness, which gives us information about the world, and a feeling is your conscious awareness of the emotion itself. In other words, a fundamental difference between feelings and emotions is that feelings are experienced consciously, while emotions manifest either consciously or subconsciously. An emotion is a noun. Feeling is a verb. Hope that helps a little. Some people may spend years, or even a lifetime, not understanding the depths of their emotions or what and when they have an emotion. We are not always aware of our emotions because we have been trained since birth to repress, suppress, kind of ignore, and avoid them. Or we swing to the opposite side of the pole and allow our emotions to explode soon after they arise! Emotions are the raw data, the real thing. Emotions are our reactions to the present moment, which is reality, actual sensations in our bodies. Feelings, however, can be diluted by stories that we have created in our heads based on events, from of the past or fears of the future. These thoughts (little stories) might not necessarily be the truth of the situation. Yes, these are thoughts, our way of thinking of a situation, and we might distort these situations. Our way of thinking is based on our past experiences, which have created our beliefs. If we learn to understand and try to feel or listen to our body’s emotions, this will help us connect to the reality of our present experience rather than these little stories that are possible very inaccurate beliefs. From our truth, we can make decisions that are right for us and not just from our thoughts. I hope I have not confused you.

Our thoughts create our feelings, which makes us act, and this action may not be beneficial. Unfortunately, when we have negative thoughts, which makes us feel bad, and when we feel bad, we want to IMMEDIATELY feel good. What would give us a quick feel-good pleasure feeling? Hmmm, a brownie, a tub of ben and jerries, or maybe a cocktail. You catch my drift. These actions just spin and spin. We then go to a guilt place and beat ourselves up. So, remember, if you get stuck in these mental stories (as most people do from time to time), call yourself out and then stop so you can get a more truthful assessment of your feelings. By first identifying your emotions in your body, then sit with the emotion and feel it. It is interesting. I call it “processing time” to calm me. For instance, if I have had a disagreement with someone and feel the anger my body, I try to sit with it and let it run through but shut down my brain. This is not easy. Our brain starts creating all the stories of where we not wrong. You know those little stories that pop up in our little heads that justify our actions, or tell us what we need, …yada…yada…yada. Shut those little stories out.

So, why does the difference between emotions and feelings matter? When we experience an emotion that is uncomfortable or upsetting, try to let the emotion be in our bodies and run its course without any judgment or especially our “little stories” that have no truth just guesses, then we will be in a much better place mentally. Our mind is largely ruled by emotions and instinct which is our subconscious.Always keep in mind that our conscious and subconscious minds work together.It is all in the way we use them is how we get results that we want.We cannot outperform our image of ourselves that is stored in the subconscious mind.This is what often prevents us from succeeding in our goals.For instance, do you call yourself a fat girl?Yes, I have a client that calls herself that and it drives me crazy.Do you call yourself stupid?What is good to know is that our brain is constantly changing.The conscious and subconscious minds are carefully wired together, and old connections are continually breaking and new ones forming. We can use our conscious mind to shape our unconscious mind by overriding it. This is not an easy process!It requires consistent mindful work, but it can be done. Instead of calling your self a fat girl, start thinking about using I am a healthier girl that is getting slimmer. I used to call myself stupid all the time when struggling in a math class or using a computer! Now, I am trying to correct myself and using the word growing instead! I am growing! I am learning to not use negative self-talk even as I am growing on my computer skills 😜. Love yourself.