What is the difference between emotions and feelings? This is a question I am frequently asked. I’m not fond of answering this one because in a way it doesn’t really matter and could also lead to confusion.
As human beings, we have a physical body in which we walk around, along with thoughts and feelings. These three layers of our being each have distinct characteristics and serve us in our lives. Both emotions and feelings are experiences that take place in the feeling layer. Trying to distinguish between them, for example, to determine if one is better than the other, leads us into the trap of overthinking, attempting to explain, and this keeps us from being present in the emotional layer. In that sense, this question is one that actually wants to remain unanswered. Nevertheless, I will provide an answer here because we can indeed pinpoint a difference between the two.
A human is a sentient, thinking, and physically experiencing being. Thinking (the thinking layer) contains verbal information and imagery. It is linear in nature and always involves the present and the future, but it is very fleeting and often seems repetitive.
The physical layer is characterised by a fixed form, which is three-dimensional, but progressing horizontally in time (it is always present only in the now) and slower than thinking.
The feeling layer is omnidirectional, symbolically more round than square, constantly moving in the here and now like a cloud, river, or sound wave. Intangible, unmeasurable, elusive, yet we all experience them. They are movements in our human feeling layer, or what we call an “energy field.”
Thoughts mostly belong to us. We can exchange them, but others determine whether they accept them or not. The physical body can collide with another and stops at the boundaries of that body.
The emotional realm can reach beyond form and can mix with other “energy streams,” like when you are in contact with a certain person and they evoke a specific feeling in you. Regardless of whether it is right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant, the experience in your emotional layer changes as it comes into contact with another person’s (or animal’s) emotional layer. Each of us perceives our interaction with another, emotionally, in a unique way. These are very subtle feelings… feelings, indeed. It requires a well-trained, sensitive, and observant capacity to perceive and understand them.
So let’s look at emotions. When does a feeling become an emotion? Because the subtle experiences in this emotional layer could also be described as certain emotions. We also give them the same names when we need to describe a particular feeling. A feeling is thus an energetic exchange that resonates in a certain way.
Imagine you are standing in front of someone, and due to the mix of your emotional bodies/energy bodies, certain feelings become noticeable, and you have judgments (thoughts) about them. You label them as right or wrong. A right or a wrong for you, determined by your reference points, your self-image (I-image), and view of the world (your world-image). Then, generally, a stronger response comes from the emotional realm to provide you with more information. We call this emotion. It involves a personal self and a story of right or wrong (or a sense of being safe/unsafe).
This is why intuition feels much more subtle than emotions, and it can become difficult to listen to your intuition when emotions take over. In other words, when the story takes over and your “I-image” is involved. The shouting in your head and thoughts and thought patterns. The louder it gets, the more your emotions are telling you that your thoughts are not aligned with who you truly are and are not in harmony with the rest of you. Emotions are, in fact, the bridge (and interpreter) between our thoughts and our true nature.
Feelings are the tangible perception of changes in our human emotional realm when it interacts with external “energy streams.” Emotions are the (often stronger) reactions in our emotional realm to thoughts we believe in. It is an internal struggle or game within us, so to speak.
Rather than continually repeating what emotions and feelings are, let’s look at this from a different perspective.
If we start arguing about words (thinking), we won’t get anywhere. What I want to convey here is the difference in intervention of thoughts that manifest as “feelings” and “emotions.”
What these feelings and emotions can tell us is just as interesting, and these will be explained and explored in some of my other articles and ofcourse in the encyclopedie of emotions
If this blog resonated with you, the Emotion Mastery Program might be your next step.
It’s a journey through the eight emotional groups of The Emotion Codex,designed to help you understand, integrate, and transform your emotional life.
