The difference between feelings and emotions
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The difference between feelings and emotions
In everyday conversation, and often within the counselling environment, people assume that when the subject of feelings and emotions arises that they are actually one and the same thing, and yet they are categorically not, and are in truth diametrically opposed when considering the quality of energy that each are communicated with and in.
In truth there is a quantum difference between living in a way that gives space and sensitivity to feeling your feelings and learning from what they convey to us, in comparison to living emotionally, and the energetic drain, retardation and complexity that is created from experiencing life in this way.
When connected to our innermost essence we can respond to express our feelings with absolute honesty – the true feelings that emerge from the reservoir within, felt from our sixth sense, which gives us our capacity to feel everything in life, our surrounding world and all of the subtleties and facets of our relationships on an energetic level. From our essence and through the aspect of our fleshy vehicle that is our body, we naturally and honestly know from the depth of connection to our being what we are feeling at any given moment: however, we can deviate from the truth and the purity of the feelings by sabotaging and rejecting the true intelligence of the energy that is conveying these feelings.
How do feelings happen and why do we reject them?
Believe it or not, we are all Divinely designed to live consistently in full connection with our Soul and communicate and express from this point of integrity and feeling, which in truth means that whether we are connected to this Soulful essence or not we actually cannot ever turn off our feelings. The beauty of aligning to this connection is that it offers an awareness and sensitivity to continuously record our feelings, which are impulses given to us freely from Universal intelligence or what is known as the Universal mind (as taught by Serge Benhayon).
The reality though is that most people do not live in connection to their Soul, and in the disconnection find it is a struggle to feel what is true in their lives. This juncture of ‘connection to our essence versus disconnection’ is where the confusion about feelings and emotions begins, as it is the departure or separation from our essence that is the distinct clue for how feelings then get distorted or altered into emotions.
Emotions are what is expressed when we react to our feelings; when we don’t accept or allow our feelings then we are instantaneously moved from our connection with our innermost essence into disconnection, and the resulting disturbances are what come about from having become emotional rather than staying with what was felt as a feeling . . . or said differently and more precisely, what was felt as an energetic communication.
Put simply, we often react to that which we have immediately felt from within our body, our connection, or what we are sensing from around us, and then subvert this instantaneous knowing into a reaction rather than stay with the integrity of the initial and correct true feeling: this process is customising the feelings through a reaction into an emotion.
Reacting to our feelings
Feelings when accepted and embraced bring about awareness, understanding and insight into what is either true or not true, loving or harming in our life; to live consistently connected to our truth is to live the integrity of absolute honesty, and to subjugate our feelings we have to find other ways to deviate from the direct truth of the impulses that originated as true feelings.
Why do we do this when feeling our feelings is a true response and much clearer and cleaner for us physically and mentally, as well as it being a prerequisite for a Soulful path?
The answer to this very valid question lies with the truth that living here on this plane of life is at times very disturbing to feel; sensing relationships and the often loveless, dismissive expression within them can be heartbreaking. As well there are many moments when we can as human beings be incensed and furious about the many inequalities, abuses, corruptions, competitions and out and out lies that we see and witness on a daily basis. Many people just say “no” – they cannot possibly bear to feel all that grief and despair that they observe is being imposed upon one another as human beings – and rather than loving the growth, development and evolution that life offers in these moments of greater awareness, they end up hating what life exposes, and in reaction to this choose to withdraw, not wanting to carry the perceived ‘burden’ of the whole truth that their feelings read and register. Abandoning connection to the innermost self and adopting instead the right to be emotional then serves the ‘perfect’ purpose of suppressing and denying the unwanted yet true feelings.
It is common as human beings to resort to many measures to numb or bury our feelings through various desires so that we can circumvent and medicate our greater awareness. We have all heard the terms ‘Drown your sorrows’, ‘Eat to forget’, ‘Escape what you feel’ or ‘Numb the pain’: these behaviours have become a part of our human repertoire of self-abuse that dishonour and disregard our true feelings. They can be as obvious as overeating, or being in a food coma, binge watching TV, escaping via a book, smashing our bodies through a strenuous workout at the gym, causing arguments or dramas, or wanting to sleep your life away. These are just some of the many pathways of denial that we have each finely crafted and hold onto as protection from the real or perceived hurts, grief, injustices, cruelties, prejudices and injury that have arisen from our many moments experienced in life – and very often these moments having played out with those we are closest and most intimate with in our family and work relationships.
The reality of living emotionally
Emotions are a segue away from truth and clarity of feeling, a distorted reality that offers a fabricated truth that is partial and opportune for the ‘owner’ or ‘exhibitor’ of the emotions. Emotions very deviously and purposefully fit the lens of what (from our disconnection) we want to see and know, or rather what we don’t want to see and know. They can be utilised as an avoidance strategy, subverting the feeling into an alternate reality with drama, fantasy, stimulation, or narrative; an opportunity to rewrite the truth and script ourselves as victim or hero, rather than facing with humility the truth.
Emotions allow the personality aspect of the ‘self’ within to have a ‘right to react,’ gifting an alibi for irresponsibility, or the right to be dishonest, hence paving the way to seemingly legitimise a deviation from what was always the obvious truth.
As prefaced in the first paragraphs, the quality of energetic vibration of an emotion is distinct and very different to the purity that comes through a true feeling, and as it is born of a disconnection to the truth it is therefore a perversion of that Soulful vibration.
Emotions and having emotional reactions by their very nature therefore add a complexity and of course an imposition of negative energy into the body. Emotions when expressed through us and focussed on others are evidenced as toxic, harming, abusive and ultimately illness-producing. In our common language we have descriptions for emotional harms which include ‘emotional manipulation’, ‘emotionally destructive’, ‘shut-down emotionally’, ‘an emotional basket-case’, ‘emotionally toxic’ and ‘emotionally neglectful’ to name some of the more obvious, which proves that we do all consciously know that there is a vast difference between communicating with emotions as opposed to expressing the truth from our feelings.
Consequently, there is an energetic responsibility to living in a way such that we identify, accept, and respond to our feelings. To relinquish this responsibility provides the perfect grounds for us to react and behave at will and with ultimate irresponsibility, causing greater harm to ourselves and others in the process.
We can sometimes make our feelings seem like they are too much to manage, or hold, or that they are way too big to process or too complex to understand, as reasons to shy away from or be scared of feeling them. All of this is actually untrue, and this perception is already a sign of a degree of disconnection, as we are totally able to accept the lessons given to us from our Soul that our feelings allude to: they are an offering in that moment to allow greater realisation – they are not ever a trick, blockage, hardship or test to bring us down.
Giving priority to the truth that is distilled from our feelings in fact offers us great moments of expansion of our awareness from our innermost understanding, as well as opportunities to express compassionately and enjoy great healing and growth, individually and collectively.
To express and communicate our unique, true, unfiltered feelings from our sensitivity, offers each other in relationships, families, communities and humanity as a whole a one unified truth of experience that we can all relate to and resonate with. This purpose alone signifies the veritable truth of honouring our feelings and allowing the ultimate growth and evolution that this brings.
Filed under
Emotions, Essence, Feelings, Healing, Soul
