FEELINGS & EMOTIONS:
Is There a Difference?
When we speak of feelings and emotions, most people treat them as being the same. But are they really? If we were to ask people, most would look at us like there is something wrong with us. Their response would be, “Of course they’re the same. What could possibly be different?” But the difference between them is tremendous. Yet, the distinction is not something easily recognized. One is extremely simple and the other is complex and compounded. Feelings are very simple. Emotions are more complex. Let’s look a little closer to see the difference.
If we were to define a feeling, it could be described as something that simply washes over us like a wave. First, there is a notice of some movement, then a larger “push” and then a reducing of intensity back down into its absence much like waves in the ocean. First, a small swell moves toward us. Then, it grows into a larger and more intense wave. Then, it passes over us and moves past us reducing the “push” around us in strength and intensity. Other than heat, speed and intensity, our description of it will generally be vague and nebulous with no edges allowing for any distinction or specificity in our description. Lastly, we will have little or no ability to change its occurrence or the process of its movement.
An emotion contains the above description but has an attending mental quality consisting of an attached circumstance, a judgment and a formed memory that can be triggered at a later date. Let’s look a little more closely.
To begin with, the word consists of two parts from the Latin emovere meaning to “move out, remove, agitate.” From 1570, it originates from ex meaning “out” and movere meaning “to move.” It was recorded into a sense of “strong feeling” in the 1650s and extended to any feeling in 1808. Hence, we have the origin of where people could confuse feeling with emotion. But what is emotion? Let’s take a deeper look.
If we start with someone having an impressionable experience, perhaps a trauma, during the experience a wave of a distressing feeling would wash over us. Because it is occurring during the experience our thoughts and judgment about the experience would pair or attach to the feelings we would be having during the experience. As this occurs, a memory of the experience attached to the feeling would be formed. The next time any experience with similar characteristics occurs, the memory with the distressing feelings would trigger. This is what we would call an emotion: a triggered experience that regenerates a feeling through a memory.
The impressionable experience doesn’t always have to be distressing. It might also be exciting, enjoyable, nostalgic, or romantic. The point is that a feeling can occur without any of the mental attachments and an emotion occurs as a feeling plus a composite of thoughts, judgments and memories.
One of the more important understandings to be had is that feelings, like instincts and intuition, are innate and come as energies that arise of their own accord. We come into this world with them. When a feeling expands into an emotion, it arises as a function of our learned and mostly tangible experiences. So, the next time an experience triggers a feeling, it is likely that there is a memory of a similar experience that is triggering it as an emotion.