Feelings and Emotions are Just Communication

Do you feel your feelings, fight them, listen to them, or try to push them away?

What is a feeling?  What are emotions?

Are they the same? Are they different? 

Here are my thoughts on feelings, emotions, and the communication they give me.

I think/feel that feelings are a sensation that bubbles up from inside to let me know what is going on. And emotions are the overlay that I place on those feelings. Both feelings and emotions are communicating something to me.

When I sit with those definitions I venture to guess that most of the time I am habitually overlaying emotion onto the feelings.

For example, many years ago I went on a roller coaster with a friend. As we plummeted into the dark of space mountain and twisted around and up and down I was terrified. The photo at the end shows my terror and how my friend was joyful and loved it. We were on the same ride but the emotions we had were different. Did we feel different sensations to lead to those drastically different emotions? Or could we have unconsciously overlaid different emotions, her joy, mine terror, on a similar sensation. Granted she had been on this roller coaster before, and this was my first time. I’m sure that had an effect. But, where she had gone many times on that ride, I don't ever want to go on that ride again. I felt out of control, and I didn’t know what was going to happen, that sensation was terrifying to me! But why was terror the overlaid feeling I had? Why in the face of the unknown not feel excited, curious, gleeful, or any other feeling?

As I am writing this, I am exploring my feelings and emotions in a new light. I realize that I need help in the moment remembering to ask myself what the root feeling is. Maybe the overlay of emotional words can be a marker for me to pause and sense the root feeling. How often do I label with an emotion and glaze over feelings that would help me navigate life with more awareness?

That reminds me of a time I ran right past a feeling without any recognition and the emotions that I overlaid did not help me navigate my interactions with others.

One morning while preparing food to take to a friend's place for dinner I was so mad and upset, and I didn’t understand why. I kept saying mean or critical things to the other people who were helping prepare food. I was aware that something was going on for me, but I couldn’t figure out what at the moment. I labeled the feeling frustration. But I started getting mad at myself also, why couldn't I make a different choice even when I had the awareness? I finally took myself out of the room to get some space. I was racking my brain as to what I could do to change this. I remembered something that I read from a book by Brené Brown, that naming is powerful. I acknowledged to myself in the moment what I was aware of. Naming that I was mad, upset, and didn’t like the choices I was making. And I breathed, paying attention to the in and out of my breath. Then I set an intention for how I wanted the day to go for me. I wanted to turn my emotions around and enjoy the day with my family and friends. Was it an instant change? No, but instead of looking through the lens of frustration. I looked through the lens of what I could enjoy in each moment. And eventually I was able to turn it around and enjoy the day. 

The next day I felt curious about what had happened. Looking back I realized I had woken up feeling really hungry, but I didn’t pay it any attention, ran right past it so to speak. When I walked into the kitchen, the counters were covered with all the preparations going on for later in the day and there was no room to make breakfast. I hadn't connected to my root feeling of being hungry, and so jumped into helping with the preparations for the later meal. Then without the connection to my own needs I unconsciously overlaid images, beliefs and patterns onto the situation that made it challenging to navigate interpersonal relationships! If I had been connected to the root feeling maybe I could have asked for some space to make breakfast or grabbed an easy snack and then also communicated that I wanted to help with the other preparations after I ate. 

Awareness helps me in hindsight to understand that situation. And helps me to place a marker for myself when I am feeling frustrated to ask, “What need do I have that I am not aware of?”

Sometimes though we use awareness to be hard on ourselves for past behavior. Thinking how could I have done that, or I’m so awful for doing that…. But if we use awareness to beat ourselves up, why would we try to develop it more?

I find the more room I give for awareness to be a tool to help me understand, and not be hard on myself, the more I am able to cultivate deeper awareness in the moment. Can I stay curious and keep asking questions around my feelings, emotions, and what they are communicating?

Feelings and emotions, do they help you understand your life?

Do you feel like they sometimes get in the way of your life? 

Whatever your relationship is with feelings and emotions I encourage you to keep being curious!