Are Feelings and Emotions the same thing?

Feelings are sensations that we experience without thinking about them. Feelings are physiological processes that occur in our bodies.

Emotions are mental states that we have awareness of, either consciously or unconsciously. As human beings, we are able to observe ourselves emotionally, and to make decisions based on these observations. We also use our emotions to guide us toward certain actions. Our body and mind work together to produce emotional responses.

Emotions are produced when we become aware of what is happening around us, and they are often accompanied by some sort of bodily reaction. A feeling may represent something that happens to us physically. For example, if someone touches our arm, we might feel a slight jolt in our arm, or we might get goose bumps. When someone does something to upset us, we might feel angry, or sad, or disgusted. We can experience many different types of emotions, such as happiness, fear, surprise, anger, sadness, love, jealousy, and disgust.

Our experiences of positive and negative emotions depend upon how we interpret and respond to events in our lives. If someone hurts us, we might feel anger, or we might feel sympathy instead. Anger involves strong emotion, while sympathy involves milder emotion. We can even experience both positive and negative emotions at once.

When people talk about "feeling" something, they're referring to their sense of experiencing some kind of sensory event (e.g., seeing, hearing, smelling, touching).

The word "emotion" comes from the Latin verb emovere-to move away. That's why it means "moving away" from the thing that makes you feel bad or happy, whether that thing is a person, place, object, sound, smell, taste, etc.

An emotion is not the same thing as a feeling. Feelings are physiological reactions that happen to your body, whereas emotions involve thoughts and judgments about those reactions. Sometimes, when we feel an emotion, we think about what caused it. Other times, when we feel an intense emotion, we don't know why we feel that way.

We cannot control everything that affects us, but we can learn how to deal with difficult situations. In fact, learning how to handle difficult situations is a good reason for having emotions. We can choose which emotions we want to feel and which ones we don't. We can also choose how we react to our emotions.

Here are two examples:

1. You feel a sudden rush of joy when you hear your name called during a game. Your face suddenly lights up and you jump up and down. You know you should be ecstatic right now, but you don't really feel happy yet. Perhaps you've been waiting for this moment for years, so you finally get your wish! Or maybe you just got promoted and you finally won a race you've been trying to win for months. Whatever the case, you're still feeling the rush of joy, but you're also feeling a bit anxious about being caught doing something you shouldn't be. And you wonder if everyone is going to notice it. You'll probably feel guilty later. But for now, you can enjoy the excitement!
2. You feel worried about your friend who's supposed to go home with his family this weekend. He hasn't talked to you since his last visit. You had hoped he would change his mind before he left, but he didn't. Now you're getting worried about him and dreading the thought of being alone over vacation. You call your mother and ask her to keep an eye out. She says she'll try, and then asks if you're okay. You tell yourself that you need to stop worrying; you'd never do anything to hurt anyone. But you can't help wondering whether he'll ever return your calls. You know he doesn't want to talk to you, but sometimes people just miss each other. Maybe he was caught up in something exciting and forgot about you? No doubt it's silly to worry about things like that, but you can't seem to help it.

You can't always control events, but you can decide how to act based on your emotions. Even though you can't control everything that happens to you, you can control how you react to difficult situations. Think about your own experiences with difficult emotions. Do you find yourself judging your emotions? Are you afraid to express them? How did you react? What happened?

Think about how you can use your emotions to motivate you and guide you toward good behavior.