Page 137 - The Truth Landscape Format 2020 with next section introductions-compressed

10 – Feelings and Emotions

Feelings versus Emotions
So, what is the difference between a feeling and an emotion?

I found that there are many long and complex answers to this question, most of them
totally incomprehensible to an average bloke like me. So, having waded my way
through technical books on the brain, hundreds of articles on psychology and
physiology, spent hours on the internet in search of a simple, easy to understand solution, I
reverted back to the faithful old dictionary!
Feeling : an emotional state or reaction

Emotion : a strong feeling such as joy, love, anger or fear
What a cop out! Even the compilers of the worlds most respected dictionaries can’t distinguish
between the two.
It seems to me that these are two different words. Whilst they may overlap in their meaning,
it is important to be able to separate the two distinctly, if we are to fully understand their
respective effects on our happiness.
After all the research is done, the answer seems to be a subjective one, a matter of your own
opinion.
My favourite conclusion is this.

An emotion is the actual experience of happiness, love, sadness, fear, anger
A feeling describes the actual changes that occur as a result of the emotion.

This is supported by the physiological explanation of the components of emotion :-
Components of Emotion

• The subjective experience of happiness, sadness, anger, and so on;

• The physiological changes which occur, involving the autonomic nervous system (ANS*)
and the endocrine system**, over which we have little, if any conscious control. However,
we may become aware of some of their effects (such as ‘butterflies in the stomach’, ‘goose-pimples’ and ‘sweating’. Page137

• The associated behaviour such as smiling, crying, frowning, running away, being frozen to the spot.