WHs do come back--Piecing--acceptance & time

[SH_]

Okay....Tons of info, but I am seeing a consistency in the patterns and principles in my research of the topic, Emotions versus Feelings.

Blu, the quotes you share are in line with what I have studied.
Short definitions are
Emotions are physical response of the body.
Feelings are the definitions, beliefs and habits that we assign to the emotions.

Some interesting info I quote here as I found information with the best brain possible...

"Emotions are lower level responses occurring in the subcortical regions of the brain, the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortices, creating biochemical reactions in your body altering your physical state. They originally helped our species survive by producing quick reactions to threat, reward, and everything in between in their environments. Emotional reactions are coded in our genes and while they do vary slightly individually and depending on circumstances, are generally universally similar across all humans and even other species. For example, you smile and your dog wags its tail."

So I see this as emotions are those basic life form instincts meant to protect us.
The gazzelle in the African plains experiences the fear emotion when a lion shows up.
The emotion leads to heightened physical responses such as adrenaline and running for their life.
The moment the lion drops the chase or catches one of the gazelles, the emotion turns off and the herd of gazelles literally stops running and returns to grazing....

This is where we humans start our struggles as it relates to emotions....

"Feelings originate in the neocortical regions of the brain, are mental associations and reactions to emotions, and are subjective being influenced by personal experience, beliefs, and memories. A feeling is the mental portrayal of what is going on in your body when you have an emotion and is the byproduct of your brain perceiving and assigning meaning to the emotion. Feelings are the next thing that happens after having an emotion, involve cognitive input, usually subconscious, and cannot be measured precisely."

The human brain tends to kick into overdrive trying to assign meaning to the emotion.
This starts at an early age, and unfortunately in a day and age that we teach ourselves so many things in our education systems, we have failed to teach ourselves how to balance the natural survival instinct with the realities of our situations.

Basically it is the difference between having and knowing that this is happening within us.
Meditation has started me on the path to make these distinctions......

This is something I read that really caught my attention as it was literally me for the past 44 years....

"An emotion is a physiological experience (or state of awareness) that gives you information about the world, and a feeling is your conscious awareness of the emotion itself. I hadn’t really understood why the distinction was such a big deal, because I don’t experience a huge gap between emotion and feeling. I mean, if there’s an emotion going on, I feel it. Bing.

But this isn’t true for everyone. Many people are honestly unaware that they’re having an emotion. For them, the emotion and the consciousness of it are not strongly connected, and they don’t even realize that they’re fearful, or angry, or depressed. Their emotional state has to become so persistent that it drags them into a severe mood (or is pointed out by someone else), and then they can realize, “Oh, I guess I’ve been really sad about my mom, or afraid about money, or angry about work.”

For many people, there’s a disconnect between emotion and feeling; there’s no consciousness of the emotion at all. They have the emotion, but they don’t know about it. The emotion is certainly there, and their behavior displays the emotion (to others at least), but they aren’t feeling it properly."

I see now many of my mood states where I could not tell what it was, may actually been my inability to connect the two.

This information has helped me stop anxiety attacks, maintain calm in moments where anger use to boil over, listen and validate instead of argue or get worked up, and basically maintain more calm over all.
I see where years of poor habits and instinct reactions were futile, and now I more consciously respond.....
I see the key to gaining control here is through response, not reaction.
Reaction is to jump back from the ledge of a cliff when to close.....this protects my life
Respond is to sense the emotion raising up inside...assign a true principle to it....determine the value i can bring through influence, not force...and then respond accordingly.
This protects my true character and benefits those that I serve.
Most importantly it builds up the true me that I am meant and working to be.

Okay, so not so short and to the point, but hopefully food for thought and discussion.