Psychology Saturday: Feelings vs. Emotions.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2010
Feelings vs. Emotion.

Did you know there was a difference?
I was recently reading in "Living a Covenant Marriage: Practical Advice from Thirteen Experts Who've Walked in Your Shoes." (Edited by Douglas E. Brinley and Daniel K. Judd). One of the chapter discusses the difference between feelings and emotions. It gave me a lot to think about. I haven't ever been the best at handling stressful and frustrating situations. In such situations I sometimes feel like I've checked out emotionally...like I don't know how to handle it so I put it on autopilot and react the same way every time...grumpy, frustrated, snappy and impatient. I know some of you know what I'm talking about :0) In any case, after having read this I'm excited to get in better touch with how I'm truly feeling and then to learn how to react in a more positive way.

If any of you can relate to this, here are a few quotes from the chapter...

FEELINGS

"Feelings come to us humans automatically. We experience them routinely. We can't really control them or their onset....They are reactions to life's experiences."

Feelings:

Shock
Embarrassment
Hurt
Frustration
Worry

EMOTIONS

"Emotion is what we generate within ourselves when we feel something. (The "e" in "emotion" comes for the Latin and Greek term ex, meaning "out" or "from" and when combined with motion literally means to "move out or from"). Emotions, therefore, "come out of us." And, unlike feelings that come to us unpredictably, we decide what emotion, if any, we will display publicly."

He gives the example of a wife waiting for her husband to come home from work. He's later than usual and starts to worry. The longer she waits, the more worried she becomes. She hopes that nothing has happened. However, when he walks in the door instead of showing concern and worry she emotes anger. The author, John Livingstone, goes on to say, "Emotion can cover up initial feelings like a smokescreen. Negative emoting can occur so forcefully that our original feelings are eclipsed entirely by what we choose to emote."

In conclusion, Livingstone says,

"We cannot control the events and circumstances that naturally create feelings in our hearts. Negative feelings may come in ways that cannot always be anticipated. But emotion is a different matter. We can choose which emotions to display. We can choose to respond as men and women of God, or we can return evil for evil, as does the natural man."

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