Feelings Are Not the Same as Emotions
By Chris Johnson
An experience that virtually all of us have enjoyed that illustrates the immediacy of feelings is the sensation of inspiration. Inspiration is an experience that often puzzles us – in the sense that we wonder how the accompanying thought came to be. It's as if someone else – someone who has managed to dodge our brain's defenses, has put the thought or thoughts into our head. Our puzzlement stems from the realization that the thought lacks the stamp of our brain's approval; and the devious someone is our inner self.
Although your brain and the structures within it (particularly the pineal gland) is your main physical information processor, it is not always where psycho-electric patterns are sent for processing. Remember that your inner self hands over its collection of information to the body-consciousness for translation into physical energy terms in your subconscious library. Your body-consciousness then filters the patterns through your energy processing centers, giving preference to your center of choice. Your inner self though is capable of overriding normal procedure for psycho-electric messaging; and will do so if it feels the message is important enough, or may suffer distortion in translation. It may thus instruct the body-consciousness to relay the information through an energy center more attuned to accept and express it. In the case of inspirational information, this would be the Throat chakra center. This center produces a mental sensation that precedes thought processing in the conscious-mind.
The body-consciousness is itself quite capable of generating feelings that grab the conscious-mind's attention – pain is the obvious example. Your inner self though, is always collaborating with the body-consciousness when instigating the feeling of pain, whether it is psychological, emotional or physical in nature. It's not difficult to appreciate that if an angry wasp has just sunk its stinger into your delicate derriere, then your body-consciousness should not have to go a circuitous route involving thought for you to act immediately on this painful information.
A particular type of feeling
If you feel pain (physical or emotional), your conscious-mind is made immediately aware that your outer self (the physical or psychological structures) requires urgent attention. Collaboration often occurs between your inner self and body-consciousness to produce a feeling.
Many of us dismiss such feelings (even pain) as unimportant, despite the fact that we constantly receive numerous kinds of feeling signals. They come as sensations through the Throat chakra; a sense of awareness of our internal state (emotional-signal) through the Solar Plexus chakra; and feelings akin to intuition, but more profound, signaling a direct awareness of the vitality of Divine Love, through the Base chakra. We can also throw impulses and impressions into the mix of energy forms that bombard our conscious-mind's experiences.
One particular type of feeling though, which we will call an "emotional-signal" to prevent confusion with other kinds of feelings, is not too concerned about gaining an instant response or have you scrambling for pen and paper, but instead seeks to alert you to the imminent onset of an emotion.
In the academic field, the psychologist Paul Ekman, Ph.D., recognizes the distinction between an emotional-signal and an emotion through his research on emotions. His studies show there to be an impulse to act prior to the onset of an emotion. Impulses, according to channeled guides, are not feelings or emotional-signals, but a form of direct communication emanating from your Essence self. Even so, Ekman's "impulse" can equate to the "emotional-signal" type of feeling suggested by channeled literature, particularly when Ekman qualifies his use of the term impulse by suggesting it to be "the spark before the flame" gleaned from his studies of Buddhist writings.
We are constantly equating this emotional-signal, or spark before the flame, with the emotion that follows it, which is why we believe such signals to be the same as emotions, and place both forms of energy under one all-encompassing term.
Let's look at fear again to make things clear
You can have the impulse to act immediately – adrenaline pumps through the body for either fight or flight – prompted by your inner self's knowledge that imminent physical annihilation is a distinct possibility. Then there is the emotional-signal type of feeling of fear that alerts you to the emotion of fear – which is an energy resource with a communication. The emotion provides you with energy for a sustained response if required, but if you use this energy, there are conditions attached.
Emotional energy always comes with encapsulated instructions as to its use. There is a communication, constructed by your personality in agreement with your inner self, recommending that you carefully consider your actions, if not in the moment, then as soon after acting as possible.
We experience emotional-signals as having a positive or negative quality to them. Those that appear to have a negative tone precede what we view to be a "negative" emotion (as with fear), and positive ones, a positive emotion (as with joy). Information encapsulated within an emotion provides the most precise documentation of what you are creating in the moment and how the creation may or may not be in line with your overall intent.
Part of the message of a negative emotion informs you that you are, in this moment, creating your experience in a way that contradicts your desires and intent. It is therefore important for you to acknowledge and examine the entirety of the communication of such a negative emotion. (Actually, it's just as important to heed and appreciate positive emotions as they are indicative of your manifestations being in line with your desires and intent.)
Elias cautions us on the way we currently process our feelings and emotions, particularly where emotional-signals are concerned. We have a tendency to focus simply on the tone of the emotional-signal, and then assume that any accompanying emotion gives us license, as well as the energy, to react to the situation in a manner befitting this initial signal.
If we sense anger rising within us, for example, we are likely to act in an aggressive way. Our actions focus on the emotional-signal of anger and the energy contained by the following emotion drives our actions along while we remain in total ignorance of the message also contained within the emotion. We invariably behave in such a manner, acting out the tone of the emotional-signal by foolishly only exploiting the energy of the subsequent emotion, thus leading to us regretting our actions. Again, feelings do not always precede an emotional experience. We have feelings that are different kinds of inner "sensing" that are not concerned with emotions but do present you with a sense of knowing. Feelings are the signals you receive informing you of information, picked up by your inner senses, that your inner self considers important for the conscious-mind to process and thus reach awareness. In short, a feeling is the herald of significant news from your director of operations.
If you ignore a signal, it is likely to persist or even escalate in intensity. For example, the "niggling feeling" you might get about something or someone; or when you feel the need to cancel a planned action – like attending an event, taking a plane trip, or making a journey of some kind.
The majority of us prefer to process "inner" information through the solar plexus route to the mind. This route invariably attaches emotional energy, along with its message, to the feeling – the emotional-signal. We subconsciously place the tone of the signal, and thus the emotion, on a positive/negative scale in accordance with our most pervasive system of beliefs.