Tag Archives: joy

Feelings vs. Emotions

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I never knew there was a difference between feelings and emotions.  I always thought they were the same.  According to Philosopher, John Voris, there is a distinction.

“Learning the difference between feelings and emotions is crucial in understanding ourselves and initiating personal long-term change. Experts in many fields of behavior agree that our deep feelings come from an unchanging belief about life that holds our identity together, while our emotions are purely physically based, subject to change and are basically reactions to life events.

Your sense of life is an emotional form, in which your world experience finds value, your reason for existence and defines your relationship with other things that exists. Emotions are an abstract, metaphysical state of mind; they are essential impressions of the world, and your relationship with it. Emotions establish your attitude toward reality, and provides your drive for all of life’s pleasures. Additionally, these emotions are connected to your biological systems, and are designed to alert you of danger, or to draw you to something pleasurable. Finally, emotions are intense but temporary. To have them be any other way would be far too stressful on your body! The constant stress would eventually lead to some very serious physical, and mental ailments.

Feelings are products of emotions. But unlike short term, intense emotions, feelings are: low-key, stable and sustained over time.

Here are the differences in a nutshell:

Feelings:
Emotions:
Feelings tell us “how to live.”
Emotions tell us what we “like” and “dislike.”
Feelings state: ”There is a right and wrong way to be.
Emotions state: ”There are good and bad actions.”
Feelings state: “Your emotions matter.”
Emotions state: ”The external world matters.”
Feelings establish our long term attitude toward reality.
Emotions establish our initial attitude toward reality.
Feelings alert us to anticipated dangers and prepares us for action.
Emotion alert us to immediate dangers and prepares us for action
Feelings ensure long-term survival of self. (body and mind.)
Emotions ensure immediate survival of self. (body and mind.)
Feelings are Low-key but Sustainable.
Emotions are Intense but Temporary.
Happiness: is a feeling.
Joy: is an emotion.
Worry: is a feeling.
Fear: is an emotion.
Contentment: is a feeling.
Enthusiasm: is an emotion.
Bitterness: is a feeling.
Anger: is an emotion.
Love: is a feeling.
Lust: is an emotion.
Depression: is a feeling.
Sadness: is an emotion.

So, why should you be concerned with the difference between emotions and feelings anyway? Because the way you behave in this world, is the end result of your feelings and emotions.  Learning the difference can provide you with a better understanding of not only yourself, but of the people around you.”

For additional information, go to: Authentic Systems, Motivation Research & Development @ http://authentic-systems.com/difference-between-emotions-and-feelings/ and http://johnvoris.com/featured-articles/difference-between-emotions-and-feelings/.

Manifest Your Desires

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This day doesn’t have to be your birthday to make a wish.  I want you to close your eyes right now and purposely think of something you want.  To test this process, let’s start with something simple.  I simply asked for a connection with a dear friend who I have known for many years.  Now let go of the thought and forget about it.  What I mean is don’t dwell on it or keep asking for it or wondering whether or not it’s going to come true.  To speed up the process, stay positive and believe with all your heart that it will happen with absolutely no doubt.  You can even act like it has happened or you’ve received it already and be very thankful.  Continue with your normal, daily activities, but stay fully focused in the present moment throughout the days ahead.  I am so excited for us right now, because this is part of what life is all about.  Stay tuned my friends. I am wishing you a joy-filled life!

Faith, Hope, and Love

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Despite the tragedies in this world, there still exists the wonder of it all:  the beauty, the aliveness, the stillness, the love, and the miracles. The miracles are what keep us in joy and in faith and bring us closer to our Creator.  My hope for all is that we are conscious of and witness and experience many miracles in the coming new year and all through life.

Love

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“Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form. In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

The reason why the romantic love relationship is such an intense and universally sought-after experience is that it seems to offer liberation from a deep-seated state of fear, need, lack, and incompleteness that is part of the human condition in its unredeemed and unenlightened state. There is a physical as well as a psychological dimension to this state.

The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace. First you stop judging yourself; then you stop judging your partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or change them in any way. That immediately takes you beyond ego. All mind games and all addictive clinging are then over. There are no victims and no perpetrators anymore, no accuser and accused. This is also the end of all codependency, of being drawn into somebody else’s unconscious pattern and thereby enabling it to continue. You will then either separate – in love – or move ever more deeply into the Now together – into Being.” – Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Marianne Williamson

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Here are some great quotes by American spiritual teacher, author, and lecturer, Marianne Williamson:

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.
Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.
We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.

We think we need to understand people to know whether or not they’re lovable, but in fact until we love them we can never understand them.

 

JOY

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Liam at the pumpkin patch.

Liam at the pumpkin patch

Can you see the joy on this little guy’s face?  He was so excited to be at the pumpkin patch and that he got to pick his own pumpkin.  It’s moments like these that mean the most in life.  Do we still get excited about the simple things?  When did we lose that joy?  Bring back the joy in your life.  Slow down, take notice, and appreciate all of God’s miracles.