Thoughts, Feelings, and Emotions

[Starman]

Originally Posted by winter light

Thanks for the topic. I think of feelings as conscious perception of what is, and emotions as somewhat a difference between what is and what we would like it to be. The emotions come from inertia of adapting to life and creating stability. And emotions are tied to thoughts. But life is always changing so we experience emotions as things change. Could think of equanimity as when there is balance between the feelings and the emotions. When we can move gracefully along as things change.

Very interesting perspective. Please correct me if I have misunderstood what you have shared,
but I think you are saying that we generate our own emotions when there is inertia in what is
otherwise a flow, and our perceptions of what we have generated is how we relate to, or feel,
those emotions.

So I am wondering if emotions come from subconscious, or sublime-conscious, patterns which
we have created. Patterns which we may not be conscious of. Feelings as conscious perceptions
may be challenged when a person does not know why they feel a certain way. Then they may
not be conscious of their perceptions.

I am just playing with this right now and do not have a fixed answer or premise. Thank you for
contributing to the discussion.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by winter light

Thanks for the topic. I think of feelings as conscious perception of what is, and emotions as somewhat a difference between what is and what we would like it to be. The emotions come from inertia of adapting to life and creating stability. And emotions are tied to thoughts. But life is always changing so we experience emotions as things change. Could think of equanimity as when there is balance between the feelings and the emotions. When we can move gracefully along as things change.

I resonate with that, WL. Speaking of change, Life is forever flowing, like a stream/river. Even the ocean is dynamic phenom, as from it, in 'response'(?) to the sun comes the rain. There's 'going with Life's flow' and then there's attempting to go against Life's flow. The former results in a feeling of 'equanimity'; the latter, of course, results in feeling 'angst'.

Thanks for the stimulus to go off on a riff! Feeling joyfully satisfied by that.

[Moonglow]

Originally Posted by Starman

Thank you Moonglow. Massage is very interesting and it brings it all back to our sense of touch. Touch takes place on many levels, as I earlier stated, touch is the basis of all of our senses. To see with our eyes light must enter our eyes and touch the occipital part of our brain. To smell something and odor must touch our olfactory nerve, to taste the substance, or its odor, must touch our tongue, and to hear sound must touch and vibrate our inner ear. All of our senses rely on touch.

When we talk about being connected to someone or something, we are talking about touch. When we say all things are connected we are talking about how everything is in touch with everything else. But things, like emotions may be in touch with us, but like a clogged up nose or ears, which does not allow us to smell or hear, we may not be capable to be in touch with those things or emotions that may be in touch with us. Massage is so wonderful because it is not only physical touching but it is also energetic touching, among other things.

I think that most problems, or challenges, that people have in this world are emotional issues. Most of those emotional issues arise as relationship problems. More people are in therapy for relationship issues then any thing else. Relationship issues not only include how we interact with others, it also includes how we interact with ourselves, or how we relate to ourselves.

A relationship involves being able to connect with or be in touch with, although there are apathetic relationships between people and also between a person and how they feel. Apathy means a lack of interest, and there are people who have a lack of interest in themselves. We are less than in our infancy when it comes to understanding our emotions and how we may feel about our emotional states. In my opinion emotional states are states of being.

Hi Starman,

You bring up some important reflections.
There is a lot of talk about the mental state, yet how much is noticed or considered as to how it touches one and not only affects (touches) the mind and body, but ones energy body as well?

The energy body is also part of our system. Like the circulatory or lymphatic system it effects ones being. How one may feel and what one may be projecting into the world. I don't think it is thought about much by many or is turned around to be psychological. The psychological effect(s) may be what manifests as a result of the energetic transference. As I am relating to it at present.

Message therapy is interesting and there are many techniques that can help release not only physical discomforts, but clogged energy as well.

With in the energy body, as I see it, can be held emotions. For after all what are emotions in ther essence? Energy, aren't they? Yes chemicals in th body may affect emotions and moods as well. Which shows to me, as you point out, how one touches and affects the other.

I feel in American society, atleast, touching is becoming a bit perverted. In the sense that there seems a fear to be touched. Meaning in a positive way. Simply giving someone a heartfelt hug can get misconstrued. Seems people, in general are becoming more distant from each other.

Is it any wonder many seek out Message Therapy or other means that offer a safe environment to get back in touch with themselves and others? It brings to mind what I heard about babies needing touch. That without it one dies.

I feel we are social beings and part of the life here. With this comes the importance of being touched by something, somehow. We are touched by nature, the experiences that interact with our senses, as you point out.

This further brings to me how I am not alone, we are not alone. We share in the experience of being human, being of life, being. With this comes feelings in whatever form, being touched, having responses, and on some level emotions.

It may well be some issues that come up is sorting through how to process all this and be OK with myself and finding tools to help deal with living. Which is sorting through the patterns taught and formed and the new patterns that form and feel more like myself, my being.

Which brings it back to noticing what touches me and the energy it may bring.
Perhaps getting a little deep with this, but find the way you placed as being touched really brought it home for me. Got the old brain box and feelings connecting with it.

It does come back to being with oneself and through this be able to better relate to others.

Each one has his/her way and take on this. Share what comes to my mind and feelings.

[winter light]

Originally Posted by Starman

Very interesting perspective. Please correct me if I have misunderstood what you have shared,
but I think you are saying that we generate our own emotions when there is inertia in what is
otherwise a flow, and our perceptions of what we have generated is how we relate to, or feel,
those emotions.

Mostly yes. I think emotions are always related to inertia. And not only that but memory as well. The inertia is in our energy and physiology and neurological systems. Once emotions are triggered a flood of neurotransmitters and hormones flow and cause effects until they are metabolized or used up. The heart and breathing are affected. And all of this feeds back into our neuro-connections and evolving our memory. So I would also say that we have little direct control of emotions. Though we can prepare for future events. So we do have some influence in the present to cultivate better reactions in the future.

William James has a quote "We do not run because we are afraid, we are afraid because we run". He was very interested in how the body affects the thought and emotions.

I see Moonglow is addressing this similarly.

So I am wondering if emotions come from subconscious, or sublime-conscious, patterns which
we have created. Patterns which we may not be conscious of. Feelings as conscious perceptions
may be challenged when a person does not know why they feel a certain way. Then they may
not be conscious of their perceptions.

I am just playing with this right now and do not have a fixed answer or premise. Thank you for
contributing to the discussion.

Subconscious is hard for me to define. Though thinking about it, when we have emotional patterns stored in our memory, they are either lying dormant or actively playing out beneath our awareness.

Then there is another way to think of memory. Conditions outside of ourselves and where circumstances repeat and retrigger emotions. So conditions outside of ourselves are actually connected to the emotional inertia. Then you have relationships where all of this echos into and out from another person and things get really complex.

[Starman]

Moonglow, wonderful response, I enjoyed reading what you just shared very much. Don’t be concerned about going too deep; I for one love living below the surface.

Touch is extremely important. Yes, there are infant babies that die attributed to a lack of being touched. When I worked in the medical field new moms were told about the need to hold, touch, and talk to their new babies, to avoid sudden infant death syndrome and other poor development issues.

I have previously shared her at SF that loneliness and being alone are two different things. Being alone is physical isolation while loneliness is emotional isolation. Today at least in America, as you have stated, lots of people are becoming emotionally isolated and this can lead to all sorts of behavioral problems.

Professionally called “emotional deprivation,” or being emotionally deprived, can be a very painful experience. People hurt when they are emotionally deprived. I believe that we have to learn how to emotionally nurture ourselves regardless of our social situation to avoid this kind of deprivation. We have more people living alone in America today than ever before in recorded history. But living alone is not the problem, rather being emotionally isolated is the problem.

A person can not learn how to have relationships by avoiding relationships. Relationships, or our connections, are in my opinion, the most important thing we have. Lots of people are finding emotional connections with animals, dogs, cats, etc., and many find these connections to be “better” than their connections with other human beings. While I think pets are great for getting emotional needs met, one of the reasons for the angst and divisions in our society is due to a lack of human to human contact. A great deal of human contacts are now taking place online in social media, but in my opinion that is not the same as face to face contact.

It is also true what you shared about touching. Personally I try to get a physical hug from another person as much as I can. Getting a physical body to body hug can be such a beautiful experience. Touching another human being, holding hands, etc., can transfer an incredible energetic presence. But today safety and personal boundary issues limit this type of contact. In my youth, during the “hippie days,” we used to hug just about anyone or everyone, but that is not the case today.

I am blessed to have and emotional support system, and I think having such a network of people is critical for healthy development. Poor mental and emotional development, as well as a lack of spiritual development, can devastate humankind. I feel like most of the problems we see in the world today are identity issues. People stay on the surface and identify more with their covering, the color of their skin, their gender, religious affiliation, socio-economic bracket, etc., and do not bother to dive deeper into their own being. This type of tribal identification is at the root of relationship problems and a lack of being able to connect with others who are not of my so-called “tribe.” Human beings have more in common than we do that is different but it seems we put more emphasis on our differences than we do our commonality.

[Starman]

Winter light, thank you very much for the clarity. So I am going to take a more
metaphysical approach to this. We file things in our memory based on previous experiences
we have had that are similar or different. Basically memory compares and contrasts
experiences we are having with experiences we have had.

Our waking self-consciousness is manual while our sublime, or sub-consciousness, is automatic.
Sub-consciousness is deductive and is amendable to suggestions from our waking inductive
self-consciousness. So we do have the ability to influence our own sub-conscious patterns.

Sub-consciousness develops patterns from what we think, say, and do, in our waking hours.
What I am sharing here is all from Esoteric Psychology; it is not a mainstream psychological
approach. Although one of the goals of psychology is to help a person to become conscious
of what they may be doing unconsciously. Bearing in mind that what we may be unconscious
of may be contained in our sub-conscious.

I can appreciate what you have shared about inertia, that is a completely different way,
away from mainstream thinking, of looking at this. Although I am not one who believes that
just because most people believe in something that it gives more validity to that something.
Quantity does not validate quality. The William James quote is excellent, and gives much
food for thought. Beliefs are also paramount when talking about emotions and thoughts.
Why do we run?

The major features of waking human consciousness, Attention, Memory, Imagination,
Attitude, Intuition, and Discrimination, as outlined in Qabbalistic thought, may also be
relevant in the thought process and emotional markup of human beings. There are so
many varying perspectives on all of this and when I worked with mental health patients
I tried to use their beliefs and perspectives to help them, instead of imposing what I
thought was right. Thank you again for your insights.

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by winter light

Mostly yes. I think emotions are always related to inertia. And not only that but memory as well. The inertia is in our energy and physiology and neurological systems. Once emotions are triggered a flood of neurotransmitters and hormones flow and cause effects until they are metabolized or used up. The heart and breathing are affected. And all of this feeds back into our neuro-connections and evolving our memory. So I would also say that we have little direct control of emotions. Though we can prepare for future events. So we do have some influence in the present to cultivate better reactions in the future.

William James has a quote "We do not run because we are afraid, we are afraid because we run". He was very interested in how the body affects the thought and emotions.

...

How does this apply to the emotions (e.g fear) we experience during sleeping, or other altered states of consciousness?

Would you explain that quote "We do not run because we are afraid, we are afraid because we run"?

[Starman]

I am so glad this discussion has not been preoccupied with the concept of human ego.
Because that is usually where these type of discussions go, they refer to "ego" over
and over again, and dwell on it forsaking other perspectives. So I thank those who
have contributed to this discussion for their innovative insights and varying paradigms
when referring to this topic on emotions, feelings, and thoughts. {{{{Applause}}}}

[Rawnrr]

In my view, Feelings are an experience of a situation, whereas emotions are a reaction to the experience.
Emotions occur as an experience is personalized and related to ourselves.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by inavalan

"We do not run because we are afraid, we are afraid because we run"?

This just 'sophist' double-speak, IMO.

E-motion is the pro-genitor of I-action.