Emotions and feelings are two entirely different brain processes, though they are often spoken of as being one and the same. Often, but not always, the emotional activation of the brain is over by the time the conscious recognition of the feeling begins. Why is it important that you know the difference between emotions and feelings, anyway?
You should be concerned in learning the difference between the two because the way you behave in this world is the end result of your feelings and emotions. Knowing the difference gives you a better understanding of not only yourself but of the people around you. To control an emotion we need the feeling—we need the conscious awareness of the emotion manifested through the feeling. Unfortunately, due to a lack of emotional education throughout our lives, the majority of our emotional reactions are unconscious for us. How can we control something by reason when we do not even know what is happening? Let's learn the difference between an emotion and a feeling, so that you can start to be more consciously aware of your emotional reactions.
Emotions are chemicals released in our brain in response to our interpretation of a specific trigger. It takes our brain about 1/4 second to identify the trigger and about another 1/4 second to produce the chemicals. The emotional chemicals are released throughout our bodies, not just in our brain, and they form a kind of feedback loop between our brain and body. They last for about six seconds.
We can say that emotions are lower-level responses occurring in the subcortical regions of the brain—the amygdala and the prefrontal cortices—creating biochemical reactions in your body and altering your physical state. Originally, they helped our species survive by producing quick reactions to threats. Emotional reactions are coded in our genes. In the workplace, an angry tone of voice from your boss represents for you a threat—triggering the fear of being fired. Emotions precede feelings, are physical, and instinctual. Because they are physical, they can be objectively measured by blood flow, brain activity, facial microexpressions, and body language. When you encounter a stranger, you may have a range of sensations such as curiosity or fear. When you give that stranger a name, it becomes a significant symbol of meaning. It is through this process that emotions become attached to every object in the universe. When some object is given a name, it not only becomes a thing, it also becomes something of meaning. Emotions establish our attitude toward reality and provide your drive for all of the life's pleasures. Additionally, these emotions are connected to our biological systems and are designed to alert us of danger, or to draw us to something pleasurable. Intense emotions such as the ones that help us survive a threat, are intense but temporary. They are far too stressful to our body. The constant stress would eventually lead to some very serious physical and mental ailments.
A feeling is a mental portrayal of what is going on in your body when you have an emotion. It is the by-product of your brain perceiving and assigning meaning to the emotion. Feelings are the next thing that happen after having an emotion. They 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.
Feelings are sparked by emotions and colored by the thoughts, memories, and images that have become subconsciously linked with that particular emotion for you. However, it works the other way around too. For example, just by thinking about something that you feel is threatening to you, an emotional fear response is triggered. While individual emotions are temporary, the feelings they evoke may persist and grow over a lifetime. Because emotions cause subconscious feelings, which in turn initiate emotions and so on, your life can become a never-ending cycle of painful and confusing emotions, which produce negative feelings that cause more negative emotions without you ever really knowing why—if you don't improve your self-awareness. While basic emotions are instinctual and common to us all, the meanings they take on and the feelings they prompt are individually based on our programming, past and present. Feelings are shaped by a person's temperament and experiences and vary greatly from person to person and situation to situation.
Your emotions and feelings play a powerful role in how you experience and interact with the world because they are the driving force behind many behaviors guided by unconscious fear-based perceptions. Living unaware like this almost always leads to problems and unhappiness, in the long run. As the objects in your world induce emotions within you, they are collected in the subconscious and begin to accumulate. This is especially so when similar events are repeatedly experienced. Ultimately, they form a final emotional conclusion about life, how to live it, and more importantly, how to survive physically and mentally in a world of chaos. When this happens, a feeling is born. Once feelings are established, they are often fed back into your emotions to produce the appropriate result to ensure survivability. Feelings are products of emotions. But unlike short-term, intense emotions, feelings are low-key, stable, and sustained over time.