Emotions vs Feelings

Reproduced by kind permission
Amanda Shirvell 2006

Emotions are experienced, not felt. The ‘feeling’ comes from the physical effect of an emotion. For example, you may feel anxious or worried, due to experiencing the emotion of insecurity. On a conscious level, you may be aware of feeling anxious or worried, but wouldn’t necessarily say “I’m experiencing the emotion of insecurity right now”.

However, the subconscious isn’t interested in how you feel, necessarily – it’s interested in what caused you to react, what caused you to feel like that i.e. because she experienced the emotion of insecurity, this caused her to feel anxious and worried. So, the emotion caused the feeling as far as the subconscious is concerned.