A few years ago at a friend’s rehearsal dinner, I realized that I was sitting at a table with six therapists - actually a fair representation at the time of the percentage of therapists in my overall community of friends. I have no idea what that says about the kind of company I kept, but the point is that I had lots of friends with MFT after their names.

Something I found interesting was that when I would bring up the topic of feelings versus emotions, most of them would stare at me blankly and blink. “What do you mean? Feelings and emotions are simply different words for the same thing.“

While I’m not a therapist, I’ve come to know feelings and emotions as two very different states of being.

Have you ever had the experience of spontaneously bursting into tears over something, and then when you were finished, you felt clear? Like you had had a cathartic release. And then it was done?

And then at another time, you may have had an angry or a sad response to something and the emotionality of the situation felt like an undercurrent that you just couldn’t shake? Even over an extended period of time. You were pissed and looking to grind an ax somewhere…

These are examples of what I’ve come to understand as feelings versus emotions. Feelings are clean, spontaneous and complete once they are expressed. By contrast, emotions linger. They are like an undercurrent, or like an undertow. Threatening to take you or someone in the near vicinity down with them.

What I have come to know from my own experience is that feelings feel clean because there’s no historical baggage attached. They are a very current response to current conditions.

Emotions linger and stick because there’s some unconscious something going on that I don’t seem to be able to shake - until I understand the connection, the tie, that triggered the current emotional state. The original source of the pain point. Usually, once the connection is made and the emotion is released, the feelings can then be clearly and cleanly expressed.

It has taken time to recognize and feel into the difference, but once the connection was truly made, I can now delineate whether or not what is coming up at the time simply needs to be felt and expressed - or if there is some baggage that needs to be attended to. The adage, “if it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” is particularly applicable here. If it’s a big reaction, chances are, there’s something else going on.

The objective, of course, is to feel feelings, and to be able to parse out when there’s more going on under the surface. And, it’s one of those “simple, but not necessarily easy” things.

Give it a shot. The next time a wave of sadness or anger comes washing through, when it passes and you can give yourself the space to take a step back, make a note. Does it feel complete and over with? Or is there still lingering muddiness? A little bit at a time, when we can step into the witness position, we can begin to help ourselves heal. We may still require some $225+/hour assistance. But perhaps a little bit less of it.