My Feelings or My Emotions?

Bilal Zaiter
2 min readJan 25, 2023

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Bonus : Two lists of emotions to help you better express yourself.

Photo by Annie Spratt

Emotions and feelings are often used interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same thing.

Emotions are like a wild rollercoaster ride, they’re intense, thrilling, and over before you know it. Feelings, on the other hand, are like a leisurely bike ride in the park, they’re more relaxed and enjoyable, but they last a bit longer. Emotions are like the automatic response of your body to certain situations, like a reflex. They happen without you even noticing and can make your heart race, make you sweat, and even contort your face in strange ways. Examples of emotions include anger, fear, joy, surprise, disgust, and sadness.

Emotions are more intense and short-lived physiological responses to a specific event or stimulus, while feelings are more enduring and tend to be less intense.

Feelings, on the other hand, are the conscious experience of emotions. They are the thoughts, judgments and interpretations we have about our emotions. Feelings are more enduring than emotions and tend to be less intense. They are the way we experience and describe our emotions to ourselves and others. Examples of feelings include happy, sad, angry, anxious, content, and excited.

In summary, emotions are the automatic physiological responses to a specific event or stimulus and feelings are the conscious experience of emotions.

Feelings we have when our needs are met:

AFFECTIONATE
ENGAGED
HOPEFUL
CONFIDENT
EXCITED
GRATEFUL
INSPIRED
JOYFUL
EXHILARATED
PEACEFUL
REFRESHED

Feelings we have when our needs are NOT met:

AFRAID
ANNOYED
ANGRY
AVERSION
CONFUSED
DISCONNECTED
DISQUIET
EMBARRASSED
FATIGUE
PAIN
SAD
TENSE
VULNERABLE
YEARNING

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p.s. I will publish in the coming weeks short articles about the emotions above along with their relevant nodes of emotions .

If you had clicked on “Annoyed” above you have already had a taste of that. I mean the article :-)

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Bilal Zaiter
Bilal Zaiter

Written by Bilal Zaiter

Linguist, Researcher, Life-Transition Coach

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