Emotions are the soul’s taste buds it uses in part to interpret the flavors of an experience.
It is through and in our emotions that we discover our true soul-beliefs, our subconscious concepts. So no matter what we think or contemplate with our day-conscious thoughts, the deep emotions that flow from the soul in response to an experience is a more accurate measure of what we truly believe.
In my experience, emotions are not the same as feelings.
Using the states of matter as an illustration, emotions are “gas” and feelings are “liquid”. An emotion (“motion”) is the gaseous energy flow (motion) of the inner life of the soul, while feeling is a denser chemical/liquid state of the body. But the two are closely connected like the troposphere and stratosphere. Just like plants convert light energy into chemical energy in photosynthesis, so does the soul modulate light energy into an emotion, then converts it into the chemical state of a more tangible feeling.
Emotion, in turn, arises from the intuition of the soul that is outside the range of intellectual thoughts. Our instinctive actions and deep emotional reactions is closely connected with our soul-beliefs, while our intellectual thoughts and ideas we adopt are often a weaker outer circle not a part of us, and which quickly fade in real life. For this reason, we can hold thought-beliefs in theory, but during trials our real soul-beliefs breaks through in our emotions and reveals our heart to our mind.
The point: When I want to honestly assess myself in any situation, I try to identify the deep inner emotions (not thought-beliefs) that stirred. From there, I try to trace the inner concept(s) that triggered these emotions.
When you earnestly examine yourself and engage this exercise during experiences, you will learn more about yourself than you ever dreamed possible.
~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah
Foundation for Ascent 