Love is feeling - it is not an emotion Love is feeling, but it is not an emotion. Being sensitive is something else than being emotional. We can feel strong love and yet be emotionally very calm.
There is a difference between feelings and emotions. Emotions are a special kind of feelings, but not all feelings are emotions. Their source and character are quite different; that makes it crucial to discern them in order to understand ourselves, others, and love.
Emotions arise when you interact with the world, when your wants are confronted with reality. Our planet often seems not to care about what you want which makes you enter anger or grief - whereas sometimes it does resonate with your longings: this elicits your joy. And comparably you feel fear, surprise or disgust… life provokes a whole emotional spectrum. Like water when splashing onto rocks whirls, splashes and dissipates into a rainbow, so does our soul come emotionally alive when we meet the world.
Emotions, as a consequence, are a byproduct of your actions. Good actors know that. They never try to have emotions; they act, with whole their hearts - and let emotions kick in spontaneously. Neither do children focus on their emotions. You do not live to have emotions, but you have emotions whilst living.
Emotions are an expression of your life force - and their power is meant to fuel your actions again, not to be consumed in introspection. They are richer, more abundant and move more freely, if you stay focused on the stream of energy that provokes them: your connection to the world. No splashes, no rainbow without current. Emotions want you to be in flow and want to move with you.
However: as soon as you judge emotions as positive or negative, as pleasurable or displeasing, you will try to keep some of them and avoid others - which is just two sides of the same medal: manipulation. It is a tempting, but tricky path. You need emotions; they are important signals that help you find your way in the world by remembering you of what you want - so anger and fear are as important as joy. When you manipulate emotions, they go increasingly unreal - and you begin to float in your inner world, in sentimentality or depressiveness.
Comparably, in a love relationship, you may become addicted to certain emotions. However: When you hold on to them, you will lose contact with your partner - the real source of being emotionally touched! So sooner or later, your emotions go flat, and if you identify love with emotionality, you will draw the conclusion that love is over - and you leave this relationship to enter the same cycle with another partner again…
Feelings, on the contrary, are the results of your heart's perception. Feeling is
- perceiving what happens in your own inner world
- perceiving what happens in the inner world of others.
Feeling is a vast realm. You feel more than your emotions alone - and the tragic is that feeling is often despised as it is equaled with being emotional. Feeling, however, can have an astounding clarity and precision; it is our heart’s intelligence. In yourself, you can feel your body, your conscience and your wants. In the outer world, you can feel your partner’s mood when he or she enters the room. When meeting a person for the first time, you can feel who he or she is: inner qualities, life attitude, extent of authenticity. And so you can feel what people mean when they speak - their hidden messages.
Feeling reveals, it brings us into contact with life, and it needs inner stillness, whereas emotions, as they are connected to our needs and wants, build up pressure and can blind us.
Feeling does not need emotions, whereas emotions need feeling: they need to be felt in order to get clear and to relax.
It is only when we clearly feel emotions - instead of being pushed forward to act them out - that emotions uncover and release their beneficial potential: they can lead us to our inner truth and intensify our connection.
Two examples:
- If you are angry, some need or longing has not been answered - and it helps to feel and share it, instead of just going with the anger. When you allow your partner to learn about your want, she or he may discover something that he or she did not know or realise and thus gets the chance to respond to it in a way that feels good for both of you. Your anger can lead to a better connection.
- If fear is about to enter you, you will tend to avoid feeling it and behave in ways that help you neglect it;
these defensive patterns, though, will disturb your interaction with your partner. If, on the contrary, you dare to
feel and hold the fear, you need not be defensive anymore and you gain freedom of choice; and when you share your fear
openly with your partner, his/her heart - that closed down to your defensive attacks - can open up to you. She or he can
feel you now. And when you are held in your fear and responded to by your partner, healing occurs. When you feel fear,
fear becomes a portal to your inner truth.
However, what seems so natural and simple, is not easy. To feel and to share emotions in a way that they do not damage, but fuel and deepen your connection is an art - an art, fortunately, that can be learnt and practiced.
Love is feeling, not an emotion. As love stems from a strong will, it produces intense emotions. But here is the point: love does not need emotions, it needs feeling. Your will to connect, your longing is nourished by feeling your partner.
Love is feeling: feeling your partner and yourself - whatever the emotions are. The wonder of love is that you just enjoy feeling the presence and essence of your beloved. He or she does not need to perform, not to match expectations, not to be the source of pleasurable emotions. And no need, no sense, no way to explain why you love her or him. What you feel, is too rich, too subtle, too moving to be caught in words or to be reduced to emotions.
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