I would love to hear people’s thoughts: How do you define emotion? What would be your stripped down, bare bones definition of emotion?
I heard someone explain ‘confusion’ as an emotion yesterday and I realized I would not have labeled confusion an emotion. I would have categorized confusion with thought but it is indeed a feeling.
Is emotion just any internal experience? How are thought and emotion connected?
To me, emotions are kind of like thoughts of the heart. There’s a q’uote somewhere which describes something similar
I’ve heard emotions are energy in motion.
A status that affects how I perceive things. Not like putting on a blindfold, I mean my interior world.
They are like an infinite set of water colors you can mix together. For example, there are many sorts of bliss. Peaceful, humble bliss will cause me to perceive others and myself different than rabid, manic, megalomaniacal bliss. One can feeling many things at once and certain emotions may only be available to those in certain bodies or at different stages of evolution or in specific social situations.
I’m sure I’m wrong, I’ll be interested to find out the true definition some day. Emotions can be difficult, but at the end of the day I think they are an important gift as part of consciousness from the creator.
Perfectly said. 
Someone interested in this topic may find the following channeling session useful. Below is a small excerpt.
The emotional nature of a deep and strengthening kind is the basis of intelligence which forms the bedrock of faith. We speak not of faith in this, or faith in that, for the Creator is infinite and mysterious, and any specific belief system neglects much of the whole repertoire of spiritual tools and resources. Therefore, in encouraging one’s own deeper intelligence, that is, the deep emotions, one must seek within for that center about which the incarnational experience now [revolves].
It is impossible to create purified emotion by desire alone, for desire will bring you to the border of that emotion, but will make of it a mockery unless the deep self is touched, and felt, unless emotion may inform intellect. Those among your people who are small in years are perfect examples, for the most part, of entities which are in touch with deep emotion. The younger the entity, the closer that entity is to concepts of deep memory concerning the true self and the purpose of the incarnational experience. However, immediately upon entering this illusion the process of enculturation begins, and little by little, young souls react to a lack of understanding, either by moving on a sea of shallow emotions at all times, or by rejecting emotion as painful, unnecessary and undesirable, as it does cause pain to one who does not have a fully energized heart energy center.
Many of your peoples attempt to create within themselves deep emotion, that they may love, and know the joy of deep and spiritual love. This is an exercise in futility.
Thank you for sharing these interesting questions. Here are my thoughts about them.
To me, an emotion is a category of a mental configuration and experience. Here are some examples:
If one believes they are lacking something, they are likely to experience the configuration of sadness. If one believes they have everything they need, they are likely to experience the configuration of joy.
If one believes they are blocked from achieving a goal, they are likely to experience the configuration of anger. If one believes they can achieve their goals, they are likely to experience the configuration of hope.
Emotions helps us understand the relationships between our beliefs about our current state and our past/future states. These relationships are often called needs, values, and goals and emotions tell us how aligned we are to them. Negative emotions mean we are misaligned and positive emotions mean we are aligned.
With the definition above, I would say confusion is a category of a mental configuration and experience. Confusion is likely linked to a misalignment between the value of understanding and the current state of not understanding. This type of misalignment may also cause anger or frustration as understanding is linked to ability to achieve goals and one may feel blocked while confused.
I would say that emotion is a mental experience, but it is possible for emotions to be observed physically (such as facial expressions or body language) and also intuited through empathy.
You may be interested in learning about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Below is a diagram describing this relationship:
Essentially, behavior affects thoughts which affects feelings but so too does feelings affect thoughts which affects behavior. They are all interrelated with each other.
This is a succinct distinction between thoughts and feelings. It describes the deeper experience of cosciousness.
We have often said that your third-density incarnation may be seen as a school in which the illusion’s purpose is to drive the third-density seeker from the head to the heart. Whereas intellectual thoughts have light energy, shall we say, it may be said that emotions have heart energy; and because of this, the emotions contain more profound information than any wisdom which the brain can encompass and speak concerning. For emotions move in waters too deep to contain words, and it is at this depth that the changes that you desired to make prior to this incarnation may be affected. Thusly, even though it seems as though reflecting upon one’s emotions is the work of analysis and intellect, indeed it is actually exercising that muscle of faith and allowing that opening between conscious and subconscious mind to be kept open while you do what you can to open the self to a wider and deeper grasp of the situation in which the emotions were concerned.
Thank you very much. That is a rich channeling session. It brings up a lot of thoughts, particularly on the nature of “deep” emotion and “pure” or “purified” emotion–two phrases used again and again.
I’m going to digest it a bit and hopefully come up better, fully formed questions :).
Please do.
The most barebone definition of emotion is a neurochemical change in your physiology. Fun fact - the chemistry of emotions occurs across your entire body, not just in your brain or in your heart.
Can you share some data with the “rest of us” to verify all these claims, since it’s such a “fun” fact, don’t we all get a chance to laugh at the joke?
Share away there buddy! 
If you’re interested you can read the book “molecules of emotion”. Or do a pubmed search.
Also dude (or dudette or whatever), this is an internet forum. If you want references for every statement made you should be reading research articles where that’s the standard.
Here’s another fun fact. A majority of people think they are above average intelligence - which obviously is statistically impossible. You can look that one up on your own
You have a choice between treating others with love and any other emotion.
They’re all valid.
All is well
That is all I do. I like to read and stay informed. Spirituality and science need to be in balance with each other, dude.
Where the aggression coming from? I’m sorry I meant the dude/dudette comment to be light hearted and I certainly had no ill will or ill intent while writing it. I agree with you balance is important. I’ll just point out balancing reading with living is important as well. It’s great to read about spirituality and higher types of practices but it’s equally important to try to actually apply that in the way you interact with others, both online and in real life. No one is perfect, certainly not me so I apologize if you’ve been offended but no offense was intended.
I apologize my friend, this was not said with aggression, only just to know I am a giant hippie at heart and I do talk with words like “dude” or whatever. 
I love reading articles on science, medicine, technology, etc etc. I have a very diverse background and have studied a large variety of subjects over the years, especially after giving birth to my son. Babies sleep a lot and I love to read.
I apologize for the confusion!
That seems like an interesting avenue to explore. Thanks!
What is emotion? Maybe its a release of built up energy? We laugh, we cry, we rage…
You asked a powerful question. In the answers given, i felt clarity shining. Your question was a gift. Ty ⚘