Why the words we use matter

        Although your thoughts and intelligence play a key role in your career, your social standing, and your standard of living, it is your feelings*, emotions, and wisdom that give meaning and quality to life — making it truly worth living.

One does not really have to grasp the clear distinctions between the words thought, feeling, emotional feeling*, and emotion to benefit from this approach when in need of help — unless one firmly believes that these words are just semantic variations of the same concept. Nevertheless, a thorough understanding of their true nature, the semiotic differences, and the historical perspective of these concepts can not only help you deepen your understanding of the complexity of human nature, but can also help you understand the predictable nature of the seemingly "magical" results of Somatic Hypnotherapy.

By all linguistic and academic standards, the words "thoughts," "feelings," and "emotions" have different semantic and semiotic values — they are not purely philosophical concepts, random phenomena, or a kind of thoughts that cross your mind. The lack of scientific consensus on the functioning of the human brain has fueled many controversies about the causal relationship between thoughts, cognition, perception, feelings, emotions, state of mind, and decision-making, resulting in 82 scientifically recognized models and theories of behavior. So let's see what these words really mean.

Thoughts, feelings*, and emotions — three distinct realities

In Somatic Hypnotherapy, the terms "feelings" and "emotional feelings" are often used interchangeably and refer to sensory experiences perceived onto or within the body, which are assessed, interpreted, and integrated through interoception and conceptualized by the rational mind as "emotions" — consistent with their traditional, biological, and medical meanings, but differing considerably from the meaning of the term "feeling" in cognitive psychology, where it often converges and merges with the term "emotion."

From a theoretical point of view, emotional feelings* are pre-verbal bodily sensations generated by distributed autonomic, muscular, visceral, and endocrine activation patterns. These patterns arise both bottom-up from life events and top-down from memory reactivation. Through interoception, the brain continuously reads and interprets these bodily sensations as emotions. When such activation patterns remain undischarged, they regenerate emotional suffering regardless of cognitive insight. The therapeutic process of Somatic Hypnotherapy bypasses narrative cognition by directly addressing the true generators of emotional experience — those persistent somatic activation patterns, perceived as raw bodily sensations — enabling autonomous system completion, interoceptive decoupling, and memory reconsolidation.

While thoughts are pure mental experiences and feelings are sensory experiences, emotions are defined as the result of a process of cognitive reading — a mental reflection of emotional feelings*. Animals experience fear, joy, compassion, pain, and many other feelings without truly conceptualizing them, and therefore without experiencing emotions in the technical human sense. Yet they never misunderstand the nature, meaning, or intensity of their feelings, and react accordingly. For what truly motivates the behavior of all living beings is their feelings* — not their mental understanding of them. Thus, our behavioral response patterns are deeply rooted psycho-physiological scripts governed by the subconscious mind, determined more by how we feel than by what we think about our feelings.

Interoceptive constructionist models — the scientific convergence

Across the many established models of human behaviour, emotions are not understood in a single, uniform way. Some approaches place meaning and interpretation at the centre; others emphasize learned responses, social context, or evolutionary programs. Yet a growing group of contemporary frameworks — often referred to as interoceptive constructionist models — converge around a key insight that resonates deeply with the foundations of Somatic Hypnotherapy: emotions are not generated by thought alone, but emerge from lived bodily states.

Interoceptive constructionist models propose that emotions are not pre-packaged reactions but are constructed from ongoing bodily signals. Felt physiological states constitute the biological substrate of emotional experience, while interoception — the sensing and interpretation of internal bodily signals — serves as the central mechanism through which these states are organized into what we experience as emotions. In this view, what we commonly call an "emotion" is a constructed experience arising from how the nervous system senses and organizes internal signals from the body. Thoughts may guide, interpret, or influence this process, but it is the felt physiological state that ultimately shapes emotional experience and behavioral readiness.

This perspective aligns with a somatic-first therapeutic approach, where meaningful emotional change begins not by forcing new thoughts, but by working directly with the underlying bodily states from which emotions are formed. A widely accepted academic view defines emotions as coherent, deeply rooted psycho-physiological experiences, shaped by social norms. (A. Damasio, 1994; J.M. Diefendorff, 2011; A. Grecucci, 2015; R.P. Weissberg, 2015; Hutchison & Gerstein, 2017; Humphrey et al., 2020, among others.)

To emphasize the distinction between feelings* and emotions, a useful analogy is the distinction between raw sound waves and music, or between biological sex and gender. Sound waves, sex, and emotional feelings* are determined physically, biologically, or physiologically — with universal and measurable bases (frequency, amplitude, chromosomes, hormonal dynamics) — while music, gender, and emotions are socially constructed concepts, shaped by cultural norms and language. All these pairs share a unidirectional causal relationship: sound waves are a clue to music, anatomy is a clue to gender identity, just as emotional feelings* are clues to emotional recognition. It is good to know that any thought that crosses your mind without arousing any feeling is nothing but a thought — not an emotion.

Why intentional thoughts cannot create emotional feelings*

Although emotions are mental experiences, it does not mean intentional thoughts can create emotional feelings* out of sheer will. The belief that intentional thoughts could create or induce emotional feelings* is nothing but a popular misconception. Of course, your thoughts can induce certain "states of mind" by selectively triggering or awakening your stored emotional feelings* that are linked to your emotionally significant life experiences. However, of the 82 scientifically recognized models and theories of behavior, none claim that intentional thought could create or induce emotional feelings*. The human brain is hardwired so that sensory inputs always pass through the emotional centers of the brain before reaching the frontal cortex — the place where rational thought occurs. It is therefore physically impossible for intentional thoughts to create emotional feelings* through willpower alone.

Although you can eventually use your willpower to control an emotionally driven behavior — and therefore be held accountable for your actions — willpower alone cannot suppress intense feelings*. You can pretend, but you cannot feel happy or end pain just by wishing for it. When your feelings* conflict with your thoughts, a tension called cognitive dissonance arises. If left unresolved, it can have long-term negative repercussions.

Consciousness, the subconscious mind, and state of mind

The mind is the immaterial set of faculties comprising various cognitive and non-cognitive aspects called consciousness and, respectively, the subconscious mind. Consciousness is the accessible part of the mind that governs rational thoughts, intelligence, factual memory, judgment, and coordinates thoughtful actions. The subconscious mind operates as an autopilot guided mainly by intuition, instincts, habits, and feelings*. Although they work so differently, your consciousness and subconsciousness work together as coherent systems to help you face life's challenges, survive, and thrive.

State of mind plays a major role in people's daily experiences as well as in their physical and mental well-being. In their constant quest for a better state of mind, people have always known that the best the brain can do to the mind is to read accurately its state — not determine it. Because if it were possible for the brain to determine the state of mind by inducing the desired emotional feelings* by sheer will, then everyone could have focused their brain on the self-induction of pleasure, serenity, well-being, and happiness, and live a joyful life forever. However, in real life, whether we like it or not, "the heart" always has its reasons that reason does not understand.

Traditionally, the heart was seen as the seat of the soul, and its state reverberated in the physical body in the form of sensory experiences — commonly known as "feelings." This traditional view of feelings* was dominated by the belief that whatever feeling* arises against your reason, it will not succumb to your reason alone. When Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism and the author of the famous "Tao Te Ching," assures us that "If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will follow," he refers to "the mind" — and one should not wrongly assume that by "mind" he meant "brain" or "intellect." When it comes to brain and intellect, Lao Tzu is crystal clear: "Stop thinking, and put an end to your problems." It seems that Einstein understood this message, because on several occasions he stated: "I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me."

The historical perspective — from soul to emotion, and what was lost

During the 19th century, the concept that disturbing thoughts are not only induced by harmful feelings* but can also generate disturbing states of mind — as well as the concept that states of mind have their distinct chemical (hormonal) footprint — gained in popularity, especially among those who embraced the new orthodoxy that regards humans as nothing more than "intelligent apes" or "bio-programmable machines." Due to a cultural and linguistic shift that took place under intense political pressure — known as secularization — "feelings" gradually became "emotional feelings" and, nowadays, "emotions." The same forces shifted the initial focus of psychiatry and psychology from the mind and soul to consciousness and the brain. The word "psychiatry" was known as the medicine of the soul or spirit, etymologically evolving from the Greek words psyche — soul/spirit — and iatry — treatment. The concept of "psychology" evolved from psyche — soul/spirit — and logos, meaning speech or study in Greek. This is why, until the end of the 19th century, "psychology" was known and studied not as a separate scientific field, but as a branch of philosophy.

It was only after 1844 that psychiatrists gradually imposed their treatment as a first-line intervention, and psychologists after 1892. Since the concept of "emotion" was not yet clearly defined when the first DSM was published in 1952, the word "emotion" appears only twice in that edition — whereas in the latest edition of the DSM, it is mentioned hundreds of times. When cognitive-behavioral models were launched, their enthusiastic proponents assumed that intentional thoughts alone could control emotions and behavior. These models sidelined the concepts of the soul, spirit, and emotionally sensitive heart while suggesting the brain's cognitive functions as the probable source of emotional feelings* and behavior.

What those models overlooked is that the heart is not merely a poetic metaphor for the seat of feeling. Contemporary cardiac neuroscience has established that the heart possesses its own intrinsic nervous system — a network of approximately 40,000 neurons capable of processing information, learning, and making decisions independently of the brain. The heart generates an electromagnetic field measurable several feet beyond the body, far larger and more powerful than that of the brain, which encodes and transmits emotional states and influences the nervous systems of those nearby. Communication between heart and brain is bidirectional — but the afferent signals traveling from heart to brain are more numerous than those descending from brain to heart. Traditional cultures were not speaking in metaphor when they called the heart the seat of the soul. They were observing something real — something that science is only now beginning to describe in its own language.

Although cognitive models are still popular, the main cognitive theories are only a few of the 82 contemporary behavior theories. After the enthusiastic wave of cognitive models faded, the traditional concept of feelings* restored its prominence in light of the scientific recognition of several contemporary models of emotional behavior — particularly the Somatic Marker Behavioral Model developed in the early 1990s by Prof. Dr. Antonio Damasio and Prof. Dr. Joseph LeDoux. Today's view of emotions is that they are experienced at four different but closely interrelated levels: the mental or psychological level, the physiological level (the chemistry of your body and brain), the somatic level (bodily emotional feelings*), and the behavioral level — all coherent and present in all human emotions.

Damasio, Sheldrake, and the science of emotional feeling*

According to renowned neuroscientist Dr. Antonio Damasio, "Feelings form the basis of what humans have described for millennia as the soul or human spirit." At their best, feelings* point us in the proper direction — taking us to the appropriate place in a decision-making space where we may put the instruments of logic to good use. This includes those feelings* we call intuition or gut feeling — a sophisticated form of intelligence operating almost instantaneously, below the conscious mind: that almost surreal feeling of knowing something without really understanding why or where it comes from; the feeling that something is right, or terribly wrong, or that we are in danger, long before the conscious mind grasps it. At their worst, intense feelings* tend to disrupt the rational mind, altering decisions, controlling lives, and driving us to despair.

Emotional coherence theory states that, when present, emotions always include a bodily feeling — called the somatic component — a chemical (hormonal) component, and a cognitive component: the meaning your mind makes of your emotional feelings*, all manifesting simultaneously. From a biological and neurophysiological perspective — whether they are genetically determined, or result from a chemical, physiological, or cognitive process — feelings* are at the heart of life's regulatory processes for all living creatures.

From a scientific perspective, the sensory experience of emotions — called "emotional feeling" — is described as a "complex interplay of neurophysiological, cognitive, and sensory processes." Which is a candid way of saying that science, frankly, does not yet have a definitive statement about what emotional feelings* truly are. This gap opens the way for various scientific models — hypotheses about what forward-thinking scientists assume feelings* to be — ideas that have not achieved scientific consensus, but are nonetheless not absurd. The best-known models are Dr. Antonio Damasio's "Somatic Marker Hypothesis" and Dr. Rupert Sheldrake's theory of "Morphic Fields" and "Morphic Resonance."

Dr. Antonio Damasio introduced the concept of somatic markers in his 1994 book Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Somatic markers are a mechanism by which emotional experiences, stored as bodily states, influence decision-making and reasoning — often unconsciously. They are physiological responses that occur when a person is faced with a decision or situation, acting as a shortcut to guide choices based on previous experiences and outcomes. They bias decision-making by influencing choices, often even before conscious deliberation begins. Somatic markers are not abstract thoughts or emotions, but physical sensations charged with emotional meaning, shaped by memory and learning.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist known for his unconventional theories, posits that emotional feelings* and inheritance operate through mechanisms beyond traditional science — specifically via "morphic fields" and "morphic resonance." This resonates with those familiar with Dr. Bruce Lipton's theory of epigenetic inheritance and the unmet promises of the human genome project. Together, these perspectives point toward a clinical reality that practitioners of somatic work encounter regularly: that the emotional patterns a person carries are not always their own — that what inhabits you may have been transmitted across generations, through fields, cells, and lived experience, long before you were born.

What feelings* mean for how you live

Beyond any definition, your emotions are the most significant aspect of your quality of life and the most undeniable proof that you are not a soulless, heartless, and purposeless biochemical machine — but a sentient human being in search of meaning, purpose, and happiness.

As you already know, your state of mind has a strong grip on your thoughts, your behavior, and on the symptoms of your illnesses. When angry, people tend to think, say, and do things they would not otherwise choose. Yet most people who regularly say or do regrettable things are not necessarily in a permanent state of anger — because intense emotional feelings* control thoughts and behavior, not the other way around. Your thoughts have the power to awaken your emotions. However, even if you manage to control to a certain degree the behavior driven by emotions awakened by your thoughts, reason alone cannot suppress powerful feelings* which have become a constant presence in your life.

Ancestral wisdom teaches us that feelings* which arise against your will are unlikely to succumb to your reason — for only that which is born of reason can be banished by reason alone. Yet, whether they arise from your reason or against your will, emotional feelings* will always have cognitive meaning: your brain will know that the butterflies or the knots in your belly are not real, but are there to tell you when you are in love or when you are afraid. When you do things against your rational will, it is not that you lack judgment — it is that your feelings* have taken over your decision-making process.

Since there is a certain amount of feelings* involved in each decision you make, living a fulfilled life is much more about emotions, feelings*, and beliefs than about intellect or thinking. The quality of your daily life decisions does not depend upon your IQ or the level of your academic instruction. It depends on the quality of your decisions — which rely mainly on your education, beliefs, wisdom, values, and above all, on the quality of your emotions. This is good news: while your IQ is an inborn gift that declines with age, your emotional intelligence grows as you mature and deepen your spirituality. Aside from your intentional thoughts — which determine your salary and standard of living — there isn't much actually happening in the intentionally accessible part of your brain that would impact the quality of your life.

Where emotional feelings* actually live

Through your sensory perceptions, the brain takes note of and makes sense of what is happening in your world. When your eyes see an image or your ears hear a sound, what gives meaning and value to images and sounds is your brain. You understand that those images and sounds are in the environment — outside of you. Likewise, emotional feelings* do not happen outside of you, and they do not happen in your brain either. They happen within you — whether you call that "inside" your body, your subconscious, your soul, your spirit, or your nervous system. Whether inherited or drawn from your life experiences, your emotional feelings* end up inhabiting you — and you have no doubt about it, because you feel them.

Although your memories can arouse emotional feelings* related to past events, you cannot create new emotional feelings* out of thin air by sheer will alone. You think in words, sentences, and images — but you experience your emotions as emotional feelings*, which are a kind of physical sensations in your body, called "feelings" or "somatic markers." Although conventional personal psychology — when analyzing the cognitive component of emotions — describes many distinct emotions, the practice of Somatic Hypnotherapy focuses primarily on the sensory experience of emotions — the emotional feelings* themselves.

At the root of it all: love and fear

Emotions as mental experiences are primarily the result of emotionally significant life experiences filtered through a belief system. This process of filtering reality and assigning emotional meaning to the observed world is called perception. Through various spiritual teachings, we learn that there are only two basic emotional feelings — two primal roots of all emotions: love and fear — which are correlative concepts, much like light and darkness. Every human thought, word, or deed is based in one feeling or the other. You have free choice about which one you wish to welcome into your life. Living in love or in fear is what makes the difference between fulfillment and suffering.

Love is the most powerful force in the universe — life's most powerful healer. If science tells us how the world was created and how it works, spiritual teachings remind us that love has been the driving force behind it all. Using the same recipe, we can create happiness through the expression of unconditional love — a love that transcends all cultures and understanding. Love is the energy that allows your mind to expand, open, shine, reveal, share, and heal. Love gives everything, and allows us to stand fully present.

Fear, on the other hand, is an unpleasant feeling — and it turns out to be the very thing most worth fearing, because once installed in our life, it rules over all our thoughts, decisions, and actions. Fear is the great constrictor of the human heart: it is impossible to be truly happy, or to bring happiness to those around you, as long as fear governs your inner world. Fear is the energy that constricts your mind, locks you up, makes you run, hide, hoard, and harm. Fear clings to everything, wraps the body in tension, and seizes the spirit.

Spiritual hygiene is as important as the hygiene of our living conditions, our food, or our daily habits. Learn to read the energy of those around you, and recognize those whose presence depletes rather than nourishes — those who leave you feeling diminished, exhausted, or destabilized after every encounter. You maintain clarity, emotional resilience, and a stronger connection to your inner self by staying grounded and regularly clearing your energy field.

When your energy is protected, your intuition sharpens, your confidence grows, and your presence becomes magnetic..

Whatever your fear may be, don't allow it to cripple your life.

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*In Somatic Hypnotherapy, the terms "feelings" and "emotional feelings" are often used interchangeably and refer to sensory experiences perceived onto or within the body, assessed, interpreted, and integrated through interoception and conceptualized by the rational mind as "emotions" - consistent with their traditional, biological and medical meanings, but differing considerably from the term 'feeling' in cognitive psychology.

**The results may vary from person to person.

***In other words, if at the end of your session you don't see any improvement in the issues addressed in therapy, I won't accept your money!

Disclaimer: The content of this page reflects the opinion of its author, is provided for educational and general informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. I do not make any diagnoses according to recognized classifications (DSM-5, ICD-10) and I do not interfere in any way with ongoing treatments.

If you are already under medical care or treatment, follow their advice and treatment. I am not a doctor or licensed psychologist in Quebec; therefore, I cannot establish or continue a treatment based on your diagnosis. If you decide to consult me, be prepared to tell me what is bothering you and how you feel about it.

Somatic Hypnotherapy is an emotional health and wellness practice rooted in ancestral traditions and modern neuroscience insights. It does not constitute psychotherapy, medical treatment, diagnosis, or management of mental disorders, and is not intended to replace professional psychological or medical care.

On this website, the use of the masculine to designate people aims to ensure the fluidity of the reading and has no discriminatory intent.

Somatic Hypnotherapy - 186 Sutton Place, suite 104, Beaconsfield, Quebec H9W 5S3, in the West Island of Montreal.