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The Difference Between a Feeling and a Belief

Why this distinction quietly changes everything in the healing process

Many people use the words feeling, emotion, and belief interchangeably. Yet in the inner world, they describe very different phenomena. Learning to discern between them is one of the most quietly revolutionary steps on a healing path, because it returns us to the truth of what belongs to the body, what belongs to the mind, and what belongs to conditioned identity.

At the most fundamental level, a feeling is a direct physiological sensation.
It is simple.
It is immediate.
It is present-moment.

“I am hungry.”
“I am tired.”
“I am cold.”
“I am hot.”
“I am tense.”
“I feel pressure in my chest.”

These are not interpretations, but raw sensory information arising from the nervous system. They do not comment on who we are and do not describe our worth. They do not assign meaning, but simply report the state of the person.

In contrast, statements such as:

“I am unlovable.”
“I am unsafe.”
“I am unwanted.”
“I am broken.”
“I am too much.”

are not feelings. They are beliefs.

They may arrive with emotional charge, but their structure is cognitive and are conclusions. Stories and identity statements that formed over time in response to lived experience.

This distinction matters because the body and the psyche speak different languages.

The body speaks in sensation, and the psyche speaks in narrative.

When early experiences overwhelm a child’s capacity to process—such as neglect, emotional abandonment, violence, or inconsistent caregiving—the nervous system records what happened as sensation, but the mind tries to make sense of it through meaning-making. A young child does not think, “My caregiver is dysregulated and lacks capacity.” The child thinks, “It must be me.”

From this moment, a belief is born.

Not because it is true. Not because it reflects the essence, but because it provides coherence in chaos.

Over time, these beliefs can feel indistinguishable from identity. They present themselves as facts. Yet they are closer to adaptive strategies than truths. They were brilliant survival responses designed to maintain attachment, belonging, and continuity of relationship.

This is why trauma-informed healing places such emphasis on separating sensation from story.

When someone says,
“I feel rejected,”
what is often more accurate is:
“I feel a tightening in my chest and my mind is generating the belief that I am being rejected.”

This is not semantic. It is structural.

The moment we recognise that the sensation is real but the interpretation is optional, something begins to soften. We step out of unconscious identification and into conscious relationship.

We move from:

“I am unlovable.” to “A wave of sadness is moving through me, and a familiar belief about unlovability is being activated.”

This shift restores choice.

  • Feelings move.
  • Sensations rise and fall.
  • Beliefs repeat.

This alone tells us something important.

What repeats is not truth, and what repeats is conditioning.

Gabor Maté’s body of work consistently points toward this terrain: that much of what we call “personality” is actually wound structure, and much of what we call “self” is a patchwork of coping adaptations layered on top of original innocence.

Strongly held beliefs often form precisely where original self-connection was interrupted.

In this light, healing is not about becoming someone new but about releasing what we were never meant to carry.

When we re-anchor awareness in the body, we return to a more honest data stream. Sensation tells us what is happening now. Beliefs tell us what happened then.

Both deserve compassion, and neither defines essence.

This understanding also dissolves a common misconception: that intense emotional pain means something is wrong with us. In reality, intense emotion often signals that an old belief is being brushed against, not that the belief is true.

You can experience sadness without being broken, feel fear without being unsafe.
And you can feel loneliness without being unlovable.

Sensation is experience, and belief is interpretation.

Learning to pause, feel, and inquire gently:

“What is the sensation?”
“What is the story?”
“Which one is actually me?”

becomes a sacred practice of self-empowerment. Over time, something subtle but profound occurs.

The body becomes a trusted ally, the mind becomes a curious observer, and identity loosens its grip.

And beneath the layers of story, what quietly reveals itself is not deficiency, not damage, not lack—but presence. awareness. life itself, moving.

This is not a destination; it is a remembering.

A remembering that who you are has always existed prior to every belief you ever learned to carry.

And that is very good news.

Heart To Heart, Elizabeth

THE CHANGE – Your body was never the problem

When women enter The Change – Part Four

In early December 2025. I felt a quiet invitation to reshape my wellbeing. It was not born from urgency but from an inner knowing that it was time to return to practices that have always supported me. Fasting is a practice that I have experienced before, both in physical healing and spiritual deepening. Returning to it felt like reconnecting with an ancient conversation within myself.

As I shaped a personal program that felt true to my body and my intuition, a new insight arrived unexpectedly. I discovered the work of Dr. Mindy Pelz and her research on fasting during menopause and post-menopause. Her language and her understanding carved out a clearer path for me and affirmed what my body had already been revealing. It opened a new window into what was unfolding in this season of my life.

Now, only weeks later, something immense has stirred within me. My Sacred Mirroring Spiral feels awakened and illuminated more than ever. The Change no longer feels like a decline or a narrowing; it feels like a widening of consciousness. It feels like a threshold. There is a sense of returning to myself in a way that is both ancient and new.

This opened even further while I was listening to the song Hymn to Her. From an archetypal point of view, I could feel the Crown (Crone) rising. It was the quiet image of a woman who has walked through many seasons and finally places the crown upon her own head with grace. 

She does not seek applause; she simply recognises her own BEING.

This is where the true meaning of Crone and Hag becomes vital to reclaim. Crone speaks to the crown, the radiant wisdom that emanates from a lifetime of lived experience. Hag comes from hagio, meaning holy, a title once given to women of spiritual insight and depth. These words were originally filled with reverence and respect. 

Over time, they were twisted and distorted until they became caricatures that diminished women. The demonising of the Hag and the Crone did not happen by accident. It grew from a culture that feared powerful older women and worked to cast them as something to resist, fear, or mock. This distortion turned aging into something women were taught to hide, deny, battle, and feel ashamed of. It created an illusion that the later years are a descent rather than an ascent. Yet the original truth remains intact beneath the layers of distortion. Many feminist and spiritual communities are now reclaiming these titles to restore their dignity and power. They honour the original holiness of eldership and the strength that comes from a life fully lived.

In my own experience, The Change reveals itself as a fusion of three inner archetypes in the Living Attributes Codex. The Queen embodies sovereignty, self-respect, and a centred presence. The Wise Woman brings lived understanding, kindness, and clear perception. The Alchemist offers transformation, insight, and the ability to turn every experience into meaning and medicine. When these three merge, they create the fullest expression of The Change archetype. They form a powerful inner alliance that sees aging not as decline but as initiation. They recognise this season as a time of sovereignty, coherence, and inner radiance.

My journey with fasting, reflection, research, and intuition has brought me to this realisation. The body and spirit are inseparable, and together they guide me into this new chapter with clarity and courage. The Change is not a diminishing of power, but rather a remembering of it.

It is the awakening of the Crone or the Hag in her original light. It is the fusion of the Queen stepping forward, the Wise Woman watching with understanding and the Alchemist shaping new meaning. It is a woman finally seeing herself as whole and sacred, wearing The Crown that was always waiting for her, and has always been hers to claim.

And we will keep on speaking her name… “WOMAN”

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth

When women enter The Change – Part Three

When you listen closely to the language of women across generations, you begin to hear a kind of quiet poetry. Long before medicine named and measured it, women spoke of The Change. Not as a diagnosis, not as a defect, but as a passage. A threshold and a new season that arrived in its own time and asked to be met with patience, humour, and deep knowing.

The phrase “the change’ emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when menopause was neither openly discussed nor clinically understood as it is today. In many Western cultures, it became a respectful coy term, partly shaped by modesty, yes, but also by reverence. It acknowledged that something fundamental was shifting without reducing it to symptoms alone. Hormones were not the centre of the story; the woman was.

What was understood intuitively, and often spoken about in kitchens, gardens, and women’s circles, was that this was not an ending. It was a reorientation; a woman was changing her relationship to time, energy, creativity, and authority. Monthly cycles softened or ceased, and with that came a subtle but profound redistribution of life force. The body was no longer organised around reproduction, but around wisdom, discernment, truth-telling and storytelling.

Anthropologists and historians have since noted that in many traditional societies, women who moved beyond their bleeding years were granted increased social and spiritual authority. They became advisers, storytellers, healers, and guardians of memory. Freed from fertility, they were seen as holding a broader view and less tethered to the immediate demands of survival, more attuned to the long arc of life. In this context, the change was not something to endure, but something to grow into.

The modern medical term menopause, from the Greek men (month) and pausis (pause), is precise but narrow. It names the cessation of menstruation, not the expansion of consciousness that often accompanies it. It only speaks to what stops, rather than what begins. And perhaps this is why so many women today feel a quiet inappropriateness. Their lived experience is far richer, more complex, and more transformative than the language often allows.

In my opinion, the return to the change is not to reject science or progress, but actually to widen the lens. To recognise that this phase is as much psychological, emotional, and spiritual as it is biological. It is a recalibration of identity, a new type of shedding, of those roles that no longer fit. A deep invitation to inhabit the self more fully, more honestly, with more sovereignly.

My mother, my nana, and my great-grandmother were not being vague when they used those words “The Change” They were being specific in a different way and were naming a truth that lives beyond charts and timelines. A truth that understands a woman’s life as cyclical, full of physical and spiritual initiations, and meaning at every stage.

Perhaps the quiet wisdom of the change is something we are ready to reclaim now, not as nostalgia, but as remembrance. 

The Collective Archetype of “The Change“

And for me, with my strong sense of the archetypal world, it feels perfect to give homage to all stages of womanhood, from the cradle to the tomb, we are WOMAN…

We start as a Child at the breast, to a Maiden in bloom. We change again as the Sacred Mother and caretaker, and experience a rush of our magical, re-productive energy as the Enchantress. And then the Wise Woman, the Alchemist and the Queen fuse and become one as our “Change” finds a new beginning.

Queen
Alchemist
Wise Woman

Again, a reminder that this passage of The Change is not a problem to be fixed, but a turning of the inner archetypal forces. And like all true archetypal changes, they carry within them the promise of becoming more fully who we already are.

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth

When women enter The Change – Part One

Today I am talking about something very close to my heart…

There is a quiet reckoning that arrives for many women in perimenopause and postmenopause. I prefer to give it back its original title, The Change, which is actually much more appropriate.

It is not always named aloud, yet it is deeply felt.

A shift occurs in the relationship we have with our bodies; sometimes it feels foreign and strange, sometimes it fills us with disappointment or even grief. Loathing may be too harsh a word, yet for many, something like loathing or estrangement does seem to take place. The body that once moved easily, responded predictably, or mirrored familiar cycles begins to speak a different language.

Hormones change, brain chemistry begins to recalibrate, joints stiffen, sleep becomes fragmented, and muscles seem to weaken. And the belly, for many women, thickens not as a failure of their diet but as a biological response to a profound internal transformation.

Yet we live in a culture that has not learned how to honour this passage. Instead of being welcomed as a rite of initiation, it is often framed as a decline. And so, without meaning to, women may turn against the very body that is carrying them into their next and most significant role.

This is the quiet danger of this stage in life; not the physical changes themselves, but the erosion of self-love that can accompany them.

Because beneath the surface of these changes, something extraordinary is occurring. Neurologically, hormonally, psychologically, women are moving into a phase of greater integration, perspective, and inner authority. The urgency to please softens, and the tolerance for the superficial thins. What emerges is discernment, clarity, and power. Not power as dominance, but the power of coherence and the kind that does not need permission.

And yet, when a woman stands before the mirror and sees only what has been lost, like tone, youth, familiarity, she may unconsciously confirm the very narratives the world has long projected onto her: that she is becoming less visible, less desirable, less relevant. This internalised story quietly undermines the sacred truth of what is actually unfolding.

Self-rejection at this stage is not neutral; it shapes how a woman speaks, how she occupies space, and how willing she is to be seen. When love and respect for the body diminish, the voice often follows. Confidence contracts and visibility feels risky. The woman who is meant to step forward as an Elder, a Matriarch, a cultural carrier of wisdom, instead learns to shrink.

Beautiful wisdom weavers of our world, our body is not betraying us; it is initiating us.

The softening belly is not a flaw; it is a centre of gravity shifting inward. Muscle loss is not a sentence; it is an invitation to move differently, to listen more closely, rest more, breathe into the change that you are living through. Find your strength with some gentle intention rather than force. What if your stiffness is asking for compassion, not judgment, because these changes are signals of real change, not punishments?

To love the body during this transition is a radical act, and it requires a new gaze; one that does not measure worth by tightness, speed, or compliance with outdated ideals. It asks us to see our bodies as allies in evolution, not objects to be corrected.

If women are to rise into visibility as Elders and Matriarchs, not just symbolic roles, but living their true presences in families, communities, and culture, self-love must become fundamental, not performative self-love and not affirmation layered over resentment. But a grounded, embodied reverence for the body as it is, here, now, in its wisdom phase.

Because how we treat our bodies becomes the template for how the world treats us.

When a woman loves and honours her body, she stands differently. She speaks with gravity; she no longer negotiates her worth, and her presence communicates something bolder and older than fashion and deeper than trend. She becomes a stabilising force, a witness, a keeper of perspective in a world addicted to a false beauty, the need for more and urgency.

This stage of life is not an ending; it is a threshold.

And it is our body, with its changing, demanding, and revealing, that is the doorway through which we pass. To meet it with love is not indulgent; it is necessary. It is how women reclaim their authentic leadership and step forward, not apologetically, but deliberately, into the role they were always meant to inhabit.

Just a reminder, don’t wallow in the weeds for too long, let the Sun in your heart shine through because dear one, you have done the hard yards, now it is time to fully Be You.

You Are Truly Amazing!

Heart to heart, Elizabeth

If this resonates with you, this book may also interest you. I have found it extremely valuable.

Spiralling into 2026

Happy New Year, wondrous Souls

As the days quietly unfold into 2026, I’ve been senseing that we are stepping onto a new turn of the Sacred Mirroring Spiral within the Living Attributes Codex. A new cycle doesn’t arrive with a bang, it always arrives more like a remembering. A familiar feeling, met from a slightly different place within ourselves.

Because the spiral moves in a twelve month rhythm, January often carries a reflective quality. It’s the first month, yes, but it’s also a return point. I’ve noticed over the years that things can resurface around this time. Old memories, childhood themes and familiar emotions. 

Sometimes even stories that feel much older than this lifetime. Not because we’re going backwards, but because we’re ready to meet them again with more awareness.

For me, January always sits strongly in the physical realm and over the past few days, I found myself revisiting some of the past life stories I wrote for Wisdom of the Ages. I wasn’t doing it intentionally at first, but the revisiting of a sore knee made me notice how present these stories suddenly felt. Yet this time, I was meeting them from a very different place. Not as stories on a page, but as living experiences that now make sense in a deeper, more embodied way. The stories hadn’t changed, I had and came with some significant synchronicities. 

This is one of the ways the spiral works. It doesn’t repeat things to frustrate us or keep us stuck. When something comes back around, it’s usually because we now have the capacity to hold it differently. With more compassion. More steadiness. More self trust. What once felt unresolved often returns asking only to be witnessed from who we are now.

I wanted to share this with you because many of you may be noticing similar things. A sense of déjà vu. A feeling that something familiar from your past is entering your awareness again. Rather than pushing it away or over analysing it, try gently asking what this moment is offering you now. 

What feels ready to be integrated rather than fixed?

Working with the spiral means understanding that life isn’t moving in straight lines. It’s unfolding in living patterns that support our growth. Nothing is here to punish or test you. It’s all information, arriving at just the right time, shaped by how far you’ve already come.

As you move through January, allow yourself to be curious. Notice what’s resurfacing without judgement. Trust that the spiral is working with you, not against you. You are not being pulled back. You are being invited deeper, and a little higher, at the same time.

May this month feel spacious, may it feel kind, and may you sense the quiet intelligence of the Living Attributes Codex beneath your feet, reminding you that every return carries new wisdom, and every cycle brings you closer to your own embodied truth.

Heart to Heart, Elizabeth

Holy Days

Today I remember we are in Holy Days

The Light does what it may and I am in my makers’ arms.

I ask of Thee; above the tree, above the star, above all of me

I reach to my divinity, for there I am born a new,

I am born of Thee.

Bringer of the light that shines forth on this World

A light that gives birth to a newborn within my delighted Soul.

As it is Christmas, I reflect on a year passing and a new one forthcoming.

This year I find more of myself and require it less.

I wish for the world and want for nothing.

As I give, I have Joy and know what I do is only for you.

My generosity is an act of modeling Thee.

For you my Creator is present in all that I do; a gift of creation is what I offer you.

In my heart there is Joy beyond and abound, a life without generosity is no life to be found.

This Celestial time of LIGHT and Goodwill comes forth with no pardon, only persistence does spill.

A persistence that arrives year after year; a reminder of rejoicing and devoted good cheer.

Tis said that the babe was born at a virgin’s breast, that his light was from heaven, we all know the rest.

For all who have a song to sing and a light to bear – be the new Christ and Love will you dare?

A LOVE that brings to life a treasure so rare, to LOVE like the Creator is beyond compare and to seek ones inner Christ is to birth a new humanity.

This is our quest, our prize, and our longing. To find Christmas in our heart; is to find our divine belonging.

A gift to you, a gift to me, is nothing at all unless it is seen as a gift from Thee.

Merry Christmas and May Blessings Abound , Elizabeth

written by Elizabeth Ellames on 22nd Dec 2010