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
Elizabeth Ellames 