Emotions lead to feelings

Being aware of the constant dance between emotions and feelings could improve your decision-making ability.

1. Every feeling begins with a stimulus.
2. The stimulus leads to an unfelt emotion in the brain.
3. Unfelt emotions cause the body to generate responsive hormones.
4. The hormones enter the bloodstream and bring about positive or negative feelings. 

For example, when we feel threatened (stimuli), the initial label is fear (emotion) and happens unconsciously. Fear results in the production of fight-or-flight feelings (hormones), which helps our bodies to react (feelings).