Your definition?...

As HSP, we all have to deal more or less with helping others, dealing with our sensitivity... in a word, it revolves around our relationships with others, ourselves and the world, and emotions.
So I've been wandering: what would be your core-definition of emotions? How do you sense them?
I realized I could not come up with a convincing definition, but when I feel them, it's like some gushing wind or hot air.

OK, that's going to take some processing to put it in words, so I will get back to you. What a great deep discussion question!   

Ready to give it a try now. Basically I regard all input and interactions with reality as information. This includes emotions, energy, sensory input, cognitive processes, intuitive processing, subconscious input and any other. I sense on so many levels; emotions are just one more and they tell me much about what is happening in the present, what I should do about it and it tells me much about me personally, my experiences, memories for it all goes into how I feel; what emotional combination I do in any given instance.

Biologically, it is one of the first and earliest forms of life interacting with the environment around it and as such it is wired deeply in us as it is in most life if not all.

So I guess I could say that emotions are a form of interactive information.