Pinpoint Your Feelings
We are all told to speak up when it comes to our mental health, but what happens if you don’t really know how you’re feeling?
The feelings wheel can be used to identify how you are feeling.
How to Use the Feelings Wheel
Identify the primary emotion from the six core feelings.
Work your way outwards, seeing if any of the feelings labelled in the outer rings apply to you.
Once you have identified the feeling, spend a few minutes working out the trigger.
The feelings wheel can help us break down our feelings. While anger, sadness, or fear can feel completely overwhelming, breaking each feeling down will make them seem less intense.
Breaking down our feelings can help us realize that our emotions are just emotions—usually brought on by a specific event. We may feel as though we don’t just feel the emotion, we are the emotion.
About the Feelings Wheel
The feelings wheel is a colour-coded tool designed to help us recognize and put words to our emotions.
Created by Dr. Gloria Willcox, it is often used in therapy to help individuals explain how they are feeling.
The wheel is made up of six core feelings: sad, anger, fear, joyful, love, and surprise.
Each core feeling is surrounded by a range of other, more specific feelings related to that emotion.
The outermost ring is even more specific, with feelings such as jealous, embarrassed, delighted, and cheerful.