[ comments ]
![rotating emotion wheel to indicate loading](https://pudding.cool/2022/12/emotion-wheel/assets/img/wheels/simple_wheel_color-lg.png)
Loading...
![](https://pudding.cool/2022/12/emotion-wheel/assets/img/wheels/simple_wheel_color-lg.png)
Please rotate your device.
This immersive experience is designed to be viewed in landscape mode.
![mountains in the background](https://pudding.cool/2022/12/emotion-wheel/assets/img/bg/bg-md.png)
You pressed the pause button. You can stay here as long as youâd like. Press the play button to return to your feelings journey.
A journey of emotional awareness, where we uncover the power of naming and visualizing your feelings.
By Abby VanMuijen with Michelle McGhee
Hi there, and welcome! My name is Abby. Iâm an artist and have been learning a lot about how to express my feelings over the past few years. I made some art and some tools that helped me and wanted to share them with you.
On this journey, youâll interact with those tools and practice articulating your own emotions. Please take good care of yourself.
If youâre not up for that, thatâs okay tooâ feel free to come back another time. You can press the pause button in the top right to take a break at any point.
Hi, how are you doing? Options: ok, good, not great, or busy.
Until recently, I would always answer the question âhow are you doing?â with one of those options I just listedâ âokay,â âgood,â ânot so good,â or my favoriteâ¦âbusy.â
But then that started to change.
I started to experience panic attacks, depression and anxiety, and engaged in non-suicidal self harm.
So I got my butt into therapy (where they don't let you off the hook with answers like this...).
My therapist suggested I use a feelings wheel to help improve my "emotional vocabulary."
I could choose words from the wheel to get more specific about how I was feeling.
Can you think any other words for the simple word you chose earlier?
Who knewâ you can feel more than one feeling at once!
Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett calls this âemotional granularity.â The more specific we can get, the more easily we can identify what our body is telling us it needs. Pretty cool, eh?
Enjoying these activities? Click here to open them in a new tab.
I also thought it was interesting that the wheel was organized by color and category. Although I didn't quite like the colors and categories on the wheels I found...
Colors can have very strong emotional associations - but they're different for everyone.
I started to do this every day. I'd write the words I was feeling and the color I associated with that feeling.
I found a lot of my associations lined up with the colors & character designs from the Pixar movie "Inside Out" - so I studied their process.
It turns out, most scientists agree, there are at least 5 core emotions that track back to the way our bodies intuitively communicate our needs to our caregivers before we have language.
Isnât that FASCINATING?
So I added a new element to my practice - tracking how feelings show up in my body and facial expressions. I would draw an outline of my body and then color and make notes about where I felt each feeling.
When I feel frustrated, it looks like this:
Take a moment here to pause and notice your body. Start at the top-most part of your body and scan down through your center, out to your edges.
I started to notice some patterns in how the colors I was using lined up with how and where the feelings showed up in my body.
From there I could track that to some patterns of what my body was trying to ask for.
Every body is different, and they are the source of SO much information. It can be overwhelming to know what to do with it all.
I started to practice connecting my feelings to my needs by asking myself, âWhat does my body need in this moment?â
What does your body need right now?
I ended up turning all of this into my own emotion wheel.
I use the words, the colors, the body diagram and the needs chart to better understand and express how I'm doing each day and what I may be needing to experience more joy (satisfied needs) in my life.
I no longer answer the question âhow are you doing?â the same way.
And I hold other peopleâs answers with more tenderness.
In difficult moments, I have some more tools to pause⦠and ask myself âwhat word is this? What color is it? Where do I notice it? What is my body telling me it needs?â
I try to do this most days in my sketchbook. These are some of my drawings.
I hope you enjoyed this journey and these toolsâ and that they inspire you to build your own practice of collecting âemotional dataâ in whatever way works best for you.
Thanks for making it all the way to the end! Youâre welcome to come back to this page or the activities page any time youâd like.
If youâre interested in digging deeper, ahead is a list of resources that inspired and informed this project.
Abbyâs Work
Words Section
- âEmotional Granularityâ â Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD
Inside Out
- âInside Outâ the movieâ created by Disney Pixar
- Dr. Paul Eckmanâs work on emotions, micro-emotions and facial expressions
- Dacher Keltner, PhDâs work on the social function of emotions
- For more about the character development processâ type âInside Out Character Design Processâ or âInside Out Emotion Research Specialistsâ into your favorite search engine and enjoy the rabbit hole
Needs
- List of needs from the center from nonviolent communication
- Say What you Mean by Oren Jay Sofer
Somatics & Embodiment
- Bodily Maps of Emotions by Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari and Jari Kietanen
- Somatics for Social Justice Workshop with Melina Kai Martinez via Both/And
- Resmaa Menakemâs work on Somatic Abolitionism and Foundations in Somatic Abolitionism Course co-facilitated with Carlin Quinn
- The Embodiment Institute & the work of Prentis Hemphill
- Skin, Tooth, and Bone: The Basis of Movement is Our People. Sins Invalid. 2nd ed., digital ed., 2019.
- Gabor Mate, MDâs book: âThe Myth of Normalâ
- Peter Levine, PhDâs book: âWaking the Tigerâ
- Bessel Van der Kolk, MDâs book: âThe Body Keeps the Scoreâ
Official and unofficial emotion researchers
- The OG Feelings Wheels by Robert Plutchick, and later adaptation by Dr. Gloria Wilcox. Lindsay Braman also has a great wheel and lots of other info/resources to check out
- âYou Are Your Best Thingâ anthology edited by Tarana Burke and Dr. Brene Brown
- âRadical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberationâ by angel Kyoto Williams, Lama Rod Owens and Jasmine Syedullah
- Adrienne Maree Brownâs work â in particular âHolding Changeâ, âEmergent Strategyâ and âHow to Survive the End of the Worldâ podcast with Autumn Brown
- Candace Pert, PhDâs book: âMolecules of Emotionâ
- Dr. Brene Brownâs work on Emotionsâ in particular âAtlas of the Heartâ
- Susan David, PhDâs work and book on âEmotional Agilityâ
- âPermission to Feelâ by Marc Brackett, PhD
Some more folks doing amazing drawing + feelings work:
- âDraw Togetherâ with Wendy MacNaughton
- Rukmini Poddar â check out her art, instagram account and workshops!
Thank you
This work would not exist without the continued encouragement, critique and care from: Jadelynn St. Dre (MA, LMFT), Caitlin Terzulli (LCSW, CATC-IV), Raye Kahn (NCPT, CSCS, CMT), Iris Leung (PsyD), Alicia Almonte (LICSW), Morgan Evans, Rio Holaday, Saralyn Hodgkin, Allison Allbee, Dr. Nicole Arlette-Hirsch, Dr. Raygine DiAquoi, Zina Goodall, Rajkumari Neogy (CEO ibelong), Laura Chow Reeve, Emily Simon, The 2020-2021 Homeroom Cohorts, the team at The Pudding and everyone else who has given this project such love <3
About this project
[ comments ]