You’ve seen this, right? Or something like it?
If you haven’t or it’s been a while, take a moment (or seven, depending on how good you are at reading upside-down) to scan those words. That version of the wheel is pretty moderate – I’ve seen versions with hundreds of emotions listed. Which I find…overwhelming, scary, discouraging, intimidating, etc. There are also some with just a few options – the main choices in the middle. I prefer a medium version like the one above.
As I’m typing this, a vague question is blowing through my mind: “Have I written this post already? Like, years ago?” I do not know. And, honestly, I’m betting that even if you’ve been around here with me for years, you don’t really remember either. So let’s just continue under the assumption that your memory is as poor as mine and cover this one again, shall we? Because there are a few things we can never talk too much about, and one of them is feelings wheels.
So. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I struggle to know what I’m feeling. I know there are emotions in there, and that they’re about to come out all over everyone like an aggressive geyser, but I can’t always tell what the emotions actually are. I can usually figure out if they’re positive or negative, but honestly sometimes there are both positive and negative and that’s when things get super confusing.
Am I happy? Am I bored? Am I angry? All of the above? I DON’T KNOW.
Which makes it nearly impossible to move on to the follow-up questions: why? and do I need to do anything about it?
And if I can’t answer those questions, then my options are to explode my unnamed emotions upon others (and myself) or use outside help. Like a feelings wheel.
And even though it’s an incredibly helpful tool, it still requires effort to find the wheel and work through my feelings, humility to admit I need help, and the ability to know that I need help before I’m past the point of no return. And all of those can be nearly impossible when I’m feeling all kinds of unwelcome emotions already. But, if I can take a deep breath and remind myself that this tool helps, and it’s worth the effort, I can process through how I feel and move onto why I feel that way and what (if anything) needs to happen. When the alternative is blowing up like a homemade bomb in a roomful of coworkers, the humility and effort and absolutely worth it.
I know that I cannot be alone in needing assistance in processing my emotions. What do you do when you’re feeling a lot of feelings? Do you have tools that help you?
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