Preface

Recently, while studying dialogues, I discovered two interesting psychological concepts and decided to write an article about them.

They are the Feeling Wheel and the Emotion Wheel, which are used to assess our feelings towards the outside world and our emotions.

Note: most of the content comes from the official website.

Feeling Wheel

Official Website

https://allthefeelz.app/feeling-wheel/

What is it？

Designed by Gloria Willcox, the feeling wheel is a proven visual aid that helps people recognize, talk about, and change their feelings.

Background story

Inspired by Joseph Zinker's ideas of conceiving the therapist as an artist (Zinker, 1978), and Robert Plutchik's comparison of emotions to colors (Plutchik's 1980), Wilcox set out to design the feelings wheel using the four basic emotions: scared, sad, mad and glad. To keep things balance between comfortable and uncomfortable emotions, she expanded "glad" into three emotions: joyful, powerful, and peaceful.

Armed with this balanced cohort, she matched them to the primary and secondary colors to render the inner wheel of fundamental emotions, from which the outer circles would radiate. Eluding to the blending nature of emotions, she painted these external sectors in decreasing shades of their corresponding inner feeling.

In her experience as a psychotherapist, she found that people seemed to find themselves at a loss for words when describing how they feel, usually handicapped in their ability to verbalize their emotions by learned behaviors of what is and not acceptable, when it comes to sharing feelings.

The Feeling Wheel is the precursor data model for the emotion wheel we use in our self-assessment app.

Anatomy of the feeling wheel

The feeling wheel is composed of an inner circle with six segments corresponding to six primary feelings: mad, sad, scared, joyful, powerful, and peaceful. It has two outer concentric circles describing secondary feelings that relate to the primary ones, painted in lighter shades than their counterparts.

Recommended Uses

Here are some suggested use according to Willcox:

• Leverage the blank spaces provided in the outer circle to add your own feeling words.

• Use it in a small group setting to facilitate creative play.

• Color the wheel using colors representing how you feel like a playful way to reveal your needs to the group.

• Change unwanted feelings into desirable ones by becoming aware of the bridges between them.

Final Thoughts

The exploration of emotions is a vehicle to become aware of your power. Use the feeling wheel to hone this power and build an emotional vocabulary that improves your communication quality.

Your power to be intimate with others depends on your capacity to share your emotions with them.

Emotion Wheel

Official Website

https://allthefeelz.app/emotion-wheel/

What is it？

It is a powerful tool you can use to identify emotions, cultivate self-awareness and boost your emotional intelligence (EQ).

It is a proven tool you can use to identify how you feel, which is the first step in regulating your emotions. Psychologists and therapists rely on it to help patients better understand their feelings, especially when it may be challenging to do so.

Our version is a variation of Pastor Geoffrey Roberts' I Feel - Emotional Word Wheel, geared towards people who have limited emotional vocabulary. His wheel have roots in Gloria Willcox's Feeling Wheel.

Robert Plutchik's evolutionary theory of emotions influences most emotion wheels. Plutchki's "wheel of emotions" is more geared towards navigating various emotional intensities, whereas ours focuses on just labeling them.

Who needs a Wheel of Emotion?

Anyone interested in improving the way they experience and communicate their emotions.

Specific examples would be:

• Develop Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

• When working with a Psychologist or Therapist

When to use it?

It's most useful when you feel emotionally overwhelmed, or you find your emotions hard to verbalize.

If you're working with a therapist, follow their instructions; some may recommend using it when you wake up and go to bed. If you're working on emotional intelligence, the more you track, the more beneficial the process is.

How to use it?

Go through the list of emotions the wheel provides doing a quick check-in to see if that feeling is present within you at that time. If it is, tap it and repeat the label in your head; if possible, say it out loud.

Why is the Emotion Wheel useful?

There are several benefits to using a wheel of emotion, but we aim for the three core ones:

• Activate your brain's executive function

• Increase your emotional intelligence

• Maintain a record of your feelings

Activate

When you feel anxious, the fear center of the brain (amygdala), gets triggered; this is your fight-or-flight response. At the same time, the part responsible for problem-solving and decision-making (prefrontal cortex), become less active. This "Amygdala Highjack" leads to poor behavior and undesirable consequences.

Using the wheel, lessens your fight-or-flight response, by activating your prefrontal cortex through the labeling of your emotions. Helping you regulate how you feel and manage your behavior.

Increase

Being emotionally self-aware is the foundation of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). You cultivate this awareness every time you identify emotions using the wheel, effectively increasing it.

Maintain

Keeping a record of how you feel over time, is useful to spot long-term emotional trends and understand the time you spend experiencing certain emotions over others.

Where to use it?

Anywhere! Whether using a printed version (emotion wheel pdf) or this online version, use it whenever you need it or feel it!

Summary

Overall, the Emotion Wheel is an upgraded version of the Feeling Wheel, and one of its main functions is to help us become more aware of our true emotions through emotional refinement. We can flexibly apply it in our daily lives, such as by consistently recording our detailed emotions. This can greatly assist us in analyzing our emotional fluctuations and quickly identifying the underlying causes of our emotions. As a result, we can take more reasonable intervention measures when necessary.