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The Feelings Wheel

Use The Feelings Wheel to get specific about what you’re feeling.

  • Build your feelings vocabulary
  • notice themes of reccuring emotions
  • increase rational thought
  • uncover hidden emotions

A Step By Step Guide

  1. Identify Base Emotion Each petal on The Feelings Wheel represents a base emotion. Find the base that best represents your current emotional state.
  2. Narrow It Down Move your attention to the first row of words on your selected petal. Read through them and select the word that seems to capture your emotional state at this moment.
  3. Fine-Tune After choosing an initial word, look directly above at the two more specific variations that stem from it. Select one that best labels how you’re feeling. You may have an 'ah-ha' moment when you find the word that resonates with you.
  4. Process With your specific emotion in mind, take the time to reflect. You might want to journal your thoughts, have a conversation with someone you trust, or bring your insights into your next therapy session for further exploration.

The research that inspired us

​"How does that make you feel?"

A question that has been used to mock therapy for decades, all while failing to acknowledge how effective emotional labeling can be! Emotional labeling or affect labeling is the process of identifying a certain feeling word that coincides with your inner experience. Through the years affect labeling has proved to be effective in emotional regulation, basically decreasing our internal distress. This is shown not only in self-reports but also in various types of brain scans that can detect activation in the emotional centers of our brain, so cool! While we have research and evidence to show that affect labeling is effective, we often still doubt its impact (check out the Liberman article for a deeper dive on this finding). Can't fight the facts, identifying your feelings works! So grab that feelings wheel and get to decreasing distress.​

Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116-124.

Lieberman, M. D., Inagaki, T. K., Tabibnia, G., & Crockett, M. J. (2011). Subjective responses to emotional stimuli during labeling, reappraisal, and distraction. Emotion, 11(3), 468.

FAQ

Everyone! We believe that every person can benefit from a tangible tool to identify and express their feelings.

Emotional curiosity is valuable to people of all ages. Many of our tools can be utilized by people of any age. If you’re ready to work on emotional curiosity with younger children, we recommend using this tool together.

No, not at all! Our therapeutic tools are a great tool to use inbetween therapy sessions If you're struggling, use a directory like www.psychologytoday.com to find a therapist.

We love working with large organizations to bring emotional literacy tools to their clients/students. Email us at hello@feelingsfound.com or visit our Customization page to learn more about our bulk order process.

Of course they are! Our Chief Clinical Officer is a licensed professional counselor and reviews research that is used to inspire products.