The KJRs: Spin the Wheel of Feeling

By John R. Nocero, Ph.D., MBA, CCRP, GCP, CC, ACB and Katherine J. Pryor, MPM

To be human is to feel and to feel is to be human. We feel happy, sad, isolation, joy. We cycle through feelings minute by minute and hour by hour. This past holiday, when many of us were visiting friends and family, we probably experienced a myriad of emotions: frustration with traffic jams, happiness at seeing our new baby niece, or surprise that our sister arrived at lunch thirty minutes early!

Many people tend to classify feelings as either positive (hopeful, happy, optimistic) or negative (distant, guilty, hurt) however feelings, themselves, are neither. They simply are, as water and earth are – one would not classify a hill or a stream as good and a field or ocean as bad. According to Martin (2010), all feelings, are valid; to deny them is to deny our very nature. Feelings and emotions are messengers, that when recognized and understood, can help us better navigate our lives.

The Feeling Wheel is a fantastic tool that was developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox to help identify the primary emotion one is experiencing. After determining the primary emotion, the wheel connects it with other related groups of emotions. This determination helps to detect the root of your feelings by tracing back to one of the leading feelings in the center of the chart (Showers, 2013). In the middle of the wheel are the core emotions: sad, mad, scared, joyful, powerful and peaceful. From there you can branch out into a more specific feeling. You can either work from the inner circle outwards, e.g., Mad – Hurt – Distant, or from the outer ring towards the center, e.g., Relaxed – Content – Peaceful.

One can utilize The Feeling Wheel every day to determine how you are feeling at any given moment. The wheel displays the full range of human emotions. Often, we try desperately to suppress those feelings deemed bad and work to present only the positive ones. However, these are not to be shamed, but to be fully experienced, listened to, and understood. Each feeling has an opposite to match it. In any given aspect of your life, if you are feeling sadness you are not feeling joy, and if you are feeling powerful, you are not feeling mad. Conversely, if you are feeling joyful you are not feeling sad, and if you are feeling mad, you are not feeling powerful.

Bottom line: Feelings are neither positive nor negative, they are messengers that when recognized and understood can help us better navigate the world around us by giving us internal clues. Have fun identifying your feelings at different times. Whenever your mood changes, take a moment to acknowledge and understand it; you may even be surprised at how you are feeling and what is at the root of that emotion. Once you know, you will be able to release it and better focus on the situation at hand.

References:

Martin, N (2010). Increase the Effectiveness of EFT with a Feelings Wheel. Retrieved November 12, 2017

From https://freewitheft.com/increase-the-effectiveness-of-eft-with-a-feelings-wheel/#.WghQxY9SyJA

Showers, A (2013). The Feelings Wheel Developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox. Retrieved November 12, 2017

From https://msaprilshowers.com/emotions/the-feelings-wheel-developed-by-dr-gloria-willcox/