Mystery Gift Box #007 | Emotion Wheel

Hey friends,

Got a big PhD assessment coming up next Thursday so going to keep this one nice and short…

I finished the Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brene Brown few weeks ago and briefly mentioned the importance of expanding your emotions vocabulary to properly identify and verbalise your emotions rather than generalising all emotions to the main ones.

Emotion Wheel

Emotion wheel is a good easy place to start…

There are many different ones on the internet but here’s one that looks pretty good…

So whenever you feel emotional… use an emotion wheel to narrow down your emotions and be as specific as you can…

It helps a lot…

Rather than just “I feel happy…”, try this instead, “I feel happy → powerful → courageous…”

“I feel sad” doesn’t give you much information but “I feel sad, specifically, guilty, specifically, ashamed…” gives you more information as to why you are sad…

And being able to pinpoint the exact emotion gives you a better awareness as to what you might need to do / think about…

Atlas of the Heart

Alternative to emotion wheel is the book Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brene Brown.

It categorises 87 emotions (I think) into 13 different situations and has detailed stories about each emotion:

1. When Things Are Uncertain / Too Much

2. When We Compare

3. When Things Don’t Go as Planned

4. When It’s Beyond Us

5. When Things Aren’t What They Seem

6. When We’re Hurting

7. When We Go with Others

8. When We Fall Short

9. When We Search for Connection

10. When the Heart is Open

11. When Life is Good

12. When We Feel Wronged

13. When We Self-Assess

Have interesting gems you want to share with me and others? Share it by replying to this email and I will include it in the next gift box :)

With love,

Ryan O. 🎮

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