Emotion wheels

Oh, I used to be disgusted
Now I try to be amused…

I used to love that song. I still do.

Back in college, when I’d put on Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True album and he sang about the angels wanting to wear his red shoes, my roommate told me that those were my only two emotions—disgust and amusement. I’m not so sure about that, but I know I wasn’t allowing all my feelings to surface. I was in a dark place then.

I have a few clients who also experienced trauma and are similarly cut off from their emotions. One of them described it as being emotionally constipated. She found it impossible to describe what she was feeling because, honestly, she wasn’t feeling. Her spirit guides suggested she get a paper calendar and mark each day with an up arrow, a flat line, or a down arrow to show her mood until she was better able to recognize her emotions.

After a few months of that, I sent her an emotions wheel. It’s a great tool. You start in the center and work with the seven emotions there. Once you’re able to distinguish which basic emotion you feel, you can move out to the next ring. And before you know it, you can identify nuanced emotions like indignation, powerlessness, curiosity, and joyfulness.

This set of Venn diagrams found its way into my inbox a couple of weeks ago. I love how it mixes emotions together and shows the resulting combination.

And finally, here are some emotions you may feel but didn’t know how to explain.

  • Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
  • Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head (raises hand, guilty!).
  • Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
  • Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
  • Mauerbauertrauigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
  • Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which is simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
  • Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.

And lastly, my favorite,

  • Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.

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