Emotions are powerful drivers of how people feel and the actions they may take. They influence how people relate to each other and the mood for the day. Emotions in human beings are sometimes unpredictable. Mood swings might happen fast and intensify to great levels. At one time, the person could be feeling overjoyed. At another time, they could be feeling depressed and lonely.
It is valuable to record your feelings and view the pattern they play. When you understand the unique pattern your feelings follow, you can take action and make adjustments. A feelings wheel can help you view the systematic patterns of your emotions. Through an emotion wheel chart, you learn the process of your moods. You raise awareness in yourself and build better ways to improve your feelings and well-being.
Feelings Wheels
What is a feeling wheel?
An emotion wheel is a circular diagram divided into multiple sections. Inside the feelings wheel are other smaller circles and inside them are different sections. The innermost circle of emotional awareness records your primary feelings on this great tool. This circle extends into a secondary emotion wheel circle for recording your secondary moods.
This section extends further into a tertiary feelings wheel for recording your tertiary emotions. The emotional color wheel can keep growing into smaller sections within each wheel.
All the sections and circles make one large emotion wheel chart. From there, you can journal how you feel daily or even hourly as moods change. The emotion wheel lets you record your feelings in one word and gives you the ability to understand your mental health patterns. Overall, it is a powerful tool to build self awareness. You may record the feelings, in words such as:
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Fearful
- Distant
- Awful
- Joyful
- Terrified
- Hopeful
- Aroused
There are hundreds of words describing your feelings that you can add to the emotion wheel. When the emotional awareness becomes well populated, it offers you a bird’s eye view of specific patterns of your mood swings. There is a significant importance of maintaining accurate records of your emotion wheel chart. With it, you can sense stress, anxiety, depression and other things on time to develop a greater sense of your mental health.
Emotion Wheels
Why do you need a feelings wheel?
Human beings are full of different emotions and are all controlled by the brain. The factors that make them feel in a certain way depend on their surroundings. When the surroundings are hostile, people might feel fearful or worried. When it is friendly, they feel enthusiastic and hopeful. Your lifestyle has a lot of influence on the development of your moods.
Unfortunately, the feelings you experience daily have a great impact on your health. Sometimes the level of feelings might go overboard. Their impact on your life and decisions might have a long-lasting effect. This is particularly important when the feelings are negative.
It is necessary to develop an emotional awareness wheel that lets you develop an understanding of how you feel different things like frustration, sadness, anger, happiness, etc. Through the emotional color wheel, you can define which types of emotions drive you most.
If the pattern in the emotional color wheel is full of negative feelings, you might want to take action fast. You might want to get help from a professional or begin a lifestyle change.
Everyone needs to make use of a feelings wheel in their life. It acts as a guide to a view of their emotional patterns. This is crucial to anyone who wants to know the emotional issues that are affecting their lives.
It puts the different dimensions of your feelings in an organized way. When your emotions want to overwhelm you, a printable feeling wheel can help.
How does an emotional awareness chart work?
An emotion wheel chart records the different types of feelings you experience. Sometimes it is harder to tell what type of feeling it is that you are experiencing. A feelings wheel helps you pinpoint them with accuracy.
Some people call the wheel an emotion wheel, a mood swing wheel, an emotion wheel chart, and many other names. This is the way a printable feeling wheel works.
When you are at a feelings wheel for the first time, you might think it is a color wheel. A closer look at it and you will notice it is different. The printable feeling wheel has three main circles. Each represents a unique layer of emotions. The three circles in an emotional color wheel are as follows.
The primary emotions wheel
The primary emotions circle is the innermost part of the printable feeling wheel. This is where you record your primary emotions. You can define primary emotions as the type of feelings that you can identify without struggle.
The only problem is that one primary emotion usually contains multiple emotions within it. A primary emotion such as happiness might have a combination of up to 9 secondary emotions. The same primary emotion can be broken further into up to 18 tertiary emotions. From being happy as a primary emotion, you can have other emotions such as:
- Trusting
- Content
- Proud
- Powerful
- Creative
- Intimate
- Inspired
- Joyful
- Free
Secondary emotions wheel
The secondary emotions circle is the middle circle of the emotional awareness chart. This section of the wheel records feelings that come due to the effects of the primary motions.
Secondary emotions might increase the intensity of your feelings. Secondary emotions are broken down from primary emotions. They form the next layer of emotions triggered by a primary emotion. To record a secondary emotion, you need to identify the primary emotion that influenced it.
Tertiary emotions wheel
The tertiary emotions circle is the outermost part of the emotion wheel. This part of the chart records emotions that come due to the impact of the secondary emotions. Tertiary emotions may combine your primary and secondary emotions. Unlike the primary emotion circle, this section contains specific feelings.
You can trace the root of a tertiary emotion into a primary emotion. For instance, if you feel angry, you might become critical and then dismissive. Anger is a primary emotion while critical is a secondary emotion and dismissive is tertiary.
Printable Feeling Wheels
What emotions does the primary emotions circle contain?
The primary emotions circle is divided into eight sections. Since it is the innermost circle, it contains the least number of emotions. Each of the eight sections contains one major primary emotion. By just looking at this section of the emotion wheel, you will see six sections only.
However, the six sections are broken down into two main sections. You can record your feelings of anger, disgust, or trust in this section. It also features the feeling of surprise, anticipation, and sadness. Above all, it has sections for recording feelings of joy and fear.
It is important to note that primary emotions are triggered by things that happen around you. For instance, fear is a primary emotion. It comes when you perceive there is a threat around you. If you feel threatened by issues, you record that threat as fear in the printable feeling wheel.
How do you identify a primary emotion?
The easiest way to identify your primary emotion is to understand the environment you are in. Understand the situations happening in the surroundings. Follow these steps to identify your primary emotions.
- You first need to identify how you are feeling at any given time. On a general outlook, imagine someone asking you how you are feeling. You can be I’m feeling good, okay, fine, and so on. These are the things that you react to first.
- After that, identify where that feeling is. The ‘where’ could be in the mind, the heart, or the general body. For instance, if you feel some heaviness in the chest, it could be you are sad.
- Next, know the reason you are feeling that way. There is no feeling in the human body that does not have a source. This is the issue or thing that triggers the body to react that way. It could be you are lacking financially or in a relationship.
- The final phase is to ask yourself the action that you need to take. The action/s you take is what leads to secondary and tertiary emotions.
How do you identify secondary emotions?
Secondary emotions are feelings that come after reacting to primary emotions. Once you identify a primary emotion, the reaction you take could be positive or negative. You might be trying to protect yourself or others.
You can define secondary emotions as the habits you develop as you learn to react to primary emotions. Since they become habits, they stay with you longer than primary emotions.
For instance, sadness is the primary emotion. You can feel sad for a few hours and then it dies out and you feel happy. You might react to the sadness and it develops into loneliness or depression. When you get depressed, the situation might stay with you for many months. You need greater help to overcome the time when you are feeling sad.
The feeling of secondary emotion is always more intense and stays with you longer. You can trace its root to a primary emotion. This is one of the reasons you need a feelings wheel to help you identify your primary emotions. When you correctly identify them, you can work on them to prevent escalating into negative secondary emotions.
Emotional Color Wheels
How to use the feelings wheel
An emotional color wheel records your immediate, short-term, and long-term feelings. It provides you with a visual representation of how your moods fluctuate and the progressive direction they take. It helps you express your emotions and communicate them to a counselor in case it is needed. Expressing yourself clearly is the first step towards better mental health.
You can use the emotion wheel chart to help you take charge of your emotions. Using the emotional color wheel is easy.
- Choose a printable feeling wheel of your choice. The information in an emotion wheel might be similar but the colors could be different. Visit the internet and get a printable feeling wheel that you like. Download the emotional awareness wheel to use on your computer or phone. You might want to download a plain color version that you can customize by adding your favorite colors.
- Begin to fill in your feelings in the emotion wheel. Sit down and take time to analyze how you are feeling at the moment. The feelings wheel is full of adjectives that describe your emotions. Based on your current feeling, fill in the adjective that best describes that feeling.
- Know what is causing the feelings. Try and identify the root of the feelings. It might be something internal or external. It might be people, situations in life, or the environment. The cause might be a single source or multiple sources.
- Find out how the source/s are related to the feeling/s. More often, the source is always directly related to the feeling. For instance, if you are in a bad relationship, it could be your source of sadness. If your life is running smoothly, it could be the source of your feeling of happiness.
- Expand that feeling to understand what other feelings it contains. The immediate feeling is a primary emotion. Think about other words that might describe it.
Check in the feelings wheel to see whether there are words in there that describe the emotion further. You might notice you have both secondary and tertiary feelings. - Focus on both the positive and negative sides. Do not look into your feelings from the good or bad side only. Instead, balance the description by looking at both sides. You might be feeling proud or creative and at the same time fearful and without confidence.
- Take action/s. The worst thing you can ever do to yourself is to do nothing about your feelings. It does not matter if the emotion is good or bad. The action you take determines the next level the feelings will take.
It is best that you take positive actions to any type of feeling that you get. Positive actions always lead to positive outcomes. - Share your feelings. You might want to take some time to reflect on the feelings first. Think what the feeling means to you and others. Think about the impact it can bring on yourself and others. You may begin to open up to someone about the feeling.
The advantage of using an emotional color wheel is that you can customize it. You may add your favorite colors and adjust them to match different levels of feelings.
If you make it a habit to fill in the emotion wheel chart you will soon know the patterns that impact your life. It will help you take the relevant actions that will help you live a life of wellness.