Sometimes, it can be hard for us to describe how we are truly feeling. The feelings wheel can help us to understand our emotions better and put them into words. The feelings wheel includes 6 core feelings, with layers of differing degrees of emotions surrounding the core feelings.

The feelings wheel is a colour coded wheel that aims to help us recognize and put words to our emotions. It was designed by Dr. Gloria Willcox and is often used in therapy to help individuals explain how they are feeling.

The wheel is made up of 6 core feelings; sad, anger, fear, joyful, love and surprise. Each feeling is surrounded by a range of other more specific feelings related to that core emotion. The outermost ring is even more specific, with feelings such as jealous, embarrassed, delighted and cheerful.

We are all told to speak up when it comes to our mental health, but what happens if you don’t really know how you’re feeling?

The feelings wheel can be used to identify how you are feeling. To start, try to identify the primary emotion from the 6 core feelings.

Work your way outwards, seeing if any of the feelings labelled in the outer rings apply to you. Once you have identified the feeling, spend a few minutes trying to work out the trigger.

The feelings wheel can help us break down our feelings. While anger or sadness or fear can feel completely overwhelming, breaking each feeling down will make them seem less intense.

Breaking down our feelings can help us realize that our emotions are just emotions, usually brought on by a specific event.

We may feel as though we don’t just feel the emotion, we are the emotion.

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