Feelings Chart: How It Works For Adults

Published: Jun 02, 2022
Updated: Jun 13, 2024
Feelings Chart: How It Works For Adults
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    6 min

    Are you looking for feelings chart printables that can raise your emotional awareness? Or perhaps you are seeking a way to help manage your emotions better?

    It can be challenging to put your feelings into words, especially emotionally complex feelings.

    Understanding your emotions, their triggers, how they affect you, and how to manage them healthily and effectively are behaviors everyone should strive to improve. 

    How Does a Feelings Chart Work?

    People expect you to be mature and considerate because you are a grown-up. They put pressure on you because they assume that you already know how to identify your emotions and make wise decisions.

    But acting with maturity is not always easy.

    Understanding your emotions can a difficult task, especially when you have so much to think about. As an adult, you have an endless list of responsibilities, so you tend to get lost when it comes to dealing with your feelings.

    Moreover, you often end up beating yourself up for not knowing what to do and how to react whenever you become emotional. You know that something needs to be done, but you can’t pinpoint what it is because you can’t understand your own feelings.

    How do I identify my feelings?

    It clearly suggests a way to identify your emotional state – you could follow steps, ask yourself:

    • What feelings am I aware of having? (There are often many.)
    • What is the most prominent? (Try to describe it to yourself. Also, don’t be afraid to push yourself past answers like “fine” or “okay.” Continue by asking what “fine” means. We often resist even our own probing.)
    • When did I become aware of this feeling?

    Strongly recommend having a notebook to record your questions and answers. Don’t rush through it. Describe each feeling thoroughly, and be sure to include pleasurable ones. It’s important to know what enhances your life; these are vital in providing some measure of balance when life is difficult.

    These questions will lead to others and likely take you to different places—perhaps ones you haven’t traveled before. You may surprise yourself with details or memories that haven’t been available before.

    Identify your stressors.

    Ask yourself:

    • What might be triggering this feeling?
    • What’s happening (or not happening) in my daily life? (It helps to deconstruct one’s day, week, month. Pay particular attention to events, thoughts, or dreams that you have no control of and perhaps have decided ‘not to pay attention to’ because you cannot change them. This is a common pitfall. The fact that we have no control itself brings an emotional reaction.)

    Perhaps your answer is, “I don’t even know how I feel.” One direction to take in that situation is to examine your behavior and daily life. This can help to tease out feelings not recognized initially. So, ask:

    • How is my home life?
    • Am I getting along with my partner? My children? My parents and siblings?
    • How am I doing at work? Am I enjoying my work? Am I getting along with my co-workers? My boss? What are they telling me about me and their feelings about me? Can I see validity in what they’re saying?

    Look for patterns that may be forming. Explore them. What do they tell you?

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    What are the feelings types?

    During the 1970s, psychologist Paul Eckman identified six basic emotions that he suggested were universally experienced in all human cultures. The emotions he identified were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. He later expanded his list of basic emotions to include such things as pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement.

    Everyone experiences emotions differently, making feelings highly subjective. They are formed by your personality, beliefs, and past experiences and can vary significantly from person to person.

    Unlike emotions, feelings are conscious and can be chosen with awareness and practice.

    Some basic feelings include:

    • Happy
    • Calm
    • Safe
    • Worried
    • Gloomy
    • Hopeless
    • Uncomfortable
    • Stressed
    • Vengeful
    • Offended

    While there’s no single right or wrong way to experience your emotions and feelings, some methods are more helpful than others.

    Start by using these feeling charts to better understand what you’re feeling, then move on to why and how to cope.

    How to create the feelings chart?

    In this article, we share with you feelings charts printables that you can use to help you solve this dilemma. These feelings charts are designed to help you increase your emotional awareness and understand yourself better.

    While they vary in format, a feelings chart is a wheel, chart, or another graphic that labels different emotions or feelings.

    They can help you correctly identify your emotions to better express and manage your feelings.

    Feelings charts also expand your emotional vocabulary and help you with better empathy toward others and a more positive self-image.

    What can you use the feelings for?

    Although seemingly simple, feelings charts are excellent tools that allow you to sort through your feelings and emotions. They are helpful at all ages and can be used in many different ways.

    • With your therapist, counselor, or life coach: Increase your understanding, gain clarity, and feel less stuck.
    • In your career as a therapist, counselor, or life coach: Help your clients understand their emotions, gain clarity, and feel less stuck.
    • With your kids: Help your children understand and regulate their emotions.
    • For personal use: Gain insight into your emotions and feelings to better understand yourself.
    • As a writer: Use them to develop characters if you’re writing a novel or play.

    Conclusion

    Understanding your emotions and making decisions based on this understanding can be difficult. You need to be able to distinguish between and confirm your feelings without being affected by external factors.

    While this isn’t always easy, the skill can be developed through practice. Eventually you’ll be able to quickly decide on things that matter because you will have mastered how to appropriately deal with your emotions.

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    About authors
    Jessica Brown, a 29-year-old freelance copywriter passionate about human nature and deeply committed to promoting sleep and mental health awareness. Jessica holds a Master of Arts in Literary Studies from the National University of Singapore and a Bachelor's in Biology from the University of Cambridge.
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