I work as a pastor and high school teacher in Canberra, Australia, but for a number of years I also worked as an employment coach. My role was specifically focused on the issues of long-term unemployment, homelessness, and addiction. In this role I supported those people who were really on the fringes of society.
One thing I noticed across almost all of my clients was a very limited emotional vocabulary. They could tell me they felt "bad" or "angry" or "sad", but when it came to describing their feelings with any more precision than that, most of them really struggled. I came to believe that the intensity of their negative emotions and experiences was being heightened because they couldn't adequately describe what they were feeling, especially the harder feelings. When you can't name what's happening inside you, it's very difficult to make sense of it or begin to move through it.
At the time, I had been using a much smaller and simpler emotional word wheel that I found circulating the internet. It had a lot of spelling mistakes and a very limited word selection. But I really liked the idea behind it. So I expanded the word list considerably and built a new wheel from scratch.
I deliberately skewed the wheel heavily towards negative emotional words and experiences because that's where my clients needed the most help. What I found was that when I could help someone clearly identify what they were feeling (not just "bad", but perhaps "overwhelmed," or "inadequate," or "dismissed,") it helped reduce the intensity of those experiences. Naming a feeling precisely seems to help re-engage the rational mind, and that was often the first step toward a better conversation and, eventually, real progress.
On March 1st, 2015, I posted the wheel on a whim to Reddit and Imgur, hoping others might find it helpful. The response since then has been incredible. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the world telling me how the wheel has helped them: in therapy, in classrooms, in relationships, and in their own personal journeys. The wheel has been published in all sorts of programs, resources, and publications.
I never set out to create something with this kind of reach. I just wanted a better tool for the people sitting across from me. That it has gone on to help so many others is something I'm deeply grateful for.
