Spinning Your Emotional Wheels

How many times have you been in the middle of an argument with someone you know well, trying to express how you feel and you are at a loss for words? You have become so filled with some uncomfortable emotions, maybe even a mix of emotions that you are unable to communicate to this person. This only makes you frustrated with yourself on top of everything. But what if you could better sense and articulate your specific feelings? How would this change your communication, your sense of inner peace, and your ability to move forward?

Psychologists and other scientists have studied emotions for years. There are all kinds of variations in what emotions exist, what are most prominent, what exist universally across cultures. However, one thing is agreed, that increasing your ability to describe and identify emotions benefits your overall health as a human being (Brown, 2022).

Main Emotions

Emotions are defined as “innate reactions” (Damasio, 1994). Most psychologists agree that the main emotions that are recognized universally by facial expression include:

• Happiness

• Sadness

• Surprise

• Fear

• Disgust

• Anger

However, other psychologists find that although those emotions are universally conveyed, they are not actually the main categories of emotions that may up our experience. Paul Ekman’s research, for example, identifies seven basic emotions: anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear, sadness and contempt. Ekman later included the emotions pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement in his main list. Robert Plutchik proposes eight basic emotions: anger, anticipation, joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness and disgust. While researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at University of Glasgow identify only four categories of emotion: happy, sad, fear/surprise, and disgust/anger.

From these lists of main emotional categories, more refined emotions were named, understood, and placed. Understanding the nuances of these other emotions can help us communicate our feelings accurately to others and process them ourselves. See the below emotional wheels for references.

Primary & Secondary Emotions

Primary emotions are the first thing we feel or our initial reaction to an event. While secondary emotions are the emotional judgment we have about the primary emotion. Secondary emotions take a longer time to occur and are a reaction to the primary emotion, not the event itself. Secondary emotions are a learned response based on lessons we had from our families of origin, our cultures, or other important life events. Often secondary emotions can be our brain’s attempt to protect us from a very sensitive or uncomfortable emotion with one that is less sensitive/uncomfortable (Simple Psychology, 2023).

Recognizing our primary emotions from our secondary emotions can help us lean into our intuition, recognize emotional patterns, and learn to accept ourselves and emotions with self-compassion. If you're having difficulty identifying secondary emotion in the moment, when you're calm, make a list of socially acceptable emotions for you to express when you were a child and those that were not acceptable. These can make you more aware of the emotions that may be susceptible to your own judgment or negative reaction through years of conditioned responses.

How to Process Your Emotions

There are so many ways to process emotions, and some will work better for some people. It can be good to be open to experimenting with new ways to learn whether or not they will work for you.

According to psychologist Sebastian Salicru (2021), "Emotional processing relates to the decreased inhibition of emotion, increased self-understanding, and enhanced positive self-reflection. This entails the following six stages:

• Emotional awareness

• Emotional expression

• Emotional regulation

• Emotional reflection

• Emotional transformation

• Corrective emotional experience and generation of alternatives."

I recommend reading Salicru's full article if you're interested in more in depth explanations of emotional processing and secondary emotions.

Ways to Process Emotions

1. Pause & Identify - When you find yourself reacting emotionally to something in any way, pause for a brief moment and note to yourself what you think you are feeling. Try to do this as quickly as you can without too much time for a secondary emotion to set in and cloud your primary emotion.

2. Somatic Descriptions - If you are having trouble identifying it in words, describe to yourself what your body feels like. What temperature are you? What areas of your body do you feel tension or lack of tension? What areas feel energized or like they need to move? Does your body feel pleasant or unpleasant? What else do you feel? Next time you start feeling these sensations, you can note that it feels similar to the way you physically felt the last time. What are the similarities between these situations? Can you name the emotion now?

3. Talk to Loved Ones - Explain how you are feeling to the best of your ability to someone you trust and care about. Ask them for their perspective on how they think you may be feeling or how they would feel in this situation? Try to build a collective understanding of your emotional processing in the moment by breaking down the events leading up the feeling.

4. Talk to a Therapist - If you feel very sensitive or activated by the emotions you are feeling or find your secondary emotions to be very judgemental. It may be time to seek out a professional to guide you through emotional processing and regulation.

5. Utilize an Emotional Wheel - Emotional wheels were created to help people identify their emotions. Select the main category you are feeling and then work your way down to try to pinpoint the specific emotion you think best fits. If you are unsure of the difference, you can google them!

6. Create Emotional Expression - Choose an activity that speaks to you whether journaling, painting, drawing, etc. that you can utilize to express your emotions. As you are creating be mindful of the way the emotion is leaving your body and entering the physical form of whatever you are making.

7. Mindfulness - Recognize that you are reacting to something. Now, try to consciously feel the emotion deeply. Do not pass judgment, fixing, planning or distraction. Be quiet, be as still as possible, and feel. Try sitting in the emotion for 1-5 minutes, as long as you can safely bear it. Thank your body and mind for notifying you of the emotion. Decide whether the purpose of the emotion is going to help you or be harmful to you. You can utilize this chart below for assistance with this. Is what you’re feeling “adaptive” or “maladaptive?”

Just like learning any new skills, emotional processing and identification takes practice. In my opinion though, it is worth the effort and sometimes struggle. It can help you find peace and build healthier relationships.