Finding Your Feelings: Wheels, Maps, and Gentle Curiosity
Some of us grew up with a rich vocabulary for feelings. Many of us didn’t. Whether because of family culture, neurodivergence, trauma, or lack of modeling, naming our emotions can feel like deciphering a code. That’s where feeling wheels come in.
A feeling wheel is a visual tool that maps a range of emotional states—often moving from basic or strong emotions at the center outward toward more specific or nuanced ones. Like a compass for the heart, it can help us find our way when words—or self-awareness—feel out of reach.
This post invites you into a gentle practice of identifying your emotions, with care for the ways trauma, numbing, or overwhelm may shape your access to feelings. It includes tools you can use for yourself or with others, and introduces the powerful connection between feelings and needs.
1. What Is a Feeling Wheel?
Feeling wheels or emotion maps present language for emotions in a circular format. Some organize emotions by intensity or family (e.g. anger, sadness, joy), while others show how complex emotions arise from combinations of simpler ones. These maps aren’t prescriptions, but invitations—to notice, name, and explore.
Here are a few to try:
Try printing one out, saving it to your phone, or drawing your own simplified version.
2. Ways In: How to Get to a Feeling
Not everyone starts with the same access point. Here are a few gentle ways in:
• From the Body:
Start by noticing sensations:
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Is there tightness? Where?
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Any temperature, movement, or stillness?
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What metaphors arise—like a weight, a flame, a fog?
Use these as clues. A clenched jaw might lead you toward anger. Shakiness could point to fear. A heavy chest might hint at grief or overwhelm. The body often knows before the mind can label. You might want to use this chart to color in where you notice feelings arising in your felt sense in your body. https://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/globalassets/assets/superkidz-pain-assessment-body-diagram-age-4-8.png?width=356&quality=60
• From a “Weak” or Known Feeling:
Maybe you’re sure you feel irritated but that’s all. Try finding that word on a wheel and tracing inward to a core emotion (like anger). From there, spiral outward again—does it feel more like frustration, resentment, annoyance, rage?
This helps us name with more precision—and precision can open more possibilities for care.
• From a Strong Feeling Toward Nuance:
You may know you're sad, but is it grief? Loneliness? Disappointment? The outward movement from a core feeling to its textures can build emotional literacy—and help others respond more compassionately.
• From the Situation:
What just happened? What does that event usually stir in you? Was a value or need impacted?
This can help triangulate a feeling even if it doesn't show up clearly in the body or mind.
3. When Feelings Are Hard to Reach
If naming a feeling feels dangerous, blank, or overwhelming, you’re not doing it wrong. Many trauma survivors have learned to disconnect from emotion in order to stay safe. Numbing, freezing, and emotional dissociation are wise adaptations—not failures.
Here are ways to approach gently:
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Use metaphors or images instead of emotion words. “It feels like a storm, a locked box, a fog, a wild animal.”
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Start with sensations or colors. “It’s red and tight,” or “it’s cold and far away.”
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Let silence speak. Sit with a feeling map without demanding answers. What arises in stillness?
If you’re working with someone who has trouble naming emotions, ask:
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“If your body could speak, what would it say?”
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“Is there a color or weather pattern that matches this feeling?”
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“Do you want me to help offer some guesses from the wheel, and you can say yes, no, or maybe?”
Go slow. Let the relationship—and the nervous system—set the pace.
4. Feelings Point to Needs
A core insight of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is that feelings are messengers. They arise from whether our needs are being met or unmet. Anger might signal a need for fairness or respect. Sadness could reflect a need for connection, or rest. Joy may signal a need being beautifully met.
Once you name a feeling, try asking:
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“What might this feeling be protecting?”
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“What is it longing for?”
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“What need is behind this?”
When we move from I feel frustrated to I need clarity and collaboration, we move toward empowered and compassionate choice.
NVC offers its own list of needs to pair with your feelings work:
https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/feelings-inventory
https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory
Try It: Practices for Feeling Discovery
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Wheel Check-Ins: Choose a wheel and do a 3-word check-in each day. Build a habit of emotional mapping.
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Reverse Engineering: Take a recent moment and ask, “What was I feeling?” Use the wheel to explore alternatives.
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Feeling + Need Journaling: Choose one feeling, then name one possible need underneath. Even if you're guessing, notice what clarity or tenderness arises.
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Body-to-Feeling Walk: Go for a walk and tune into your body. Then consult a wheel when you return. What emotions might have been moving through?
Beloved, you are whole, holy & worthy,
Rev. Amy
For Further Exploration
• Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life – A foundational guide to identifying and expressing feelings and needs in ways that support connection and choice.
https://www.cnvc.org/training/resource/nvc-book
• Levine, Peter A. Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body – Gentle somatic tools for those with trauma who may be disconnected from emotional awareness.
https://www.traumahealing.org/healing-trauma-book/
• Atlas of Emotions – A project by Paul Ekman and the Dalai Lama to map emotional experiences. Interactive and visually engaging.
https://atlasofemotions.org
• Therapy Aid Resources: Feelings Wheels and More – Downloadable PDF tools and worksheets for feelings identification.
https://therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheets/emotions/none
Excerpt from "Gift to Listen, Courage to Hear"
“Honoring the feelings of the person speaking is the most important aspect of the holy art of listening. Honoring the feelings of others helps them not just be heard but also feel heard. While there are no magical listening techniques that are universally effective, there are some simple things that you can do in your listening that will help most people feel listened to and heard. The first of these is listening to and learning from your own feelings. This is where soul listening begins.“
And
“Being in touch with all of your feelings is vital to healthy communication for four reasons: 1) it enhances your ability to engage others with language appropriate to their need; 2) it provides signs and markers to guide you through rough conversations; 3) it keeps you from absorbing other people's feelings; and 4) it minimizes the likelihood of projecting your feelings onto others.“
“Even when you are out of touch with your feelings, they have an unconscious impact on your communication. Unconscious feelings influence what you say as well as when and how you say it. And they influence your role as a listener, how you receive and interpret what you hear from others. When you know what you are feeling, you can make conscious choices about how you listen and how you interpret what you hear. When you know what you are feeling, you can assess more easily if your response to the other person is about what he or she is saying or more about some feelings you may have.“
Feeling language vs intellectual language:
“When one person is speaking from an emotional or feeling place and the other is relating from an intellectual or thinking place, it is hard to make an interpersonal connection.”
And
“ There are a few ways to distinguish feeling-based language from intellect-based language.” ... “ when most people are using the interpersonal language of feelings, they use feeling words such as angry, confused, disappointed, sad, hurt, glad, happy, thrilled. Sometimes, however, feelings may be expressed in words that appear to be intellect-based. For example, in the statement "I don't know what to do," the word know appears to be intellectually based, but it may more accurately be a reflection of the emotion of fear that accompanies confusion and uncertainty.
Intellect-based interpersonal language is often characterized by efforts to explain and understand experiences, give advice, solve problems, and rationalize experience. Typical words and phrases used in intellect-based interpersonal language include understand, clear picture, what you/we need to do, what is the plan?, what do you mean?“
