Poster: Emotions

I share this list of emotions with my clients. A wide emotional vocabulary enables us to describe our inner state.

When we attempt to express our emotions, we often inadvertently substitute thoughts and beliefs. For example, someone might say “I feel attacked.” The problem is that attacked is not an emotion. It is an interpretation of what someone is doing to us—it fails to describe our inner state, and functions as an accusation. You can avoid that from happening if you adhere to the words on this poster when you describe how you’re feeling.

Notice how the emotions are organized. ‘Red hot’ emotions are different from the other, cooler-colored emotions. How are they different?

Many of us were trained to regard emotions as untrustworthy or bad. Something to be gotten rid of. However, emotions are seldom wrong or bad. There is, however, harm in hiding our emotions to avoid judgment.

Accepting emotions and naming them accurately has many benefits. This is true about our own emotions and other people’s.

My clients use this at home a lot. If you want to print it, use this high resolution version.