My chaplaincy supervisor sat across from me every week and asked the same question: “What’s the feeling?” He displayed remarkable patience as I searched for the right word, which always seemed to evade me. You see, I grew up in a very intellectual household, went to a very intellectual college, and went to very intellectual seminary before going into full-time ministry in a very intellectual denomination. My brain has always been my safe space. So when I entered chaplaincy training, not only was I out of touch with my feelings; I didn’t even have words to describe them! And so, my supervisor would wait, give me a little chance to search for a word, and then gently nudge: “Sad, mad, scared, happy, peaceful, powerful?”

Those six words became a sort of mantra to me that year: sad, mad, scared, happy, peaceful, powerful. Over time, I learned about a psychotherapist named Gloria Willcox who had developed these six as core feelings at the center of the “Feeling Wheel.” Willcox developed the wheel as a tool to help students identify and work with their feelings, and she intentionally placed certain feelings in opposition to one another. Other psychologists and educators have created variations of Willcox’s original feeling wheel, but I still find hers to be one of the simplest and most accessible.

On the Willcox wheel, the six core feelings lie at the center, and as you get farther out toward the edge, the words get more specific (and, frankly, a little more user-friendly). I don’t know if this experience is universal, but I seldom hear people describe themselves as feeling peaceful or mad; however, I often hear people talk about feeling relaxed or frustrated or skeptical. Sometimes, we may use these exterior words to avoid confronting the real feeling. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said to a patient, “You seem angry about your experience.” “Oh no, I’m not angry. I’m just a little frustrated.” Yeah, no, the patient was angry, but “frustrated” is a little more socially acceptable way to express that feeling, so we had to start there. Educator Karla McLaren coined the term “weasel words” for these gentler expressions of tough feelings. I think we all use them. At least, I know I do.

With the popularity of outrage and shame in our popular and social media landscapes, I feel it’s more important than ever that we develop effective terminology for our feelings, and Willcox’s feeling wheel gives us a good place to start. Over the next several posts, I’d like to spend some time with each feeling, address some of the words we may use to mask or downplay it, look at some expressions of that feeling, and explore its opposite on the wheel.

Oh, and while not required viewing, the Pixar movie Inside Out will be referenced often, so you know, plan appropriately.