Use the feelings wheel to improve your relationships

Communicating how you feel with your partner can be difficult. It can be even more difficult if they don’t really know how to explain how they feel.

The feelings wheel can be a great tool to utilize not just in relationships, but friendships as well.

As humans, we like to be able to relate to each other. The trouble with this is that is your partner might be trying to explain something that has happened and how they feel. In your mind, you are relating this to something similar that has happened in your life and how you felt previously. This can lead to you assuming your partners feelings.

Feelings and emotions are complex and we can tend to generalise when we explain a feeling. For example, I could say ‘I feel anxious’ but what I actually feel is overwhelmed and stressed which is giving me the over-arching feeling of anxious.
By getting more specific with exactly how it is that you feel, you are able to work through it quicker.

The feelings wheel helps to break feelings into 6 main categories - fear, anger, sadness, surprise, joy and love. It then gives sub-categories under these headings which help to get more specific and bring another level of clarity and understanding.
By getting to the sub-category level, you are able to get clear on why that feeling is coming up for you. For example, instead of saying ‘I feel angry’ you may be able to dive deeper and realise you actually feel annoyed and frustrated. You can then ask yourself why you feel annoyed or frustrated.

It’s also a great tool to be able to utilise when trying to move towards how you would like to be feeling. Look to the opposite side of the feelings wheel to see feelings on the opposite end of the spectrum and ask yourself what you can action to help to get you there.

Use this as a tool in your relationship if you’re finding the generalising feelings coming up to open up communication of exactly what is coming up for your partner and why.