11/30/2023
Sometimes, being an adult is hard. Often rather than dealing with 'negative' emotions, we ignore them and continue on with our day, and before we know it, we engage in behaviour that is self destructive (eatting junk, substance misuse, irrational anger). One of the easiest tips is to take a moment out of your day, do some deep breathing for 3 minutes, and check in with yourself and see how you are actually feeling.
This is a feeling wheel. I know for myself, I may not even know I'm not feeling well until I check in. When I first started doing my "check ins", I often couldn't identify what I was feeling. Happy? Sad? I couldn't make sense of it. I was given a feeling wheel just like this. You can start from the middle, or the edge and find a word to best describe how you are feeling. Then you can look into the inner part of the circle and see what the 'core' emotion is. Sometimes I would be surprised! "I am mad? What could I possibly be mad about" and then after a period of self reflection, I would usually find some reasoning behind the emotion I was having.
Getting to know yourself and being in touch with your inner feelings is SO important with being able to control your negative thoughts. Have you ever used a feeling wheel before?
