When I first started working in community counselling, I took a training course that talked about the importance of labelling your emotions in order to move through them. As a responsible counsellor, I wanted to give the youth I was working with all the tools to succeed. I searched online and printed out the first emotion wheel I found. Wanting to make sure I practice what I preach, I began using the emotion wheel for myself. But each time I would pull it out to choose an emotion, the word never seemed to fully capture what I was looking for. Though colourful, the wheel also didn’t seem very fun to me. Convinced I could find something with more oomph, I searched again and came across the most incredible emotion wheel by an artist named Abby Van Muijen.
Why Abby Van Muijen’s Emotion Wheel Stands Out
Abby is not a therapist, and that feels important when you engage with her work. They are an artist and an individual, navigating questions of identity and healing and working through their own therapy. In this process, Abby created this emotion wheel, born out of the real and true emotions they encountered and fact-checked with many others on their own journeys. This emotion wheel features words that can truly capture what we’re feeling and lays them out in a beautiful way.
Labelling Emotions
We use emotion wheels because the process of labelling an emotion makes you stop, think and feel what’s happening in your body, examining the sensations, the tensions, and how those feelings are showing up. When we’ve gone through this process, we come out the other side with a word that can act as a container and put in context what these emotions mean for us as individuals. When we have that word, we have the power to share it with someone else and we have the ability to meet the need that that emotion is alerting us to.
Emotional Tools
Abby went on to create a companion body scan tool and a needs assessment list, alongside a really cool digital “game” called “How Are You Doing”. All of the artwork and tools are able to be used on Abby’s website or printed off for use on your own. There are multiple versions of the wheel (including the Kids Version, the Gay Version, and French Versions, to name a few!) and Abby continues to upload new versions (They are currently on the 111th version). I personally have the uncoloured version of the wheel hanging in my room to colour in as I notice different emotions. It gives me so much joy to hear how different people navigate the path of their mental health journey and I love to see acts of expression just like this!
About Feel Good Fridays
The id0ea of Feel Good Fridays started because we believe the simple things that bring a smile to our face are some of the best things. Smiling and laughing has been proven to reduce stress in our lives! When we smile or laugh it releases neurotransmitters in our brain called endorphins, which are in charge of making us happy and helping to relieve stress.