Tools
At Stories and Stanza we've spent a lot of episodes on emotional intelligence — on naming what we feel, and what changes once we can. Dr Gloria Willcox built this wheel in 1982 after noticing how often people fell back on ‘we simply say that we feel good or bad, OK or not OK.’ This is a small self check-in built around it: name the feeling, sit with where it came from, and find what you're actually asking for. Nothing here is tracked or stored. It's a guide, not a diagnosis.
Gloria Willcox was a therapist working in transactional analysis in Florida when she noticed the same obstacle again and again: people arrived in the room knowing something was wrong but only able to say “bad”, “fine” or “stressed”. Without more exact words, there was little to work with. So in 1982 she drew a wheel — six feelings at the centre, each opening outward into finer shades — and published it in the Transactional Analysis Journal. The idea was simple and has held up well: naming a feeling precisely makes it easier to understand, easier to say out loud, and easier to act on. Later research on putting feelings into words suggests the act of naming can also take some of the heat out of them.
Six feelings sit at the centre. Each opens into more exact words, and those open again. Tap a wedge to travel outwards — tap it again to close.
Each ring outward is a more precise version of the same feeling.
Start with the closest of the six. You can get more exact in a moment.
Closer to it?
Pick any that fit. These are Willcox's own words for the second ring.
Exactly which shade?
Her most specific word for whichever ones you picked above. Skip it if the word above already feels right.
Write as much or as little as you like. Nothing here needs to be tidy.
What happened?
The moment, the conversation, the thought that started it.
Have I felt this before?
Feelings often show up early, carrying something older with them.
Is there more than one feeling here?
Sometimes we feel one thing on top of another — anger sitting on top of hurt, or being busy covering up worry. Does that sound familiar right now?
In my own words
If none of those land, name it yourself.
What would meet that, even a little, today?
One small thing that's actually within reach.
Want a copy by email?
Do you want to save your emotional check-in in your email? It's entirely optional — your check-in is emailed to you and then discarded, nothing is stored on the server, and your address is not kept or added to any list.
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Nothing you write is stored on any server or sent anywhere unless you choose to email it to yourself. Past check-ins are kept only in this browser. This is a reflection tool, not a substitute for talking to someone who can help.
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All 72 feeling-words here are reproduced from Dr Gloria Willcox's original 1982 Feeling Wheel, published in the Transactional Analysis Journal. She built it, in her words, to help people move past ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘OK,’ or ‘not OK’ toward a real vocabulary for what they feel. The questions about needs draw on Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication and Leslie Greenberg's Emotion-Focused Therapy.