To be honest, as I started formulating this post, I didn’t remember all the history about how the feelings lists came about. So, I did a little googling. Need Burton, M.D. writes on emotions/feelings and he reminded me of this, “ The concept of ‘basic’ or ‘primary’ emotions dates back at least to the Book of Rites, a first-century Chinese encyclopedia that identifies seven ‘feelings of men’: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking. In the 20th century, Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) and Robert Plutchik eight, which he grouped into four pairs of polar opposites (joy-sadness, anger-fear, trust-distrust, surprise-anticipation).” Based on that research, a number of therapists have gathered information and created their own version of feelings lists.
During that intensive with Pia Melody in Arizona, I was introduced to her feelings list. It looks like this…
A couple of years after that training, I was introduced to another Feelings Chart by Chip Dodd. This is the feelings list that fits the best for me and sits in my office. So, this is the feelings list that we will focus on. Chips list looks like this…
Through my years of experience, both personally and professionally with this list, I have found that a lot of questions and reactions come up for people when they start to engage with this list. It reminds me of long division. The feelings listed here are like the lowest common denominator. And, that tends to hit straight to the heart. When we use these words, or interact with someone who is using these words, we tend to feel a bit exposed and sometimes triggered. That can be difficult at first. It was for me. However, as we interact with them more, they become a way to connect and speak our truth. But, in the beginning, it can feel overwhelming. People also tend to ask, “Why is there only one good feeling?” I see how it can look or feel that way. Like “Glad” is the only good one and the rest are too hard/bad/negative. Once you spend some time with the list, however, and incorporate it into how you process through your inner world, that changes. Glad /Joy are so lovely to feel. Like Spring when everything is budding and blooming and the air warms. We are able to air out our homes and our souls. That’s Joy. The other feelings can feel heavier, which we are often taught to equate with bad. The truth, however, is that each of the feelings aids us in connecting better with our hearts and souls. Then, when those feelings are mixed with logic, that is the realm of wisdom. So, the equation looks like this: Feelings + Logic = Wisdom. The caveat is that the equation needs to exist when you are able to be in your full brain. If we are too triggered and in Flight/Flight/Freeze, then we aren’t able to truly identity our feelings or find grounded logic.
I am going to give a couple of examples in the next post, as well as ways to incorporate feelings into a daily grounding practice. However, if you really want to know more about feelings, I would suggest reading Chip’s book, Voice of the Heart. My husband and I gave it as the favor at our wedding. If I’m honest (and I hope he doesn’t read this), I found parts of it to be a bit redundant. So, when I got the point of something, I just moved on. That may just be me. But, just know that you don’t have to LOVE the whole book to get some life changing information from it. Also, it is definitely a faith book. Chip identifies as a Christian and he writes it from that lens. If you don’t share that faith, and think you can overlook that, I would encourage you to still read it. Here is the link to buying his book (http://chipdodd.com/books). If you don’t feel like you can get past the large faith component, you might want to look at his website and try out these videos. (http://chipdodd.com/eight-feelings). I have not watched the full videos. I watched a bit to be able to share them with you. Like his writing, some of it was really good and some of it left me a bit bored. Again, that may just be me. Go find out for yourself.
I will close with this. The feelings list has been transformational for me. For as long as I can remember, I have felt the internal chaos of feelings that were bigger than my ability to understand and organize them. As I started doing my internal work, that began to change. I was able to move out of my trauma brain a bit and start to slow down and identify them, understand them and organize them. The feelings list put that process into orbit. I had words for what was going on inside. And my heart and soul KNOWS when I have found the best word for what is going on inside of me. I will share with y’all next time how I incorporated that process. Until then, I would encourage each of you to start engaging with this list. It may be simply recognizing that you are having a feeling. It may be trying to identify which word or words (we are usually feeling more than one, and sometimes all of them) fits with your current experience. In whatever way works for you, engage with this list. That will make the next post much more connective for you…at least that is my hope.
Until then…