The Emotion Wheel* is a tool developed by Dr. Gloria Willcox to help people describe what they feel. It’s an interesting thing because when we look at the reptile-mammal-human model of the brain, emotions sit at the mammal level, whereas our words sit in the human level. So if you struggle to describe how you feel, it’s because of your brain. But still, if we want to develop our emotional intelligence (and I hope that you do) then being able to describe an emotion is very important. Very recently I was in this situation and for the life of me I could not call forth the words. And I decided that it was time to translate the Willcox Emotion Wheel into Afrikaans. A Dutch version exists, but it has words like “afgewezen” and who knows what that means? With the help of the Afrikaans teacher Elsie Senekal at Iona Convent, we are now proud to present an Afrikaans version of the Emotion Wheel: Die Emosiewiel.
Click through for a high-res version
This version has the words going all around for if you want to cut it out as a circle (that’s what I’m doing) – and here in high res.
* Emotion Wheel from Willcox, Gloria (1982): “The Feeling Wheel: A Tool for Expanding Awareness of Emotions and Increasing Spontaneity and Intimacy”. Transactional Analysis Journal: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/emotionshop/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/emotion-wheel.jpg
