The Emotional Wheel: Your Mantra For Balance, In And Out Of The Hospital As a nurse or a doctor, you have some of the most stressful jobs possible. You save, let go of patients and make life – changing decisions almost every minute of every day. It’s most noble out of all professions but is bound to take a toll on your mental and emotional health at some point. This is completely normal and should be accepted by everyone. Everyone needs a little help every now and then. This blog leads you to find out about the useful resource to manage your emotions called emotional wheel. If you want to know more about mental health and uncared for emotional health in doctors. Then you can read the depression in doctors blog post on Mylocum’s page here.
What is the emotional wheel?
It was created by the late psychologist Robert Plutchik Ph.D. It is a psychological tool which was created so that individuals can learn how to identify and verbalise their different complex emotions.
We have 8 primary emotions which are: –
- Sadness
- Anger
- Disgust
- Joy
- Trust
- Fear
- Surprise
- Anticipation
The wheel helps identify the secondary emotions in an individual which are reactions to these primary emotions and are more complex in nature. For example, being bitter is a reaction to underlying anger.
The wheel is arranged in a circular shape or in the shape of a flower. It has all of the primary emotions in the centre which is surrounded by the different degrees of the other emotions at its periphery. For example, the emotion of happiness, in its second degree can be classified as trustworthy. A more powerful degree of trustworthiness is intimate. That is why it is classified in the third degree which is on the outermost layer.
On the wheel, the primary emotions are also grouped in such a way that they are directly opposite to their opposing emotion. For example, happiness or joy is placed directly opposite to sadness.
It helps the people grappling with these different emotions to put a name on them and come to terms with them. This leads to people becoming more self – aware and self – compassionate.
How can you use the emotional wheel?
There are no right or wrong ways to use the emotion wheel. Below are a few tips –
Find your core emotion: –
Begin by trying to find an approximation of your current emotional state by referring to the wheel. Therefore, start narrowing down on the distinct nuances or layers of what you are feeling.
Emotions are arranged in colour coordinated spokes in the three layers of the wheel; –
- Outer edges have low intensity emotions such as boredom and distraction.
- Toward the centre, the colour deepens and milder emotions become your basic emotions such as surprise and trust.
- The centre part of the circle holds the most powerful emotions such as admiration and amazement.
Consider all possible causes: –
You are feeling a certain way or experiencing a particular emotion because something is not the way it should be. Emotions take place after a certain sequence of events rather than one – off isolated occurrences.
If you are in the habit of pushing down emotions then taking time out and looking at the sequence of events and tracking down the emotion can really help. Also, you can start by naming the emotion and then making your way back to the initial trigger.
Take action: –
You may begin to notice that some of the emotions which you experience may start making their way into your behaviour and body language. Hence, they will show up in your speech and cause you to lash out.
Using an emotional wheel can help you to understand and identify an emotion along with allowing you to process it productively. However, it shows you that taking time out to deal with your feelings helps you process them more calmly,
Benefits of the emotional wheel
A few benefits of the emotional wheel are: –
Self Awareness
Knowing yourself helps avoid overthinking and downward spirals:
The emotional wheel increases self – expression and compassion by simplifying what you are going through particularly. It helps in knowing exactly what one is going through and managing those negative feelings productively. If the emotions are positive then you can hold on to them and enjoy them to their fullest
Fosters empathy
The wheel helps individuals communicate effectively. Therefore, it helps in naming and identifying what you are feeling in a healthy manner which reduces the chances of experiencing emotional intensity. We are able to communicate what we feel exactly with others and can possibly seek their help too.
Emotional Intelligence
The emotion wheel is a beneficial tool for helping people become better at understanding, managing, and communicating their emotions, which leads to emotional maturity and a reduction in emotional impulsivity and destructiveness. Another advantage is that it helps in making mature decisions and avoiding conflict.
Emotions provide important context
It tells us that there is nothing particularly wrong with us, we are just going through something which we need to solve. Emotions make us aware that there is a problem which we are reacting to negatively and that we need to figure out what it is and act on it accordingly.
Ending Notes..
As we have seen, the emotional wheel is a very useful asset and can help in making any individual more emotionally mature in a very short period of time. A few other variations of the wheel are the Geneva wheel and the Junto wheel. All of them fulfil the same purpose of making us more aware of our emotions and how to deal with them.
As doctors and nurses, you often do not find the time or the space of mind to sit after a long day of work and deal with all of the emotions which you felt all through the day. Taking time out for yourself as well as your family becomes increasingly difficult. Having a good support system at home is also extremely important as your partner or your children also take up a vital part of your emotional capacity.
If you dabble into locum work as a doctor or nurse, you work in shifts. You get to choose your shifts and hours and can take as much time out for your needs, their needs as well as your emotional needs.
There are different locum doctor agencies available in the UK, The leading locum doctor and nurse agency in the industry is Mylocum.
We provide opportunities for locum work at competitive salaries all around the UK. There are doctor and nurse vacancies in various departments so click here to register immediately.
