Our Feelings About the Feelings Wheel

In this episode we discuss the difference (?) between feelings and emotions, and how a good portion of the feelings wheel (which Sarah owns in pillow form) consists of neither and is therefore not terribly helpful. So much of the work we do in process groups is about identifying feelings in the moment, and there tends to be some confusion around what actually IS a feeling. Join us as we discuss what people might actually mean when they say they "feel judged," for instance, and why it's so important to get precise, while also keeping things simple, when naming the emotional aspects of our experience. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You are listening to the Present Moment Process Podcast, the official podcast of the Asheville Group Psychotherapy Society, with your hosts Chris Byrne and Sarah Simpson. Okay, so do you want to talk about the difference between feelings and emotions? I bet if we looked it up at Merriam Webster, they would be synonyms. I bet they would.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

And I bet depending on which researcher, because uh what I've heard is that for as many as many words there are for feelings, there are different uh theories on emotions and feelings and you know all the neurobiological, but yeah, I think you're right. The general consensus, uh, and Sarah, you were just holding up that uh feelings wheel pillow, which I really like, at the center are listed the six core emotions, and I think that is what most uh researchers who study emotions, and ultimately who cares what they say, because it's I mean, you know, sure, there's some relevance there, but I think most of the research all agrees that there are five or six core human emotions that are shared across cultures. Sometimes surprise is added in as a six, sometimes not, but it's uh happy, sad, mad, afraid, disgusted. Those are the five, and then surprise is sometimes added on as the core emotions that we're all born being able to feel. Um, and then like most feelings wheels that they're called, they start with the core emotions at the middle, and then the feelings seem to kind of stem out on the the outer perimeters or the outer rings of the I see.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

So you think the outer rings are feelings and the inner is emotion?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

Right, and that they're used interchangeably. Like I think somebody would say, What are you feeling? I'm feeling mad. Okay, but that's an emotion.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Um, I don't really like differentiating between those two words. I don't really see the point in group. We're we're out for feelings or emotions if there is a difference, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Right, right. Yeah, we're just out for if it which is kind of like if it feels like a feeling or sounds like a feeling. I mean, I noticed on that feelings wheel it says judgmental, but I think you and I would both agree that judgmental is a is like a cognitive state, not a feeling.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, it's probably anger or annoyance or disappointment or a combo. It's usually a combo, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:46

A combo, a combo of feelings. Like disappointment, I think would be one of those combo feelings of like anger and sadness.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah. So I looked up, you know, emotion on Marion Webster, and one of the definitions is a state of feeling, and another is the affective aspect of consciousness, colon, feeling. The long definition is a conscious mental reaction, such as anger or fear, subjectively experienced as strong feeling, usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

Okay, interesting. What Chat GPT is saying about this is people often use the words emotion and feeling interchangeably, but in psychology, they're often distinguished like this emotion equals the whole body response. And emotion is an automatic reaction that involves changes in the body, heart rate, muscle tension, breathing, brain activity, facial expressions. I guess that would be like affect, action tendencies or signals like fight, flee, approach, withdraw. Emotions happen very quickly, often before conscious thought. Um, feelings equal your conscious experience of the motion. A feeling is a subjective awareness and interpretation of what's happening emotionally. It's the part where you can say, I feel scared, I feel hurt, I feel excited. Interesting. So, but yeah, like you said before, in group we're going for feelings, and we it's okay to use those interchangeably.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

But we're usually wanting it to be very simple.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Um, I guess with this distinction, we are more interested in emotion, but just because it's more primal and well, because it signals something like uh the core emotions are signals of you know what we want, what we don't want. I mean, I guess feelings can be too, but you know, anger signals that um maybe a boundary has been crossed, or a boundary needs to be established, or that the the need to stand up and fight back, or you know, protect ourselves, defend ourselves. Sadness signals that something important maybe has been lost or taken away, or that there's a need for connection and care and tenderness. And I think some group leaders, like I've experienced this in different groups that I've been in, where somebody could say, I feel rejected.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

And that's just like, oh, you feel rejected? Okay, yeah, say more about that. But then other times someone could say, I feel rejected, and the group leader might say, That's not a feeling. What's the feeling underneath the rejection? Yeah, it's just interesting. Like, even on Chat GPT, it says here, like, emotion is often viewed as underlying adaptive experience, fear, sadness, anger, joy, disgust, excitement. Feelings are the conscious labels we put on those experiences. Sometimes clients can describe feelings such as I feel rejected, I feel abandoned, I feel ignored. But those are all like interpretations of yeah, like there's a feeling or an emotion, whatever you want to call it, underneath that, then that person is then labeling as that right.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

They're basically saying, I feel like you're rejecting me.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Okay, so what is the emotion?

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Or yeah, or what is the real, what is the real feeling?

unknown 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

So yeah, I think it it feels good to be.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I feel I feel a little bit scared and annoyed that you've used chat GPT twice.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Really? Why why do you feel scared and annoyed?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Um, because I've never used Chat GPT and now it's a part of our podcast.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

Oh no. I was wondering if you're gonna have feelings about that.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Um, yeah, I understand that because I don't I don't feel um thrilled about the whole AI thing. What I like about using Chat GPT is it's just the ability to look up things. And I'm not taking what Chat GPT says as like the this is like the final word. It's just a way of like getting, you know, if just like if I Googled something or if I looked up something in the online dictionary, because it's pulling from all of these sources, so who even knows where it's fucking getting its information from. But I'm glad you glad you told me that.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Well, what what was the prompt you gave it?

SPEAKER_03 7:33

The initial prompt was what is the difference between emotions and feelings?

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, just as complex as group can be, a lot of it, I think a lot more of it actually could be focusing on this conversation. Like, what do we actually mean when we use these words? And as we were just talking about before we hit record, it can be really hard to keep the group focused in that way. Groups just take, you know, they go in another direction, and we just have to go with it sometimes. Other times we're able to be more aggressive and really slow people down. But especially in a beginning group, this is a lot of the conversation is like, what is a feeling?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Um, and we get pretty nerdy about it, and people can get annoyed and frustrated. And I think curiosity is a feeling, you know, that's a big one.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Right. Oh, yeah, curiosity definitely comes up. Confused. Oh, yes, I feel confused.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

But yeah, you're right. Like helping people just if we can, you know, harness that aggression in ourselves and help people slow down and be curious about what is underneath the word, the interpretive word they may be using for a feeling.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Even curiosity, like there, there's information there, even if that's not technically a feeling. It's there's like, let's be curious about the curiosity. What is it? Is that drawing you closer to the person? Is it are you curious because you're afraid of what they're saying, or you're wanting to know, do we have something in common?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Right, yeah. Lots of times they're curious because they they have their own experience and they're wanting to compare. So maybe they could just say their experience first, which is more vulnerable.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Totally. Yeah, one of our colleagues in our uh masters of group therapy club put together that that brave words document. There's all these sections of things that often get used in group and where it says I'm curious about instead of it says instead of saying that, or if you feel like saying I'm curious, try saying I want to know because it will help me in my own life with, or I really care about something here. I don't know what it is yet, but I want to find out what you're talking about relates to me somehow, but I'm not sure how yet. I'm tempted to keep exploring this because it helps me avoid dot dot dot.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

There you go. Yeah, so I when I first started running groups and was realizing how often this came up, like what is a feeling anyway, you know. Oh, I feel judged. Well, no, you feel like people are judging you. Is that anger? Is that fear? Is it sadness? Probably a combination. I went ahead and got a feelings wheel pillow to just have in the group room in case, you know, for when we needed it, but I didn't keep it there for long because the feelings wheel does have words like judged and ignored. I feel ignored, you know. I don't agree that in any of those are feelings or emotions. So I just have it tucked away in my closet, but it was kind of fun while it lasted. People getting debate-y about the pillow, is the pillow right or not? I bought the damn thing and uh I ended up not thinking it was right a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

So I've never seen a feelings wheel, like they that one starts out right. Like I like that one, that wheel the best that you have because it starts out correctly with the core emotions, but then every wheel I've ever seen, as it fans out, it starts using words that are like those interpretive words, they're not actually feelings. But I think you're right, like that that is sort of like that can be the work, is like helping people, not just being like, Well, that's not a feeling, it's really like, Well, what's you're saying that you're saying that you feel judged or you feel abandoned? So, what yeah, what might you know Bob be feeling when he says that, or or even asking Bob directly, like what's underneath that? If that were true, is that sad? Is that make you feel you feel disappointed, angry?

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah. And why do we want to get to the root of it in that way?

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yes, why do we why why are we doing this? Um do you want to try to answer? I I mean, I think in part because it helps us understand what's important to us, what we need, what we want, what we don't want, what's really happening under under the hood of our social exterior.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah, I think that's a good answer. That's a good answer. And people can, I think, just connect with each other more deeply when we keep it simple in that way.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Um words can be obfuscating and I think maybe they're used excessively to overcomplicate. When it could just be yeah, I'm sad. I'm really sad. And like people can just sit with that and feel that with you.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, you don't always have to say a lot about it.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

Yeah, can we just touch into that sadness together and hold that with the person or as a group, or can other people access their sadness in that moment? Because we all we all carry those feelings.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

I mean, I almost think sometimes at any given moment you could uh at least in my experience, if I really sat there and was quiet, that I could access some sadness right now, I could access some disgust about something. I mean, maybe not like in this moment, like towards you, but I mean, like, yeah, I think that we can all we all have access to those emotions.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Especially when we're relating to or listening to another human being talk about their experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Because so much of our usual mode in society is to be verbose and cover things up with words and right. Yeah, it protects us from true vulnerability. And yeah, we really like to overcomplicate stuff.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah. Well, and I think it also shows how in normal, like out of group, you know, just people's day-to-day lives, um, how conversations commonly or interactions, especially ones that are emotionally laden, don't go well because people are overcomplicating or using words like abandoned or I feel attacked, or and overlaying these interpretive words as feelings. And then, like, you know, we've all seen if you know, especially if you work with couples or in groups, how like uh interaction can just go off the rails from just the use of words that are not the real feelings that people are having.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Like I think in AADP, which is accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy, they talk about those kind of core emotions as being the core adaptive emotions that are sometimes very firm for many of us in different ways, or maybe just certain emotions, we're not safe to feel, or we're almost too there's like this experiential intensity to them that as children we really didn't have the container to help us have those feelings or metabolize those feelings. So the power of I think that's why I thought of when you know we were saying, like, why do that? Why are we it's like to help people have a new experience with naming and feeling and expressing and sitting with some of these core emotions with other people, yeah. They can be hopefully transformative, ideally.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah. Just coming into deeper contact with your aliveness and humanness.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Right. Like those are all that's the things that again that we're if we're all born feeling, having access to these feelings, then I almost look at it like regardless of what kind of childhood you have, or you know, obviously, some people have experienced deep trauma, other people maybe just you know, lighter versions of parents that weren't really emotionally present. But I think we all have some uh experience of you know not being able to fully feel or be with these like big emotions as kids, especially.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Oh yeah. Well, it can happen so subtly too. Like, oh don't cry.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

Yeah, right. You know, or even even excitement, you know, we talk about like um sort of like the downregulation of you know, like when kids, like a lot of parents, obviously, and I can relate to this as a parent myself, of uh at times having struggled with my when your kid has a temper tantrum when they're really angry, or we so we talk a lot about like helping kids like downregulate, but even like upregulating, I think excitement or like too much happiness, you know, if kids are like really hypers like that's too much for the parents and they're just like calm down, stop it, knock it off, you know, and then that gets sort of like totally like yeah, the space to just be like totally joyful gets right, yeah, gets uh shit on.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah, so many adults are they feel like they have to keep that, keep a lid on that kind of excitement.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Like if we're really happy about an achievement or a success, you know, we try to just like be chill, be cool, you know. Yeah, when really we want to be like jumping up and down and squealing, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Right, exactly. Yeah, like you I just you can just feel proud. I feel but feel proud, but instead of you just you want to be like doing jumping jacks and speaking down the street, you know. Yeah, yeah, like that's like freedom. That's like real emotional freedom.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

There's an episode of the show Girls that ends with Lena Dunham's character breaking into a run down some street in New York City after she does a moth reading that goes, well, it just reminded me of I did that one time after a really good creative writing workshop where people were saying nice things about my story.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

I love that image. And I yeah, I think that's why what I was so attracted to about group um from the beginning, like with the first group that I joined, I feel like it was going to church. And I'm using that in a way of like a positive, or it was like almost this like spiritual experience or something, because like I was accessing these feelings with other people in such a unique way that um yeah, it just felt so energizing. Like I would leave group, like so energized. I mean, sometimes I would leave group feeling drained, or you know, like I needed to take a nap or something, but like I would just, yeah, there was this this aliveness like that we've talked about.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

And that's yeah, the aliveness is in the feelings. I mentioned it in my lecture last week that like thinking can feel really good too. Like that can be a source of pleasure and joy.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

But yeah, there's still the feelings attached to it. That's what makes the thinking have life.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

So it's all about the feelings, right? Right. Yeah, like I love that that idea that like we're always we're having emotions even before we're conscious of it. Like I've heard that expression, like um state always precedes story. Like it's like the state, the emotional state is always is happening always before, even before we have the words or the thoughts, there's always something going on emotionally for us, even if we're not aware of it. Which I get confused about that sometimes too, because it's like, so I really like I wouldn't have any any of the thoughts I'm having or anything I'm thinking about was always preceded by some unconscious emotional experience.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Interesting. It made me go to dreams and how the setting of the dream is supposed to be really important. Like if you're analyzing your own dream, you should really pay a lot of attention just to the setting and all the associations you can make toward that setting. And obviously, feelings will be involved too. And then, yeah, the other piece where people will say you're I feel judged, they're putting it that's a way of putting it on the other person instead of taking responsibility for their own experience. And then it's also implying that the other person needs to do something different so that I don't have whatever my actual feelings are underneath the feeling judged. So obviously, yeah, that'll lead to conflict.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Yeah. Well, yeah, one of my group leaders um uses this uh distinction sometimes. Like he says there's feelings towards, and then I I don't know what he calls the other one. It's like just feelings in or like inward feelings. Um, like we feel anger towards someone, but we don't feel like happy towards someone.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Uh, you know, tender or all. But I think that isn't important because if you're feeling judged, and then we take that down another level of like, okay, so yeah, I'm not I'm actually feeling hurt, but then what are you feeling towards the person?

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Were you feeling anger? Are you feeling annoyed? Or sometimes it would just be as simple, maybe as identifying like that, hey, when you said that, I didn't like that. I didn't like that because right. I don't know. I felt hurt. I felt, I mean, yeah, I guess I don't know if feeling hurt. I mean, yeah, that is a feeling, it sounds like, but but yeah, sadness, yeah, maybe some shame. Right, right. Sadness and shame, yeah. But I think it's important to identify like what is the feeling you're having towards the person and the feeling that it's just happening intra-psychically, I guess. I mean, not that that always needs to be asked about every single time, but I think that's interesting to right.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

And people can be sneaky with that too. You ask them how they're feeling towards someone, and they say, Oh, I feel happy. Oh, you feel happy toward them?

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Does that mean you do that mean you love them right now?

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yeah, right. Uh that's the other word that, yeah, the the love, right? Love doesn't get used as often.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah, it's actually not on, it's not one of the core emotions.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

That's interesting. Yeah, I wonder what all the research and heady academics would say about that, but we all know the feeling of love, and it, you know, love is so, you know, what is I think I heard somewhere that in Sanskrit there's like 40 over 40 different words for different types of love. Like there's like a word for the love that it the student feels for their for their teacher. There's a love that a best friend feels for you know their best friend, there's a love that a parent feels for the child. And uh I just I I like I love that that there's like all these different versions of love because I think that can feel vulnerable sometimes to say, like, yeah, I'm feeling a lot of love for you right now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

And that is wild that it's not in the core part of the wheel, and actually all the well, some of the core ones are intra, and then some can be both. Like happy is intra-personal. Fear, you can you can have fear of something or someone. Anger, you can feel angry, you're usually just angry towards something. That's anger, I guess, isn't really intra-personal.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

And people may say, I mean, and I have said at times that like I'm really feeling angry with myself, or I'm frustrated with myself, and there's always that sentiment of like, but anger, this is what I've always heard from therapists and group leaders, like, anger belongs outward, not inward.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

And I think that feels true. I mean, I guess we can be frustrated with ourselves, but wait, what were you just saying before that? How did we oh the intra personal versus the yeah?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

I mean, I I like what you're saying about anger. I know Elliot Zeizel says that in the show, in the group YouTube series, anger should never go inward. It's not it's not meant to go inward, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:21

It's not supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

I don't know where he got that knowledge, but yeah. It certainly is far, it doesn't do any good when it goes inward. Whereas if it goes outward, something good can come of that.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Right, yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, it's from that thing with the the adaptive sort of information that the signals and emotions give us. And I guess you know what makes sense and what has been said is that anger, the signal is that something, a boundary needs to be set, or a boundary's been crossed, or we need to protect ourselves or defend ourselves. So it's always involving another, you know, object.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah. So if you're angry at yourself, what are you needing to protect?

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah. I mean, if you're angry at yourself, you're probably it's probably some shame or embarrassment or um, or maybe even sadness, because a lot of people can turn, yeah, you know, or maybe not turn feelings into something they're not. But yeah, it's like sadness might get uh sort of turned into anger. Um, you know, in modern and modern analysis, they talk a lot about the narcissistic defense, which is a primitive defense from early childhood where the child attacks their own mind or you know, their own self because it's too scary to like you know have that anger towards the parent, or to like if you know, to consciously know, like, oh, if mom and dad are really fucked up, that's like the the very fabric of reality is unsafe. So it's it's almost safer to feel anger and attack the self, but it's obviously not not a healthy yeah. Well, no, I mean it it is adaptive and serves a purpose in childhood as a protective defense, but shouldn't say it's not healthy. But that's why in group it's so powerful to be able to get angry towards the leader or towards the other group members.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, yeah, it definitely shows up that narcissistic defense can be at play with other group members as well. People are so hesitant to just say I feel angry toward you. Anger feels really scary to a lot of people. They're like, maybe frustrated, not angry.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Yeah, all right, yeah. I'm annoyed. I mean, irritated, irritated. Yeah, like why are you just saying I'm mad at you? Yeah, right. But that does feel scary, I think, because I mean for a lot of us or that grew up in where anger was not safe in the families that people grew up in, or or yeah, just socially learned that anger is like scary, that it causes conflict, that it yeah, I mean, so many stories and experiences around anger not being safe or acceptable or okay to feel certainly express. This topic is, I mean, it's crazy how how many rabbit holes you can go down with this kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah. So love it shows up as loving on this feelings wheel, and it's on the very outer rim of the happy triangle. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

I think love is what do you make of that?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I think love should be its own core emotion.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

Yeah. I I agree. Love really feels like it's uh its own and what about hatred?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

That's not a core emotion either on this wheel.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Disgust is I ooh, this is an interesting topic. The uh hatred is hatred a feeling or is it just a byproduct of anger or rage and disgust? I wonder if hatred is like a combo of some sort.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, I mean, on this it's the second spoke in the anger triangle. Hateful.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Hateful. Hmm. I I like the idea that there's like just like in colors, there's like the primary colors, you know, red, blue, yellow, and then it's like we have the primary core emotions, and then there's all these different like combo mixtures of them. Yeah, and even like anger, happiness, sadness, they all have their own sort of like hues or tones, just like colors do, and you can mix the different uh tones to get other other feelings, but yeah, hate seems like one of those, maybe. And that's one where we're I mean, I remember being told as a kid, if I said I hate that or I hate this person or I hate that, and my parents would always say, No, no, don't say hate. That's a very strong word, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

I mean, it is a very powerful word to say you like I fucking hate something. It's like I know, yeah. And it usually implies some sort of like I don't know, destruction or something. I think of when or like viol violence, or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I think yeah, hatred just yeah, I have a very one of my formative memories is saying that I told my dad I I just hate her sometimes. I was talking about my big sister. He said, We do not say hate in this, yes, totally. Yeah, I'm like, oh okay, well now I'm just ashamed.

SPEAKER_03 30:49

Right, yeah. Whatever the feeling I was having, and just now that's gone. Totally. That was this the same kind of reaction I got from I think I even those words may have even been said. Yeah, and whatever the feeling is underneath that, like that's clearly not okay. Yeah, that's enough, you know, that's the the sort of thing where it's like these like core adaptive emotions that is like our birthright to feel, and then our parents don't have the capacity to help us hold and metabolize those feelings and just like shut it down, so then we're just yeah, so where does it go? It's stuffed, gets we all know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

But yeah, I guess you're right. Sometimes there is something more underneath hatred. And I guess in that case it was, yeah, it was anger, just like I don't know. It's hard to say if it's its own thing or not. Maybe it just depends on the circumstance. I it's often combined with fear. I think hatred can often be like fear and anger combined.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Right. Yeah. Because it's like if you hate if you hate something so much, there's there's some element of it that you're like yeah, there's it feels like that would be accurate to say that there's something that you're afraid of, too. I mean there's some intense emotion.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Or maybe I should say hatred. It just says extreme dislike or disgust. Ill will or resentment that's usually mutual, prejudiced hostility or animosity.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Oh, but it did say disgust though, huh?

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Extreme dislike or disgust, yeah. So hatred and disgust are kind of synonyms.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

I wonder, I wonder how your dad would have responded if you said, I'm just so disgusted by my sister sometimes.

unknown 32:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

He probably wouldn't have known what to do with that.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Yeah. It is funny how words take on such power. It's just four little letters.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Right. Yeah, totally. And that we've all agreed that when you say you hate something or someone, that those four letters mean it's like I know what you mean when you say that. If you say you hate something, it's like I think we can even relate to like how it's felt in the body, or you know, like anger. What is anger really? It's some part of the brain lighting up that is then we're having some, you know, visceral physiological experience in our body. That yeah, I don't know. It's interesting that the the words are just symbols for a shared experience that we all sort of agree on, more or less. I think this is good. Yeah, we covered a lot.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

I mean, we could say more. I'm kind of like inspired to make my own feelings wheel.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Mm-hmm. Oh, we should do that. We should make uh GPS feelings wheel. But then just in terms of feelings, now this has got me thinking about feelings and group, but it's like how our role or part of our role as a group leader is to help people get in touch with and name the feelings that they're having. But then there's the feelings that we are having as group leaders, because it made me think of your uh talk that you gave this past week, or I guess you did it multiple weeks, but the one that I attended, and like how powerful it is to do what you do of like you know, sitting down and kind of writing out what happened in group, or even just like sitting down and like kind of meditating on what took place in group and really paying attention to what I'm feeling, because there's so many things that we are feeling, and that sometimes we're not we're not even aware of it, or we're yeah, the ones we are conscious of, but yeah, there's just so much that we're feeling too that has to be kind of yeah, you know, at least paid attention to in some way.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Yeah, and we as leaders we have to work with it differently than members. We're we're not necessarily gonna voice everything we're feeling when we're in the leader role. We're trying to get others to do that, help them do that.

SPEAKER_03 35:15

Yeah. What's it, you know, when people ask you what you're feeling as a group leader? Uh yeah, I get thrown by that sometimes because I feel sometimes I want to share it, but other times it feels so like the the response of like, oh yeah, like I'll mean I'm happy to tell you, but first I want to know like what you're feeling or what's the emotion behind that question.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

Or yeah, there's all kinds of ways we can evade actually answering that question if we feel like it's best to evade it. Sometimes there's good reason to not say what we're feeling when we're in the leader role.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

Right. Like telling someone that we're feeling annoyed by them.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

I mean, sometimes there may be value to that, but sometimes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

It so much depends on the scenario.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

Thank you for listening to the Present Moment Process Podcast, the official podcast of the Asheville Group Psychotherapy Society. For more information, you can visit our website at Asheville Groups.org or email us at Present Moment Process at gmail.com.