How to build inner safety with the Feelings Wheel

Even after all the healing work you've done, you still get triggered.

This, again? you might find yourself lamenting.

Especially when there's a particular sensitivity you thought you'd processed, but then it reappears in a new way. A new layer. In a new category.

The instinct in response to triggers is blame—towards others, or yourself.

It's either,

Why can't they respect me? How dumb!

Or,

Why do I keep messing this up? I can't seem to get it right.

As an energy healer, I love triggers. The best sessions begin with, So, what triggered you this week?

For healing work, a trigger is a gateway. It's a sign of something buried in the subconscious.

We call it a trigger because it's making you feel. It's a signal that there's something that is needing to be felt. In that way, when a trigger surfaces, it also tells me that something is ready to be healed.

A trigger is also intuition. It's an insight trying to come through. It's a guide to greater alignment, whether that turns out to be a boundary that needs to be set, a conversation, an action, or an ending.

But you don't get the benefit from the trigger without inquiry.

If you take a few minutes to address each trigger with compassion and curiosity, your life will dramatically change—full stop.

I've developed a simple journaling practice with three prompts that will help you validate your own feelings, release the grip of uncomfortable emotions, and gain the insights camoflauged within.

The Feelings Wheel

If you haven't seen it before, the Feelings Wheel is a map of emotions, color-coded, with the base-level emotions in the center, and more specific emotions on the second and third circles.

I began using the Feelings Wheel to boost my inner safety. Especially as both an entrepreneur and artist, I'm in constant growth mode, aka, I'm opening myself up to potential rejection or judgment, which inherently feels unsafe. But we always have the ability to create safety within, and I've found the Feelings Wheel especially useful for this.

You can find the Feelings Wheel on feelingswheel.com.

How to use the Feelings Wheel practice

This journaling practice can be done three ways.

• In response to triggers, as they come up
• As a daily practice before you go to bed
• As a "feelings check-in" potentially setting an alarm for every 2-3 hours, to support yourself through a crisis or other challenging situations

My Feelings Wheel journal prompts

Here are the three prompts I use with the Feelings Wheel.

1. What am I feeling? Choose 3 emotions.
2. What belief about myself is making this feeling possible?
3. What is my unmet need in this moment?

How this practice will help you

Tracking your triggers is not for the weak! But, the result of committing to a practice like this is that over time, you build a muscle of inner validation and safety. From that grounded foundation, your creativity and expression can flourish.

Our feelings are much more nuanced, when we take a deeper look. I find that what I initially called anger is actually sadness, and then when I validate myself in that, I find that I actually need to take an action around it.

I also find that as I do this practice, I naturally transition from processing the trigger and into a new idea for some writing or an insight that will help others, perhaps something I share on social media.

What you're really doing is creating safety, which opens up your intuitive channel, and more of your authentic self can come through. That's something to celebrate!

Want more?

If you have the same emotional pattern resurfacing, you will benefit from energy healing. I start clients with a 3-session series so we can target a specific issue, loosen the grip of the unconscious story, and create momentum around telling a new story.

To get started, schedule a free consultation and mini-session with me. We'll use this time to create clarity around your issue and it's a no-pressure way to explore if energy healing is right for you.