Hi, you're listening to Small Things Often from the Gottman Institute, where we talk you through

research-based tips to help improve your relationships in five minutes or less. Today's tip is about

understanding difficult emotions. We've all experienced hardships, things that make us angry,

confused, fearful, lonely, or sad. Most of us can't just snap our fingers

and snap out of it, even though at times we may want to run away from these feelings and fix it

instead of understanding it. Sometimes these emotions feel so big and overwhelming and blunt.

I'm sad. Period. I am sad. But there's so many layers to your feelings. You can deal with these

feelings by practicing mindfulness. What's the benefit? It enables you to calm down and soothe

yourself. When you're calm, you have space to reflect and thoughtfully respond rather than react.

In season one of small things often, we talked you through the six

steps that can help you understand and deal with your difficult emotions in a mindful way. So today,

we're taking it a step further because the more you lean into these emotions, the more you

understand what is fueling them and how to address them. That brings us to the feeling wheel.

It's a tool developed by Gloria Wilcox that can help investigate feelings related to what you're feeling.

And maybe you'll connect with the different emotion that could be the root cause.

The feeling wheel has different rings.

So say you're feeling sad.

Some of the emotions on the outer rings of sad are guilty, ashamed, depressed, lonely, and bored.

Are any of those resonating with you when you're feeling sad?

This tool is also a great visual so you can see the opposite of what you're feeling.

To see how you could turn it around.

Across from sad on the feeling wheel is joyful.

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