27 Emotions. No Wonder Why We Feel Crazy Sometimes.

Feelings and emotions can be hard, but they are also so important to us reaching our goals! In this episode I go through the 27 emotions and some steps to help you track your emotions and reach your goals.

27 Emotions
Emotions Tracking Sheet

Podcast Transcript

You’ve probably heard me say before that I get a lot of my podcast ideas when I am walking our furbaby, Pepper. However, this one came to me when I was working on social media posts for the week. As we head into the holiday season a lot of feelings and memories come up and I was trying to think about what my favorite feeling is, which is when I realized I didn’t know what I actually had to choose from. This led me to a Google search on feelings and emotions. I had never really thought about how many different emotions we actually have as humans. We just sort of experience them all and don’t really pay attention to each one of them or how each emotion elicits a certain feeling. Let’s dive in!! Humans have 27 basic emotions. 2-7! However, they are generally grouped into 4 categories of happiness, sadness, fear, or anger. Much like the movie “Inside Out.” If you have not watched it, it is a very cute movie to watch with the kiddos. I would say most of us think in terms of the 4 general categories, but it is very interesting to me the list of 27. Here is the full list of 27: 

First, before we really dig into these, I want to pause and acknowledge that no wonder we feel crazy at times! We have 27 emotions to use and work through? LOL. And no wonder our little children have trouble expressing themselves. They are trying to learn to walk, talk, and deal with 27 emotions at once. Woofta! So when we tell ourselves to take a deep breath to help control our emotions, we are really asking our system to breathe and tone down 27 possible emotions when we might not know which one is actually causing the outburst. 

Alright, so let’s look at these. As I look at the list some of these I would not even recognize as emotions – aesthetic for example. Aesthetics is the feeling of being concerned with how you look. After I looked that up, I realized I probably feel like that the majority of the time! I would have just called it self-consciousness. Then I started to think about how many of these emotions I went through in one day. LOL. Today alone, as I write this, I have easily gone through 7 of them so far. It is a Saturday and I am home with the kids and it is an easy day. No plans, beautiful weather, and they have friends over so I am working. I love to hear their chatter and laughter as I type. Joy is easy to identify. I also have a deep sense of appreciation for each day God gives me. This has led me down a path of being very aware of my emotions today and where they are coming from. I often talk about your thoughts and being aware of what you are thinking and where those thoughts are coming from and then changing them. In this, I have realized I have overlooked something very important, possibly even more important. Your emotions! Your emotions, your feelings, are what you need to continue to stay in alignment with your path. Let me explain.

We are all made of energy. God-given energy. And I’m not talking about the energy of feeling tired or ready to bounce off the walls, I am talking about the actual frequency going through our bodies. That energy that when you meet someone you know you like them or something is off. That is your energy telling you, ‘oh yes, this is a good person,’ or ‘nope, not for us!’ This energy is powerful and can truly help guide you IF you listen to it. I truly believe this is our connection with God. Others will say it is our connection with the Universe. Whatever you believe, there is energy flowing through all of us and it is constantly moving and either attracting or pushing away – like magnets. And you, you have the power to make sure your energy is flowing to attract. When I say alignment, or talk about being in alignment, this is exactly what I mean. When my energy is right where it needs to be to align with what God has for me…I know it. You do feel like you can conquer the world. You are open to opportunities, you are willing to see the creative possibilities of your potential. It is not our job to know how God is working on our behalf, but it is our job to have faith that He is, and to have the positive emotions and feelings to keep us open to His guidance. Negative emotions, fear, worry, keep us from good energy and guidance. This is why I am kicking myself for not bringing this up before. It is vital to you being successful in reaching your full potential. You have to believe and have faith that God is working for you. Your actions will follow your energy. Your energy will attract what you need to make way for your goals, as long as they are in alignment with God’s will for you. You might be thinking, great, but how do I truly know if this is my path? I totally get you! I use to pray all of the time for discernment because I was so cloudy and confused on what my path was. I was so busy trying to make my own path that I didn’t stop and ask God what He designed me to do. When I did that. When I slowed down. Slowed way down and started praying and meditating on what my true talents and gifts were, it was a freight train. I got in alignment with my energy and the ideas and opportunities started coming and everything made sense. I found I was no longer praying for discernment, but for continued direction around my path and which opportunities and actions to take. And all along the way, I watch how I feel!! I pray and meditate on where I am headed and how it makes me feel. How the energy in my body automatically kicks up when I am writing a podcast and the ideas or flowing out of my brain through my hands so fast I cannot keep up with the typing. This is when you know you are on the right path, that you are doing what you are designed to do and that your feelings are driving what you want, not the other way around. As I said a bit earlier, negative feelings and fear block this good energy and it won’t allow you to see or even be open to these opportunities. But good feelings, happy feelings, love (and I am not talking about romantic love, but genuine love for life and relationships), will keep you on the energy path you need. 

Emotions are important. Very, very, important! So important that of course I want you to start paying attention and tracking these. I am working on a tracking worksheet as I type this! But this is what I want you, and me to do. 

1. Keep the list of 27 emotions on an index card with you. Or on your phone. Go to my website and you can copy the list from the podcast show notes. Or you can download it here and print if off or save it to your phone. 
2. At set times throughout the day, take inventory of your emotions. Let’s say you start at 8:00 am and do a check every couple of hours. Or, if a big emotion comes up and you feel either overjoyed or completely furious. Jot them down on a piece of paper, or your phone notes. Do this for a week. 
3. At the end of the week, come back and look at the range of emotions you had and tally up positive emotions vs. negative emotions. 
4. Our goal is for more positive than negative. We can’t be positive all of the time, but let’s go for 80-90% of the time! 
5. Now, the following week, do the same thing. Except, this time when you have a negative thought come up, consciously choose to switch your mindset and make it a positive emotion. Let’s say your co-worker really makes you mad. Instead of being furious at them, choose to say, “I bet someone peed in their cheerios this morning.” LOL. That will make you laugh! LOL. Okay, I was joking, but if that works for you, go for it! But truly, pause and try to give them some grace and realize you don’t know what else they have going on in their world, or the stresses they are dealing with. While they may not be handling it the best way, you can’t control them, you can control your response or actions to them.  
6. Take a look at your sheet and see how your positive emotions have changed. Fingers crossed we are doing this right and your positives are higher!! 
7. And this last step is super important. When you are thinking or visualizing what you want in your future, for your family, yourself, your career, your faith, whatever your goals are….when you visualize these things, make sure to include how it makes you feel!! You now have a list of 27 options to work with! Pick one and really meditate and pray on that and let yourself truly feel everything associated with that goal. I know exactly how I will feel or want to feel when I am presenting to women on stage, when I am helping women realize their nudge and decide to choose love over fear. I know exactly what I want my romantic life to feel like. I am nearly brought to tears thinking about my kids succeeding and the joy and love that brings. All of these amazing, positive feelings help keep us open and ready to see the opportunities to take the actions to realize our goals and dreams. 

Again, we aren’t always going to feel like we are on cloud 9, but the goal is to control our feelings so they don’t control us. Our feelings and energy are powerful and we want them to help us on our path. You can do this! It is so good to feel good and know you can choose!