#31: Unfold a Feeling
Find your emotional flavors of the moment.
Instructions
Take a moment to look internally at what mood is present.
Follow the instructions from Álvaro D. Márquez to create an accordion book inspired by an emotion, or Sophie Lucido Johnson’s activity to capture a feeling “monster”.
Share it with someone who likes to hear about emotions and whatnot.
Can I Borrow A Feeling?
I don’t know if it was covered that day in school when I was out with the chickenpox, but I don’t remember getting a whole lot of useful schooling around emotions—other than, ha ha, let’s laugh at someone who has feelings (cough cough dominant male culture of the 1980s). Sidenote: comedian Gary Gulman has a great bit about why the 70s and 80s were not “accommodating times for sensitive boys” like him in his very good (and very intense!) HBO special “Depresh Mode.”
Being with, and working with, our emotions is of critical importance for our own sanity and those around us. I know, DUH. The internet might be terrible in a lot of ways, but it’s great as an actual source of information. The Feeling Wheel, for example, is a good starting point.
Psychotherapist and author Hilary Jacobs Hendel has an interesting process called The Change Triangle that I’ve found somewhat useful about being able to notice the layers of feelings on top of other feelings. (Though not as funny as the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness—haha humor as a defense!).
To go even further, researcher and author Lisa Feldman Barrett has a fascinating perspective that emotions are “made in the moment” as a function of our minds reacting to sensations and experiences in the body, or as she puts it “by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning”. That framing of emotions opens up a whole new way to relate to them.
Your brain has to make sense of what's going on inside your body in relation to what's going on around you in the world. And sometimes your brain makes sense of that orchestra of sensations as emotions. … You can train your brain to make sense of your sensations very differently as emotions or sometimes deconstruct them into something that is not an emotion, but just is that simple feeling”
– Lisa Feldman Barrett on the 10% Happier podcast
WHOA! But let’s dial is back to just noticing feelings and how we can use art to tap into that.
A Quick Corita-inspired Activity
Recently I was lucky enough to have a Saturday free to attend the “Corita 101” program with Los Angeles-based artist, educator, and researcher Álvaro D. Márquez. Álvaro created a very easy activity to make an accordion book with an abstract drawing that captures an emotion.
You can download the PDF of the instructions FOR FREE on their website, but here’s a backup link just in case.
It’s a quick and easy activity with very accessible supplies, and picking colors that capture your experience of an emotion is a great non-verbal way to make connection to your internal landscape!
For Further Fun — Draw an Emotion as a Character
The artist/writer/illustrator Sophie Lucido Johnson (who also has a tremendous newsletter) has a great activity about drawing a complex emotion to both notice the sensation in the body, as well as learning any useful information/stories from that emotion. See a short version on Instagram or the longer workshop Sophie hosted for The Believer called “Draw What Scares You”.
Bottom line — regardless of your age, it’s always a good time to start learning more about your emotions and working on your relationship to them, especially as the colder months arrive here in the Northeast.
Take care out there, friends!
Music
I mean, how can you top Björk’s “jóga” unplugged version for a song about emotions?
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