Naming feelings
The second step of a thought record asks you to name what you felt and rate how strong it was. It sounds simple. In practice it’s where a lot of records go off course, because everyday language mixes feelings and thoughts together.
Feelings and thoughts
A feeling is an emotional state: sad, anxious, ashamed, angry, guilty, relieved. It usually fits in one word. A thought is an idea or an interpretation, and it usually needs a sentence.
The phrase “I feel” causes most of the confusion. “I feel like a failure” is a thought. So is “I feel that nobody listens to me.” The feeling underneath might be ashamed, or hurt, or discouraged. If what you wrote in the feelings step starts with “that” or “like,” it probably belongs in the thoughts step, and the question becomes what emotion came with it.
Body sensations are worth noting too. A racing heart, a tight throat, a heavy chest. They’re part of how a feeling shows up, and noticing them can help you name it.
Why the exact word matters
“Bad” and “upset” are real, but they’re blurry. “Embarrassed” points somewhere different than “ashamed,” and “irritated” is a long way from “furious.” The more precise the word, the easier it is to find the thought that goes with it. Anxiety tends to travel with thoughts about danger, sadness with loss, guilt with having done wrong, anger with unfairness.
There’s also some evidence that putting a feeling into words helps on its own. In brain imaging studies, putting a word to the emotion in a picture dampened activity in the amygdala, part of the brain’s threat system, and later work suggests naming your own feelings can take some of the edge off too. Researchers call this affect labeling. It isn’t a cure, but it’s one reason the naming step is worth doing carefully.
The feelings wheel
The worksheet uses a feelings wheel adapted from one designed by Geoffrey Roberts, the same one in our Activity Record app. It groups feelings into seven families: happy, surprised, bad, fearful, angry, disgusted, and sad. Each family opens into more specific words. Start with the family closest to what you felt and work outward until a word fits. If none do, add your own. A few words on the wheel, like worthless, rejected, or betrayed, carry a judgment about what happened. They’re worth naming, and it can also help to write the judgment itself in the thoughts step, since it’s often the hot thought.
Rating from 0 to 100
Rate each feeling by how strong it was at the time, where 0 is not at all and 100 is the strongest you’ve ever felt it. There are no right numbers. What matters is being consistent with yourself. If 0 to 10 feels more natural, Settings can switch every rating in the app to that scale.
The ratings do three jobs. They show which feeling is driving things when there are several. They give you a baseline to compare with at the end. And over time they teach something useful, which is that feelings come in degrees and change, even strong ones.
Afterward
In step 8 you rate the same feelings again. Any change is information, even a small one. A feeling rarely goes to zero, and it shouldn’t have to. If your friend really did cancel on you, some disappointment is the right response. A thought record aims to take away the extra weight a distorted thought adds, not the feeling that fits the facts.
References
- Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01916.x
- Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116–124. doi.org/10.1177/1754073917742706
- Greenberger, D., & Padesky, C. A. (2016). Mind over mood: Change how you feel by changing the way you think (2nd ed.). Guilford Press. guilford.com
Helpful links
Educational content, not medical advice or a substitute for professional care. Ready to try one? Fill in a thought record online, read how to do one step by step, or print one.