How to Be a Feelings Finder

Lessons you can share with your kids or with your inner child. 

#3 How to be a ‘Feelings Finder’ ​(just follow the questions):

1) Am I calm and peaceful? Yes or No

• If Yes. Enjoy! Stay peaceful by finding 10 things to be grateful for every day.
• If No. Go to #2

2) What exactly are you feeling?
Consult a feelings chart or answer the questions below:

• Is there sadness? 
• Is there anger? 
• Is there fear? 
• Do you feel bad in a general way? 
• Do you feel disgust? 
• Do you feel happy?
• Be as specific about your feeling as you can. 
• I feel ______________________________

3) Now that you know what you are feeling, ask yourself if you have felt this way before. You are likely very familiar with this feeling. 

4) Focus on this feeling:

• Does it have a shape?
• What colour is it? 
• Does it have a texture (smooth, jagged, soupy, sticky, soft, light, heavy)? 
• Where is it located in your body?

5) Now note how big this feeling is right now, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 meaning you can barely feel it and 10 meaning the feeling is HUGE. My # _________

6) Notice that you can make any feeling bigger by thinking about the incident that triggered the feeling in the first place. 

So. If you reacted with anger when your brother did something annoying, then when you think of him doing that you will feel that anger again and you can turn up the volume on that feeling. Humans can produce feelings just by thinking of events and circumstances – as if we were actually there! The only reason to produce a feeling is to use that feeling to find out where the thought that produced that feeling is actually coming from. This requires you to be a thought detective – coming in the next lesson.

Action Step: 
Notice your feelings for a day. What are the feelings you feel most often? It may sound strange but your body actually wants to feel these feelings, even if they are unpleasant!

You can list your frequent feelings here:

​Here’s a list of some typical unpleasant feelings for you to refer to (you probably already know the good feelings):