How It Works

Stress and trauma generate a myriad of feelings which range in type, intensity and duration.  How we manage those feelings impacts our functioning. When we manage our fear or sadness well, we have self-control, we are coping well.  This management skill is known as emotion regulation, the ability to “regulate/manage/control” our feelings.  Naming, understanding and differentiating our feelings are keys to emotion regulation. Naming helps identify the type of feeling, building language around our emotions, validating our experience.  Understanding and differentiating builds self-efficacy, fostering our ability to “down-regulate”: lower the intensity and duration of distressing feelings. 

How to Use

Use the faces and labeled feelings as starting points for exploring your own feelings. Note how you felt earlier, how you feel now, and how you hope to feel in the future. Note that feelings are fluid - they can change, which enables you to tolerate distressing feelings. Talk with others about your feelings. Ask others about their feelings to build empathy and connection.

When to Use - Signs of Stress/Trauma

• not talking, not answering questions

• detached from others, disinterested

• confused: not understanding what is happening

• distressed, crying

• preoccupied, worried, overwhelmed

• anxious, panicked, agitated

What It Can Do

• naming feelings calms the mind

• decrease anxiety, distress

• increase control over feelings (emotion-regulation)

• think more clearly; increased concentration & problem solving

• reconnect to self and present moment

• increase interaction with people and environment

“I really like these because the faces show what I’m feeling on the inside.” Aaliyah, age 6

“Emotional competence requires the capacity to feel our emotions, so that we are aware when we are experiencing stress; the ability to express our emotions effectively and thereby to assert our needs and to maintain the integrity of our emotional boundaries; the facility to distinguish between psychological reactions that are pertinent to the present situation and those that represent residue from the past.” ― Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress