I did the emotional vocabulary exercise this weekend. The exercise is this: For five minutes, list every emotion you can think of. Write as fast as you can. Don’t stop to think.
Except, after five minutes were up, I kept going. I went for an hour, and then as I typed my list into the computer I went further. Eventually I stopped, but afterwards, when I was slicing potatoes or brushing my teeth, I’d think, Did I remember excited?
The next step of the exercise was to take one of the emotions from my list and do a 15-minute writing practice on it. I thought about emotions all weekend — lust and envy, distress and kindness — yet I never made it to the writing practice.
I shared my list with Ritergal, and she shared her list with me. When I saw some of the emotions in her document, I was like Homer Simpson when he realizes he’s missed something obvious. Doyt, how could I have forgotten flabbergasted?
I’m not going to publish my list, but I do want to share these things I learned in the process of doing the exercise:
- I often used strings of words to describe emotions — loopy for someone, out to get you, walking on water, all over the map, on pins and needles. I was quick to find a way to say what I wanted, even when I couldn’t pinpoint the one word that captured it exactly. It was empowering to realize I can get where I need to go with the words I have.
- I sometimes wondered whether something was an emotion or not. After I did the exercise, I googled “what is emotion” and found this helpful link.
- Each emotion I wrote triggered another. When I fell into a negative streak, I flew with it. Then I balanced with opposites. It was like flying in zigzags with words.
- Whenever I got stuck, I used the prompt I feel…. That always got me started again.
This exercise made me think of the song “Feelings” by the band Gemini. It came out when I was in 7th grade. Thecla and I were in love with Kenny Martinez, who in turn loved Carmen.
I was nothing but emotion that year. Hating Carmen, who was actually my best friend. Lusting over Kenny in his polyester bell bottoms. Finding solace that I at least had a budding friendship with Thecla, which perhaps was better than Kenny, better even than Carmen. Thecla was loyal in a way neither of them were.
Up until 7th grade, emotions were like arms or bony knees or movements of my body — something you just had. But in 7th grade I suddenly found words to describe what I was feeling. Puppy love. Infatuation. Longing. Insecurity.
Ritergal said: “The golden nugget I have discovered the last few days is that a five-minute writing exercise can turn into a potentially life-changing event. Exploration and review of one small area may ripple out into your whole life or way of thinking.”
I’m right there with her, and I honestly still don’t know why. Somehow I think it has to do with emotions being at the core of writing practice.
Then again, it might have everything to do with that blasted song.
That song. That song. I remember being in a mall with my 2 year old (now 27) and her father—I never call him my ex-husband, I’ve noticed, it’s always Laurel’s father— and we were on the lower level of the mall. I hear this deep lounge lizard voice coming from the upper level and realize that Laurel’s father is actually singing “Feelings” while the salesman at the Hammond organ store is playing that wretched song. At top volume! I decided that he was serenading me from the balcony. (He always had things a little backwards)
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LOL. Maybe he needed to be looking down while singing that song. It has to be one of the hardest songs to hit the right notes on. It’s mostly low-note, yet it has a sort of high-note chorus. Ugh!
BTW, until I looked up the lyrics, I could have sworn Lionel Richie sang it.
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Damn…now a lot of people (our age) reading this today are not going to be able to get *that* tune out of our heads…
Ybonesy, though you didn’t post your whole list of feelings, when I read the page of words pictured at the bottom of your post, my mind leapt to fill in all the words that were missing. Your list proved to be an instant writing prompt. Thanks for sharing the idea and your list.
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Oh, good. It was such a fun exercise. I put off doing it for days, and Ritergal in the mean time was jumping up and down saying, This is great! Then when I took off doing it, I knew why she’d said that.
Apparently, there’s a movement afoot, based on her enthusiasm for the exercise, to get this going all over. I’m going to post an update when I know more, but some folks have really taken to combining a bunch of lists. So if you want to add yours to the mix, breathepeace, send it my way. I’ll get it to the list organizer. We’ll have all our lists.
Of course, a thesaurus is easier, I suppose, but there’s something about tapping your own mine of emotional words and imagery that a thesaurus just can’t fulfill.
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Wow.
I might infer from the list and the depth you took the exercise that your palate of emotions means a lot to you. Apt for an artist. Do you corellate certain emotions with certain colors? slo-walker sorta started that idea with their description of the ‘primary colors’ of the emotions.
It’s always fascinated me to think about those people who don’t have short-term memory, and are always in the moment. I wonder if their emotions are different since they are always approaching the world like it’s new. Maybe their colors would be brighter, more vivid, or I wonder if confusion is the over-riding hue.
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I loved seeing your handwriting, and the effort you put into this exercise. And now that stupid song is stuck in my head, too! You know, sometimes I feel like I never got past that adolescent way of dealing with feelings… so in your face, so urgent all the time. Does it ever get calmer?
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Hi amuirin. BTW, “sloWalker” is an ID QM and I created as a way for all of our writing topics to be located under one ID. In that way, we’re able to point readers to sloWalker to get access to all writing topics. But, it’s actually me or QM who write and post the topics.
Anyhow, on your question about whether I correlate certain emotions with color, the answer is Yes. And beyond the notion that sadness/melancholy is blue, rage is red, cheerfulness is yellow, etc., I think what I correlate most is the idea that colors, like emotions, are more subtle, more precise, more detailed than blue, red, yellow.
Your other thought is interesting, too, about whether people who live in the moment (because of brain injury or what have you) have brighter, more vivid colors. I would think that living in the moment, even for people with all memory functions intact, would be able to in more vivid and alive words be able to write and provide detail than those who lives in their heads.
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I don’t know about you, pmousse, but I can look at my mother and have some faith that life (and emotions) gets calmer over time. She used to be a walking emotional blender. I mean, one minute screaming and slapping, another minute moody. She’d have panic attacks and nerves. The works.
Now she’s so even-keeled. It’s amazing.
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[…] Other posts that might help jog the memory when writing about tough or secretive emotions are Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings and WRITING TOPIC – EMOTIONAL […]
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[…] Other posts that might help jog the memory when writing about tough or secretive emotions are Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings and WRITING TOPIC – EMOTIONAL […]
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[…] Other posts that might help jog the memory when writing about tough or secretive emotions are Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings and WRITING TOPIC – EMOTIONAL […]
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