Measuring our mood

Activity type:
Self-awareness – A technique to improve emotional awareness and understanding emotions (the first steps towards emotion regulation)

Learning Goal:
This activity, inspired by the technique of Mood Meter (Brackett M. & Stern R.), aims to help trainees learn to recognize and evaluate emotions, in themselves and others, focusing on their two dimensions: pleasantness and energy. With this as a basis, they can lay a foundation for wisely dealing with their emotions and developing strategies for regulating them.

Specificities:
The activity can be done either individually, or in groups for reflection. The learners can fill in the tables alone or in pairs and then come back in one group to reflect upon their experience over the activity.

Duration:
1 hour

Material needed:
Table of emotions

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Instructions

Part A:

Identify 5 emotions you have had in your day. Name them as accurately as possible. Then try answering the following questions within the given table.

1. How much energy does this emotion have?
2. How pleasant is this emotion?

Table of emotions
Online Word-document (and pdf to print, if needed)

Part B:

After having filling in the table in part A’, the trainees are going to share the emotions they have listed in their tables. The emotions are written down in a common list that can be enriched with additional emotions. Try to make a list with more than 30 emotions. Then the trainees have to group them taking into account the level of energy and pleasantness. Trainees can work individually or preferable in groups for grouping the emotions.

Questions for reflection:

Choose several emotions and discuss in a group:

• Was it easy to group each of the emotions?
• What do our bodies feel like when we have this feeling?
• What do our faces look like when we have this feeling?
• What kind of thoughts do we have when we have this feeling?
• What does it make us feel that emotion? What have happened to make us feeling that way?
• Is this feeling helpful? If yes, what can we do to continue feeling that way or to intensify it? If not, what could we do to feel less of this feeling or to shift the feeling to something different?