← Emotion Regulation
Describing an emotion
Every emotion has a trigger, an interpretation, body changes, urges, and after-effects.
The parts
- Vulnerability factors: what made you more sensitive (sleep, illness, stress).
- Prompting event: what set it off.
- Interpretation: your thoughts about the event.
- Inside: body sensations, heart rate, temperature, urges.
- Outside: face, posture, words, actions.
- The emotion’s name.
- After-effects — including secondary emotions, like shame about feeling sad.
Why
Naming the parts helps you see the pattern and find where a skill can step in. Secondary emotions are often more painful than the first one.