Feelings are a natural and spontaneous reaction to a stimulus. The stimulus could be someone else’s behavior (a gesture or comment), a natural event (a thunderstorm), a memory (something that I experienced), or a “fantasy” (something we think could happen). This stimulus causes a physical sensation in our bodies: for example, our heart starts to beat faster, our muscles get tense, we start to smile or laugh, or we start to feel sick to our stomach. This sensation is a signal that maybe we’re feeling something. The next step is to ask ourselves, “Is that a feeling? And if so, which feeling is it?” If we can answer those questions, then we’ll get some important information about the stimulus that is causing the feeling, and how we can respond to the stimulus. So to summarize: first comes the stimulus, then a sensation in our body, then awareness of the sensation, then identifying the feeling, then identifying the stimulus, then identifying possible responses to the stimulus, and finally, responding to the stimulus.

In this model, there are six basic feelings: anger, sadness, fear, joy, powerfulness, and peacefulness.  The stimulus for each of those feelings and the “natural” and “helpful” way that we “take care” of these feelings is shown in the circles: