The Lexicon of Feeling

Start here — noticing and naming what you feel

This dictionary was built to satisfy curiosity, to enrich vocabulary, and as a practical aid for people who find emotions hard to feel, to identify, or to put into words. Here’s the thinking behind it, and a few ways to use it.

Why building a vocabulary helps

There’s a real reason a tool like this can make a difference. Psychologists have a term — emotional granularity — for how finely a person can tell their feelings apart. Researchers have found that people who know and use more distinct emotion words tend to experience their feelings in higher resolution, and are often better able to manage them, because a precise name gives you something specific to respond to. The important part is that this isn’t a fixed trait you’re born with: the vocabulary is learnable. The more emotion words you genuinely understand and use, the more your own experience can come into focus.

There’s a second, related finding. In studies of affect labeling, simply putting a feeling into words — even silently, just to yourself — measurably lowers its intensity. Researchers sometimes sum it up as “name it to tame it.” Naming a feeling gives you a small but real handle on it.

So the practice this app is built around — finding the closest word, and learning what separates it from its neighbors — works with the grain of how emotions and language fit together. It’s a slow skill rather than a quick fix, but it’s a genuine one. You aren’t stuck with the words, or the clarity, you have today.

Ways to use it

1. Start in the body, then point at the map. Often the sensation arrives before the word — a tight chest, heaviness, restlessness, warmth, a hollow feeling, a headache, muscle tension. Open the Emotional Landscape and ask two simple questions: is it pleasant or unpleasant (left ↔ right)? calm or keyed-up (bottom ↔ top)? That drops you into a region of the map. Explore the words that live there.
2. Choose a word instead of producing one. Once you’re close, open a word and read its Connotation & usage and its Related words. Is it frustration (a blocked goal), resentment (a nursed grievance), or exasperation (worn-out patience)? Choosing between options is far easier than naming a feeling from scratch.
3. Compare, don’t dig. Rather than staring inward, ask “is it more like this or that?” “More resentment than anger” is a useful answer.
4. Check in on a schedule, not on a strong feeling. Waiting until something feels big is the trap. Try a set time each day — “what’s the closest word to now?” Even flat, neutral, or can’t tell counts.
5. It’s a suggestion, never a verdict. Landing on the wrong word, or just a general area, is fine and still useful. Precision comes with practice.
6. Pre-load the words. Run the Quiz now and then, so the vocabulary feels familiar. It’s hard to reach for a word you’ve never met.
7. Telling someone else. You don’t need the one perfect word. It’s often easier, and just as clear, to describe a feeling in pieces: roughly which word it’s near, what makes it that one rather than a close neighbor, and what your body is doing. For example — “It’s close to resentment: not hot anger, more like something that’s been quietly building, and my shoulders are tight.” And if your own words won’t come, reading an entry’s description aloud is completely fair; borrowing the app’s wording can be your script and it’s how we learn.

A note on scope

This is a learning tool for emotional vocabulary — not therapy, diagnosis, or a substitute for professional care. It’s designed to be brought into that work. If you have a therapist or counselor, this is something you can use together. If you’d like that kind of support and don’t have it yet, look into seeing a mental-health professional who can help you go further.

Sources & credits. The idea of emotional granularity was developed by psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett and colleagues (from Barrett, 1998 onward; see Kashdan, Barrett & McKnight, 2015). Affect labeling — that putting a feeling into words can lower its intensity — was shown by Matthew Lieberman and colleagues (2007); the popular phrase “name it to tame it” is Daniel Siegel’s (The Whole-Brain Child, 2011). This app also draws on the “levels of emotional awareness” model (Lane & Schwartz, 1987) and the concept of alexithymia, named by Peter Sifneos (1973).