All rights reserved. It is against the law to reproduce or transmit any part of Mixed Emotions by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or storing in an information retrieval system) without the written permission of Heron Lake Press. However, reviewers may quote brief passages in reviews that they write for publication.

Mixed Emotions © 2001 Petra Martin
Illustrations © 2001 Kris Wiltse

“Our feelings are not there to be cast out or conquered. They’re there to be engaged and expressed with imagination and intelligence.”

T.K. Coleman, Freedom Without Permission

Have you ever been on a road trip in the middle of nowhere, turned on the radio, and wondered if a signal could even reach that far? You turn the dial, get nothing but static, then suddenly hear a clear voice from a station up ahead. It makes you feel less alone, provides companionship on your journey, and teaches you about your destination.

A jumble of different emotions can feel like static, too, and learning to identify them can feel like dialing in a clear channel that provides information and guides you on your way. The purpose of the Mixed Emotions card deck is to open that channel.

Emotions are allies that help us survive by moving us to action. Love, for example, inspires us to care for our children. Fear inspires us to fight, flee, or freeze in the face of danger. Anger inspires us to set boundaries, protect what’s ours, and even change the world for the better.

Emotions also provide information. They remind us what’s important and inspire us to take actions that are aligned with who we are. As T.K. Coleman says, they aren’t something to be cast out or conquered. Befriending them enables us to live more fully—in a way that empowers us to be true to ourselves.

In this book, you’ll find all the instructions that came with the first edition of the Mixed Emotions card deck as well as new uses that people have come up with since the first edition was published. You’ll also find information about research that sheds light on the importance of putting feelings into words.

If you discover a way to use the cards that isn’t described here, and you’re willing to share it with others, please submit it via the Contact page on the Mixed Emotions website and be sure to check that site for new ideas from time to time.

Emotions don’t take place in a thought bubble over our heads, nor are they confined to our heads. They’re electrochemical messengers that travel throughout our entire bodies. Want proof? Watch kids. Have you ever noticed how emotions are a full-body experience for them? They don’t know how to put their feelings into words, but they sure know how to express them!

Unfortunately, the way kids express emotions is often inconvenient for the adults in their lives. When grown-ups confront full-body emotional expressions in children, most try to put the display to an end as quickly as possible. In the process, we miss a coaching opportunity.

In her book, Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski compares emotion coaching with emotion dismissing. The first supports people in self-regulating and managing their stress responses. The second entails denying, repressing, and punishing emotions.

“Emotion coaching teaches you that feelings are tunnels, and you can allow yourself to go through the darkness to get to the light,” says Nagoski. “Emotion dismissing, on the other hand, teaches you that feelings aren’t a tunnel, they’re a cave… with a river of cyanide… and a thousand rats… in the dark. Where you’ll be trapped forever. So whatever you do, KEEP OUT.” (Ellipses and capitalization are Nagoski’s.)

What if we had the courage to enter the tunnel, feel, name, and share our emotions, and get to the light? What if even unpleasant emotions were welcome in our “guest house,” as Rumi wrote in the following poem (Rumi, 1997).

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

What if we considered each of our emotional “visitors” a guide—a bearer of information about ourselves and others? And what if, knowing that every emotion passes, we could welcome each one, engage it in conversation, receive the message it bears, and then send it on its way?

In an article for O Magazine titled “Guide to Avoiding Avoidance,” author Martha Beck says, “What happens when we’re willing to feel bad is that, sure enough, we often feel bad—but without the stress of futile avoidance. Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests, and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes parts of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naiveté, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive, and expansive. It’s different from unwilling suffering the way the sting of disinfectant is different from the sting of decay; the pain leaves you healthier than it found you.”

As we encounter choices in life, we often look outside ourselves for guidance. We talk to friends, family, therapists, clergy, and psychics; we read everything from self-help books and scriptures to horoscopes; and we consult oracles such as tarot cards, the I Ching, Magic 8 Balls, and even coin tosses. 

Invariably, though, the guidance we seek lies within us. Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” 

Knowing how you feel helps you become aware of what’s in your unconscious. Your emotions bear messages that provide information about which direction to take. Generally speaking, when you feel emotions that you find pleasant—such as happiness, excitement, or peace—you’re heading in the right direction. And when you’re feeling emotions you find unpleasant—such as inadequacy, frustration, or confusion—it’s time to change course.

That’s not always the case, though. There are different kinds of stress, the first of which is positive. Eustress is short-term, motivates you, feels exciting, and can improve your performance. For example, you might feel fear because you’re trying something new, such as running a marathon, giving a speech, or asking someone out on a date. In cases such as this, fear doesn’t mean you should avoid an activity or person. It means you acknowledge the fear but proceed anyway. 

In contrast, distress is negative. It makes you feel like whatever you’re facing exceeds your ability to cope with it. Distress decreases your performance, causes anxiety or concern, and can manifest itself in physical and psychological problems. 

When you’re feeling an emotion you’d prefer not to feel, identify it using your cards, then discern whether it’s the eustress of confronting your growth edge or distress that’s saying, “Not this way!”

Emotions are a full-body experience. Since Descartes described the separation of mind and body, the two have been pitted against each other, with greater value being placed on the mind. But we need both: our minds help bring what our bodies feel to consciousness. 

The very fact that emotions arise involuntarily, bypassing your conscious control, is what makes them trustworthy. They provide information you may not have been aware of. For example, you may congratulate a coworker on her promotion, but feelings of envy and resentment make you realize that you want what she got. This knowledge can inspire you to make changes that increase the likelihood of getting a promotion yourself. 

In this example, the “sour grapes” feelings that arose spontaneously provide information that can help you identify and pursue what you want in life.

If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you probably found that words for concrete objects or experiences come easily. For example, if 50 people from different countries gathered around a cat and were asked to name the animal in their language, they could. But if the same 50 people gathered around a crying child and were asked to name the child’s emotion, the results would be far different. Abstract words such as disappointment, frustration, or discouragement are much harder to learn and name in any language. 

Emotions, in particular, can be difficult to discern within ourselves and nearly impossible to discern in others. Even as adults, we may not have a functional emotional vocabulary because we never acquired the abstract language to describe how we feel. But developing and using that vocabulary is critical. Since the publication of Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence, we’ve learned more about the degree to which emotional intelligence (EQ) and emotional literacy impact us in life and work. Goleman says, “As much as 80 percent of adult ‘success’ comes from EQ.”

When you observe an action in someone else, something called a mirror neuron fires in your brain. In other words, your brain fires exactly the same way the brain of the person you’re observing fires. 

If a parent smiles at a baby, for example, the baby mirrors that expression. Conversely, a crying child creates a sense of agitation in the parent, and soothing the child makes the parent’s agitation go away. 

Parents address their own discomfort by addressing the discomfort of their children. Sometimes parents do it artfully and with compassion. Other times they do it with irritation and impatience. Either way, helping children name the emotions that are involved rarely comes into play. 

When adults can’t handle the emotions that children evoke in them, they sometimes shut down the child’s feelings to prevent the mirror feeling within themselves. In The Voice of the Body, physician and psychotherapist Alexander Lowen described this situation perfectly:

“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.” 

It wasn’t until the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the 1990s that we could observe the brain at work in real-time. And it wasn’t until 2013 that a study was published (Karim S. Kassam, 2013) in which researchers were able to identify emotions based on the areas of the brain that were activated when people felt them. Until then, the only way to know how a person was feeling was to ask. And we know, based on our own difficulty in naming our emotions, how challenging it can be to answer the question “How do you feel?” 

Many of us worry that, if we allow ourselves to feel an emotion, we might get “stuck” in it, so we resist it or distract ourselves instead. But studies show that the simple act of putting emotions into words (also called affect labeling) makes us feel better. It down-regulates the amygdala, the brain’s “smoke detector,” which is always on the alert for danger. (Matthew D. Lieberman, 2007)

Reducing fear

In one study (K. Kircanski, 2012), which was conducted at the University of California Los Angeles, psychologists asked 88 people who were afraid of spiders to approach a live tarantula that was in an open container outdoors. The subjects were told to walk as close to the spider as they could and to touch it if possible.

Subjects were later exposed to a spider a second time. Those who were asked to describe the emotions they were experiencing and to label their reactions were able to get: 

• much closer to the tarantula than those who said something irrelevant

• somewhat closer than those who diminished the threat and used terms that didn’t convey fear or disgust

• somewhat closer than those who said nothing at all

Michelle Craske, a professor of psychology at UCLA and the senior author of the study says, “The implication is to encourage patients, as they do their exposure to whatever they are fearful of, to label the emotional responses they are experiencing and label the characteristics of the stimuli— to verbalize their feelings. That lets people experience the very things they are afraid of and say, ‘I feel scared and I’m here.’ They’re not trying to push it away and say it’s not so bad. Be in the moment and allow yourself to experience whatever you’re experiencing.”

Reducing public speaking anxiety

Another study (Niles, 2015) conducted at UCLA showed that labeling emotions helped people who experienced anxiety about public speaking. 

Participants were asked to give a speech in front of an audience while their heart rate and perspiration levels were measured. Then they were assigned to two groups. 

One group practiced speeches, which research has shown reduces anxiety. The other group also practiced, but before each speech, participants identified the emotions they were feeling as well as what they feared might go wrong. After each group completed 20 practice speeches, participants were tested again, and those who identified their emotions and fears before each speech experienced less anxiety.

Reducing test anxiety

In a study (Ramirez G, 2011) published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers revealed that students significantly raised their test scores by writing about their worries immediately before taking high-stakes exams. In fact, those students who tended to be the most anxious before exams benefited most.

The high price of emotional repression

Champagne bottles are made to exacting standards because the products they hold are under pressure. The goal, of course, is for the champagne to flow out of the mouth of the bottle after the cork has been removed. When that happens, both the bottle and its contents remain intact, and the champagne can be enjoyed. But in a defective bottle, the pressure can come out sideways and cause an explosion. 

Emotions are similar. When they’re constructively expressed, stress and pressure are released, which promotes health. When they’re repressed, the pressure builds until it affects the weakest, most susceptible parts of our physiology.

Emotional repression causes stress, which is a measurable set of physiological events. Stress affects multiple organs in the body and causes disease. 

“Repression—dissociating emotions from awareness and relegating them to the unconscious realm—disorganizes and confuses our physiological defenses so that in some people these defenses go awry, becoming the destroyers of health rather than its protectors,” says Gabor Maté, MD in When the Body Says No. 

One scientific study found that breast cancer patients suppressed anger and other feelings in higher proportion than controls. (An inability to regulate extreme emotions also resulted in a higher incidence of cancer.)

The study’s abstract says, “Our principal finding was a significant association between the diagnosis of breast cancer and a behavior pattern, persisting throughout adult life, of abnormal release of emotions. This abnormality was, in most cases, extreme suppression of anger and, in patients over 40, extreme suppression of other feelings. Extreme expression of emotions, though much less common, also occurred in a higher proportion of cancer patients than controls.” (S. Greer, 1974)

In a second study, the risk of lung cancer in men who were unable to express emotions effectively was five times higher. (David M. Kissen, 1962)

Alexithymia

Alexithymia is a condition whose symptoms include the inability to identify and describe emotions. It occurs in approximately 10 percent of the population (Taylor GJ, 1999), including some people who have autism spectrum disorders, PTSD, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, depression, panic disorder, social phobias, substance abuse issues, traumatic brain injuries, and other conditions. It’s also linked to physical illnesses, including hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease, migraine headaches, lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia, among others.

People who have difficulty identifying and describing emotions (whether or not that’s diagnosed as alexithymia) can benefit from the Mixed Emotions card deck. Doug Maughan, clinical director of Daniels Academy, a boarding school for boys with neurological differences such as autism, says, “Mixed Emotion cards are the most effective tool we use at Daniels Academy to assist our young men in learning to recognize emotional content and to understand their emotional experiences.” 

People with conditions such as PTSD can also benefit from the Mixed Emotions card deck. Former firefighter and emergency medical technician Leckey Harrison says, “The cards helped me distinguish my emotions and once I was capable of doing that, I felt less overwhelmed. I could see all the individual emotions I was having at the same time. When I began to understand what I was feeling, I began to understand why I was feeling it. That helped diminish the dread of overwhelm—of opening the Pandora’s box containing all my emotions. I started seeing the connections between things. My emotions weren’t a monster under the bed—they were coming from inside me, and they were finite. I could feel them, process them, and be done with them.” 

In one way or another—at one time or another—we’ve all fallen into alexithymia, and there may be good evolutionary reasons for that. But there are equally good reasons to work at regaining the ability to put feelings into words.

“Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.” 

Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight 

Now that you have a Mixed Emotions deck of your own, what can you do with it? 

You can sort cards, stack them, prioritize them, line them up, put them in groups, or draw one at random. As you do, you’ll become more aware of how you feel and begin to see how you can change the situations in which you find yourself.

To use the Mixed Emotions card deck successfully, you’ll have to do some work. The cards can take you to the point of awareness, but only you can decide how to apply the insights you gain. 

You’ll need to create an environment in which it’s safe for yourself and others to be open, honest, and vulnerable, and it will benefit you most if you’re curious about emotions—without judging them as good or bad.

In addition to this book, Mixed Emotions is made up of:

• 60 emotion cards

• 12 instructional cards

• Five blank cards

Emotion cards

The words on your cards are designed to help you complete the sentence “I feel _____” in the most powerful way possible. To help you discern nuances of feeling, each emotion card has a primary emotion at the top and three additional words that are similar, but not identical, at the bottom. For example, the Free card has the word Free at the top and Liberated, Independent, and Unburdened at the bottom. This gives you a broader range of words to choose from. Select the one that best describes the emotion you’re feeling.

Instructional cards

There are 12 instructional cards in the deck that include information about how to use them:

• The Yes and No cards can help you make a yes-or-no decision.

• The Option cards can help you choose from among several options.

• The How I Feel and How We Feel cards can help you resolve conflicts.

• The How I Feel Now and How I Want to Feel cards can help you confront people who hurt you.

• The second set of How I Feel Now and How I Want to Feel cards can help you solve problems.

Blank cards

The deck encompasses 240 words that describe emotions, but if you can’t find the one you’re looking for, you can use the blank cards to make your own. Note that each word on a Mixed Emotions card is a feeling that you can completely own. You won’t find cards such as “abused” or “judged” in the deck because they’re words that accuse or blame others, not emotions you feel yourself. Besides, words like that wouldn’t be received well if you used them to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers. 

If you find yourself wanting to create a new card, first ask yourself “When I feel [word that isn’t in the deck], how else do I feel?” For example, “When I feel abused, how else do I feel?” You might find that cards such as Trapped, Vulnerable, Afraid, and Powerless (all of which are already in the deck) more accurately describe your emotions.

On the other hand, language can sometimes be insufficient, and you might want to invent entirely new emotions such as the ones Jeffrey Eugenides writes about in his book Middlesex:

“Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in ‘sadness,’ ‘joy,’ or ‘regret.’ Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, ‘the happiness that attends disaster.’ Or: ‘the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.’ I’d like to show how ‘intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members’ connects with ‘the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.’ I’d like to have a word for ‘the sadness inspired by failing restaurants’ as well as for ‘the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.’ I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.”

Mixed Emotions cards serve one fundamental purpose, which is to help you know yourself. Through self-knowledge, you can access your inner guidance.

If you’re having a hard time understanding how an issue affects you, simply go through the deck and lay out cards that correspond to the emotions you feel. 

Another option for sorting out your feelings is to create three piles of cards— one for how you do feel, one for how you don’t feel, and one for feelings you’re not sure about.

After you’ve chosen cards, ask yourself, “Whose emotions are these? Are they mine? 

My parent’s? My partner’s? My employer’s? Society’s?” Make sure you work only with emotions that are your own.

Mixed Emotions can help you with two types of decisions—those you can boil down to a yes-or-no question and those that require you to choose from among several options. For example, “Should I accept that job offer?” is a yes-or-no decision while “I’ve been accepted by two colleges. Which should I attend?” is one that requires you to choose between two options.

Determine which kind of decision you’re trying to make, and then refer to the corresponding section that follows.

Making a yes-or-no decision

Phrase your decision as a yes-or-no question, and then lay out the Yes card. Under it, lay out cards that identify how you feel when imagining yourself answering the question with a “yes.”

Then lay out the No card and cards that identify how you feel when imagining yourself answering with a “no.”

This might lead you to an observation such as: “When I imagine myself accepting the offer, I feel curious, relieved, and fulfilled. When I imagine myself declining it, I feel safe, but I also feel exhausted and frustrated.” 

Comparing your Yes and No emotions can shed light on your choices and help you make the decision that’s right for you.

Choosing from among several options

If you’re faced with several options, use the Option cards to represent your choices (for 

example, if you were choosing between two colleges, the Option 1 card could represent one college and the Option 2 card could represent the other).

Then lay out how you feel when imagining yourself saying “yes” to each option. This might lead you to an observation such as “When I say yes to the college closer to home, I feel safe, but I also feel bored and afraid. When I say yes to the college that’s farther away, I feel sad, but I also feel creative and hopeful.”

Comparing your Yes emotions can help you decide between the two options.

Start by describing a problem you’re facing. Lay out the How I feel now card and then, under it, lay out cards that describe how the problem makes you feel. For example, if you are unsatisfied in your relationship with your partner, you might observe something like: “Right now, I feel exhausted, disappointed, resentful, and trapped.”

Lay out the How I want to feel card and, under it, lay out cards that describe how you’d rather feel. This could lead to an observation such as: “I want to feel happy, fulfilled, and encouraged.”

Now, list all the ways you can think of to reach your goal feelings. The following are examples:

• My partner and I could get counseling and try to rebuild our relationship.

• We could try a trial separation.

• We could attend a couples retreat devoted to resolving our differences.

• We could break up and seek partners with whom we might be happier.

Now, using the Option cards, identify how each option in your list makes you feel (as described in the “Choosing from among several options” section earlier in this book). For example, you might find that the idea of getting counseling and trying to rebuild your relationship makes you feel hopeful, encouraged, and relieved or the idea of a trial separation makes you feel sad, afraid, and disappointed. Your emotional responses to these options can help you decide which course of action to take.

If emotions are like a compass that can guide you through life, then your purpose is your personal north. It helps you orient yourself whenever you encounter crossroads. 

Finding your purpose is called many things. Mythologist Joseph Campbell called it 

“finding your bliss.” Author and speaker Simon Sinek calls it “finding your why.” 

Researcher and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about activities that put you in a state of “flow.” 

Unfortunately, there are no formal means by which anyone helps us determine what our purpose is, so defining yours is an inside job. If you haven’t identified what your purpose is yet, think of things that:

• Inspire you

• Make you come alive

• Fully engage you

• Build on your strengths

• Align with your values

You can use your Mixed Emotions cards to help figure out what your purpose is. Start by separating your deck into two piles: a pile of emotions that are important for you to feel regularly and a second pile representing emotions that you don’t enjoy feeling or that aren’t important for you to feel often. You’ll work only with the first pile.

Draw a card from that pile. If, for example, you select Creative, ask yourself, “What makes me feel creative?” Write down everything that comes to mind. Continue this process and work through every card. 

Based on the answers you wrote, what pursuit would enable you to feel the emotions you chose on a regular basis? Chances are good that you’ve engaged in (or are already engaging in) an activity that makes you feel these emotions, but you’ve convinced yourself that pursuing it isn’t practical, responsible, or lucrative. Or you haven’t recognized the common thread that has made diverse activities feel rewarding. For example, you may have found very different experiences fulfilling because they all involved working with people.

If you can’t think of anything in the past that enabled you to feel your goal emotions, can you imagine what might make you feel that way in the future? 

No one tells us how much courage it takes to be happy. If you have any reservations about pursuing your purpose, use your cards to identify and address the feelings that arise.

Sometimes we’re overwhelmed by an emotion that seems completely out of proportion to the event that caused it. The emotion is all-consuming, like a tsunami, and its intensity hints that there’s more going on beneath the surface.

To explore an emotional trigger, choose the card that represents your all-consuming emotion, such as Angry. Then ask yourself, “When I feel angry, how else do I feel?”

Lay out all the cards that answer that question. 

For example, say you got stuck in traffic unexpectedly, which caused you to feel enraged. Afterward, you might explore the experience by choosing the Angry card, and then ask yourself “When I feel angry about being stuck in traffic, how else do I feel?” You might feel powerless, trapped, embarrassed, panicky, frustrated, or even guilty. But why? Try to figure out what causes each feeling.

All-consuming emotion

Emotions masked by the all-consuming emotion

In this example, the overwhelming emotion of anger masks emotions that provide more information. 

If you don’t explore what’s going on beneath the surface, and simply go about your workday repressing your rage, you’re likely to take it out on the people you love most when you get home. It’s worth taking time to get to the bottom of triggers and to address what lies beneath the surface.

Artists of every kind occasionally encounter a creative block that prevents them from engaging in their work. If you’re having a hard time coming up with ideas, draw a card at random from the deck. Then create something that evokes that emotion in yourself or others. 

Note that depicting an emotion and evoking one are completely different things. Make it your goal to create something so powerful that it can cause yourself or others to feel an emotion. For example, have you ever been so lost in a story that you laughed out loud in a public place while reading a book? Burst into tears while watching a movie in a theater? Felt compassion when looking at a photo in a newspaper? Make it your goal to create something that powerful.

Another option is to pour the emotions you’re feeling into your work. For example, create a collage that expresses your rage, compose a song that expresses your loneliness, or write a journal entry that expresses your fear.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding 
of ourselves.” 

Carl Jung

Conflicts make more sense when you understand the emotions that motivate people’s behavior. It’s easy to be offended by people’s actions and judge them to be jerks. It’s much harder to be curious about what caused their offensive behavior and to remember times when you felt the same way.

Start by identifying the conflict. Then lay out the two How I Feel cards.

Under the first How I Feel card, arrange emotion cards that describe how you feel. Then encourage the person you’re in conflict with to do the same under the second How I Feel card. If the person wants to use a card that you’ve already used, encourage him or her to put it under the How We Feel card.

Emotions under the How We Feel card are something the two of you have in common. Start by talking about the feelings you share (“I feel afraid, too. What scares you in this situation?”). Then talk about what causes the other emotions you feel.

For example, say your partner was short-tempered with your kids. You don’t want the children to witness a confrontation, but you don’t want them to be treated that way, either. 

By using your cards when the two of you are alone, you might learn that you feel frustrated, trapped, and angry. Your partner might feel stressed, exhausted, and disappointed. And you might both feel afraid, sad, and worried. 

Knowing how your partner feels can help you understand what motivated the short-tempered behavior. It might give you compassion and make you curious about what happened to cause those feelings.

That insight alone might be enough for you to reach an understanding. If it isn’t, suggest all the resolutions to the conflict that the two of you can think of (it might help to write these down). Then, using the Option cards in combination with the How I Feel and How We Feel cards, identify how each solution makes you feel. 

Consider each possible resolution to the conflict and, when you’re done, choose the one that works best for both of you.

Albert Einstein once said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity,” and so it is with conflicts. Most of us prefer to avoid them, but the shared experience of weathering a storm together can bring us closer to the person we were once in conflict with.

Because people don’t usually set out to hurt us deliberately, we do them a kindness by telling them when they do. They’re usually surprised and sorry, as you probably are when you discover that you’ve unintentionally hurt someone else. Telling people when they’ve injured you can clear the air and prevent you from making up stories about why they did it. 

Start by assuming that the person who hurt you didn’t mean to. Identify what caused the pain, and then lay out the How I feel now card. Under it, lay out cards that describe how the person’s words or actions make you feel.

Then lay out the How I want to feel card and, under it, the cards that describe how you’d rather feel.

What are some ways the pain you experienced can be prevented in the future? How can you achieve your goal emotions? Come up with a few ideas that would work for you, then go to the person who injured you and say something like this: “When you did/said ______, I felt [list your How-I-feel now emotions].” 

Discuss your feelings and bear the following in mind as you do:

• Avoid making judgment statements.

• Give the person a chance to respond.

• Listen carefully without interrupting.

• Paraphrase what you heard the person say to make sure you understand.

Then say something like this: “I’d rather feel [list your How-I-want-to-feel emotions]. How can we work together to make that more likely?” As a team, come up with a plan that enables you to reach your goal feelings. 

In some cases, this exercise helps you realize that you need to leave a situation, which is what happened to Mixed Emotions user Charlotte Trainor who says, “Using the 

Mixed Emotions cards helped me frame the many feelings I was experiencing while holding a job I found to be less than fulfilling. I was able to use the cards not only to organize my thoughts and emotions for myself, but actually use them with my manager when I notified him that I was resigning to ‘follow my bliss.’ Being able to lay out the cards as an instrument to assist me in delivering my message made our meeting somehow less tense and easier to complete.”

Mixed Emotions can help you get to know someone in a deeper, more meaningful way by encouraging you to talk about what evokes specific feelings.

Start by drawing a card from the deck at random. Then use that card as a springboard for discussion.

The following sentences might give you some ideas:

• The last time I felt ____________________ was ________________________________.

• I felt ___________________________ most intensely when _______________________.

• I try to avoid feeling __________________ by __________________________________.

• I try to enhance feelings of ____________ by __________________________________.

• When I feel ____________________, I feel better when I ________________________.

After you’re done with the first card, draw another one and keep the conversation going.

In the United States, people often greet each other with “How are you?” The customary answer is “Fine,” even when we don’t feel that way. 

If you truly want to know how people are, you can avoid the “fine” by asking them to choose cards that represent the emotions they are feeling. Then, ask questions about the experiences that evoked those feelings.

Imagine coming home, taking a glance at the refrigerator or corkboard, and knowing the general emotional state of each member of your family. Imagine discovering that your spouse is stressed, your daughter is excited, and your son is discouraged. You’d know right away what to talk about at dinner, wouldn’t you? 

For example, you might: 

• Learn what’s causing your spouse’s stress and determine whether there’s anything family members can do to help.

• Find out what your daughter is excited about and celebrate her achievement.

• Discover what has discouraged your son and explore what might encourage him.

To create an emotional home base for your family, all you need is a refrigerator or corkboard, a deck of Mixed Emotions cards, some magnets or pushpins, and an arrangement such as this:

Lay the Mixed Emotions deck beside the fridge or corkboard. Then encourage family members to pick the card that represents their strongest emotion when they come home each day and ask them to put it under their names.

Another option is to leave the deck on the dining room table and choose a card before dinner. It may lead to deeper conversations than questions such as “How was school today?” can.

In this section of the book, you’ll learn new card uses that have come from social workers, school counselors, speakers, teachers, bereavement counselors, and others who have used the cards in their work or personal lives. These people gave their permission to share the following ideas with you. 

If you come up with a new use for your cards and are willing to share it with others, please send email via the Contact page on the mixed-emotions.com website.

Providing a starting point for journaling

Officially, Charlene Ray was a social worker at an alternative high school in Langley, Washington, but she preferred the title “inner beauty specialist” given to her by students. She asked them to choose a card at random and then encouraged them to use it as a springboard for journal-writing.

Teaching writers to show, not tell

Author Deb Lund taught writing classes and, like all teachers of writing, often reminded her students to “show” rather than “tell.” To help her students learn this, she asked them to draw random cards from the Mixed Emotions deck and then act out the emotions they chose. This forced them to show—rather than tell—how an emotion felt.

Deb also encouraged writers who were stuck to draw a random card and then wonder, “Which of the characters in my story could be feeling this emotion right now?”

Rex Allen encouraged people in grief groups to pick a Mixed Emotions image that spoke to them, cover the words, and then walk around the group showing the image to others. “I ask the members of the group who are encountering the card to look at it as if they were in an art gallery,” said Rex, then grief support services supervisor at Providence Hospice in Seattle. He asked them how they responded to the image, where their response sat in their bodies, and how it spoke to their hearts. Then he asked the people who originally chose the card what drew them to it and how the image impacted them. “Only then do I have them identify the words on the card and whether or not the words are ‘in sync’ with their own response,” said Rex. “Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.”

In her grief groups, Kathleen Albin encouraged members to choose a card and then talk about how it represented what they were feeling. “It’s been pretty amazing,” said, Kathleen, then grief support services supervisor at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds, Washington. “And people don’t always pick the ‘sad’ cards.”

Jacqueline Farrell, then a bereavement counselor in Tacoma, Washington, used Mixed Emotions in grief support groups by laying cards face down and having people choose a card at random. She asked them to describe how they related to the emotion depicted on the card. “It seems there is no accident in the card they draw,” she said. “And it opens up deeper discussion.”

When Chaplain Ray Kellerher visited a stroke patient who could no longer speak, he recognized her great frustration in not being able to express her thoughts. He found that she was able to indicate “yes” and “no” and to pick a Mixed Emotions card. Based on the cards she chose, he posed questions to her, and she was able to “tell” him how she was feeling. “It was a profound experience and brought Mary comfort and calm,” said Chaplain Ray. “We were really able to converse.”

Improving listening skills

As a crisis trainer, Rhonda McCloud used Mixed Emotions to help crisis counselors connect with their own feelings. It improved their active listening skills and helped them identify emotions when they worked with callers in crisis. 

Helping coaches ask open-ended questions

As “mistress of fun” for East Bay Coaches, Sara Orem, co-author of Appreciative Coaching, put a card on each chair before a meeting, so attendees would have one when they arrived. Sara asked each attendee to look at the card and, using a scenario with an imaginary coachee, to ask a question about the emotion displayed on the card. 

“Five volunteers stood to offer open-ended questions designed to elicit more information about that emotion,” said Sarah. “Two of the five said that they used the descriptors at the bottom of the card to formulate their questions. What a great tool for coaches!”

Getting beyond the blank page in art therapy

“Mixed Emotions has been surprisingly useful as a catalyst for art therapy,” said Brian Penrose, then a psychotherapist intern in two Bay-area school districts. “Often, children have difficulty creating art with no starting stimulus. The vacuum of a starting point is sometimes overwhelming or anxiety-provoking.”

Brian invited children to go through the deck and select cards they were attracted to. “We discuss these specific cards and unpack some of the content, energy, and hopes that surround each one,” he said. “Usually, themes, patterns, and a narrative gently emerge, and I offer them some paper and art materials to artistically depict what their inner experience is at the present moment. The visual representations on the cards seem to quickly stir their artistic creativities and unconscious, while the affective themes always lead to subject matter that is poignant and compelling.”

Learning how emotions evolve

Brian also used Mixed Emotions to demonstrate how one feeling can lead to another. “I use the cards to help children understand how feelings can slowly change and evolve over time,” he said. “Spacing out the cards—with a beginning and end— allows children to see the emotional journey that parallels a difficult experience or trauma.”

Helping children develop emotional literacy

Katki Malloy, then a school counselor in California’s Bay Area, found that the illustrations on each card told a story that drew children in. The children related the story to their own lives and then learned to attach words to the feelings depicted on the cards. “Instead of saying ‘I had a good weekend’ or ‘My weekend sucked,’ the kids have a way to come up with a new vocabulary,” said Katki. “They discover that feelings are okay to have and that it’s okay to have lots of feelings at once.”

Helping disabled students keep their personal and work lives separate

As a school-to-career counselor at Goodwill’s Institute for Career Development in San Jose, California, Lisa Bartsch worked with mentally and physically disabled students. “One of the difficulties our students face is properly handling their emotions in the workplace,” said Lisa. 

“They have a hard time keeping their personal and work life separate. To properly handle their emotions, they need to be able to identify and contain their feelings, and that is where the cards are helpful.”

Because the students that Lisa worked with had limited verbal skills, she relied heavily on the card illustrations. “The artwork on the cards makes it easier for them to name how they are feeling by looking at the picture. We talk a lot with students about their futures, and what they want, and we have had them choose cards like ‘Confident’ and ‘Peaceful’ as goals—ways they want to feel about and approach their future.”

Lisa continued, “When students get ‘locked up’ verbally because they feel overwhelmed, choosing cards for how they feel helps them to communicate, especially when they have a conflict with their work situation or co-workers.”

Zeroing in on feelings

For some, 60 cards can be way too many to choose from (most people are surprised that there are that many emotions in the first place). Kelly Wisnefske was equine services manager and lead job trainer at Rawhide Inc., which serves at-risk teen boys in New London, Wisconsin. Based on what she knew of a boy’s case, and by employing her own empathic skills, she sometimes picked out specific cards and narrowed the selection before a session. “Then, during the session, if the boy has a hard time describing or identifying his feelings, I have him point to or pick the card that seems to fit,” said Kelly.

Playing emotional charades

When Rhonda McCloud (see “Improving listening skills” earlier in this book) worked with children and their parents, she laid cards face down on the table and asked one family member to pick a card without letting anyone else see it. Then that person described the picture or told of an experience that caused him or her to feel that emotion. The other family members had to guess what the feeling was, and when someone succeeded, that person got a turn to pick a card. 

For example, if a child drew the Disappointed card, she might describe the illustration, which is a child reaching for the string of a helium balloon that is floating away. Or she might say, “This card describes how I felt when…” Rhonda said, “The families don’t want the game to end and have so much fun learning.”

Ethan Berkley, a young actor, used Mixed Emotions cards with friends to help improve their improvisational skills. He had actors pair up and gave one member of each pair a number of cards. The card holder showed his or her partner a card, and then the partner improvised, based on the emotion displayed on that card.

Tonglen, as described by Buddhist nun and author Pema Chödrön, is meditation that you do on behalf of someone else. It entails “breathing in” the pain of others and “breathing out” whatever would bring them relief. Use the Mixed Emotions cards to identify both what to breathe in and what to breathe out. For example, in using Tonglen for a seriously ill child, you might “breathe in” the child’s fear and pain and “breathe out” love, comfort, and peace. 

A child’s illness can bring up feelings such as powerlessness and vulnerability in the people who love the child. In this case, family members and friends can shift the focus of Tonglen meditation, breathing in love, comfort, and peace for themselves and breathing out the powerlessness and vulnerability they feel.

In her book Real Love, Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg writes about using a process called RAIN to address suffering caused by emotions. RAIN is an acronym that stands for: 

• Recognizing the fact that you’re experiencing an emotion

• Acknowledging and giving yourself permission to feel it

• Investigating the emotion with curiosity and openness

• Not identifying with the emotion, so it doesn’t define you

Salzberg says, “By allowing ourselves this simple recognition, we begin to accept that we will never be able to control our experiences, but that we can transform our relationship to them. This changes everything.”

Author and motivational speaker Joe Tye handed each of his audience members a Mixed Emotions card at the beginning of his presentations. He described a hypothetical situation and then asked people to stand if they had a card that represented how they’d feel in that situation. Audiences were often surprised to find how many emotions—and how many conflicting emotions—they could feel at the same time. “The Mixed Emotions cards provide me with a range of options for pulling my audience into the topic,” said Joe.

Psychotherapist Signe Darpinian, author of Knock Out Dieting, asked her clients to use Mixed Emotions cards to identify how they felt before they ate. Then she asked them to use their smartphones to take a photo of the cards they selected and send it to her. This gave Signe and her clients real-time information that they could talk about at their next appointment.

You can embrace, welcome, and “call in” feelings by placing the cards that represent them on your altar if you have one. 

You can also symbolically let feelings go by releasing them in different ways. 

After two years of intense grief, Patrick Davis used Mixed Emotions cards to create a rite of passage. Within a three-month period, both of his parents died, and an 18-year relationship with his beloved ended. 

“I lit a candle and set each card down, one at a time, to contemplate and celebrate this transformational season of life,” Patrick said. One by one, he took time to feel each emotion fully. 

“This rite of passage has been a capstone to much grief work, and I can truly say I acknowledge each feeling,” he said. “Thank you for providing a simple tool to demonstrate this rite of passage. After 20 years as a spiritual and grief guide to others, I feel affirmed on my own journey by the simplicity of holding, and then laying down, each card one at a time.”

When people first see the Mixed Emotions card deck, they often think they’re tarot cards. The deck wasn’t created for divination, but it was designed to be versatile and open-ended.

Along with her son, Ann Murkett created a website called mydivination.com that includes 134 card decks, including Mixed Emotions. Ann said, “ Mixed Emotions touched my soul in 2003 or 2004, and I found I could use it with any tarot spread to get to the heart of the question asked— the cards are always on my desk. When I relaunched my site in April 2009, it was a natural candidate to sit beside the many tarot decks on the site. Tarot is there to give people pointers in their quest for answers— but Mixed Emotions can add their inner feelings, which may help in their search for understanding. Mixed Emotions will always be the one to help in any situation.”

Daniel Au Valencia, then Los Angeles chapter leader for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, used their* cards intuitively and organically.

Sometimes Daniel:

• Created branching paths centered around a dominant emotion

• Arranged cards in a circle to represent a swirl of emotions in which no single one is more dominant than the others

• Placed cards in an “A, therefore B, therefore C” sequence

• Arranged cards according to how Daniel felt in the past, feels in the present, or hoped to feel in the future

• Laid cards on top of each other to symbolize that some emotions are “buried”

• Created a rigid grid pattern of cards, representing groundedness

• Scattered the cards haphazardly, representing chaos

After arranging the cards in one of these ways, Daniel reflected on the reason for choosing each card, its relative position, and any relationships between cards. For example, Daniel found that the Unsure card was often paired with either the Receptive or Resistant card.

When Daniel finished, they took a photo and put the cards away. Sometimes, they sent the resulting photo to their therapist as a place to start during their next appointment.

“Irritations of the subconscious often dissipate after simply acknowledging them,” Daniel said.

*Daniel prefers the pronouns they/them/their

A final word

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

May these cards help you become more embodied. May they make your life richer and more rewarding. And may they help you see rightly what is essential and invisible to the eye.

About Petra Martin

In her late twenties, Petra Martin traveled behind the Iron Curtain to the former East Germany, where she was fortunate to spend time at the kitchen table of her “enemies.” She discovered that they experienced joy, grief, and fear just like she did and realized that no matter where people lived or what language they spoke, what they felt was universal. As a result, a Berlin Wall in her own mind came tumbling down.

Several years later, while working to overcome clinical depression, a therapist asked Petra, “How do you feel?” She found herself unable to answer—which surprised her, given the fact that she was a professional writer and editor. Petra needed a tool to help put her feelings into words but found none.

The insights Petra gained in East Germany, her struggle with depression, and her experience in making technical subjects comprehensible to laypeople led Petra to create the Mixed Emotions card deck. 

For more information about Petra, see petramartin.com.

About Kris Wiltse

Kris Wiltse discovered her bliss early in life and has followed it ever since. When she was about four years old, she looked at her mother’s ornately painted serving tray and decided then and there that she wanted to make pictures when she grew up. Ever since, she has found the idea of creating illustrations that bring the written word to life exciting.

For more than 30 years, Kris created illustrations in a block print style for the publishing, editing, and packaging industries nationwide. Before beginning her illustration career, Kris received a bachelor of arts degree in painting from Western Washington University. She continued her studies in illustration at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle where she later taught figure drawing, basic drawing, watercolor, and illustration.

In the Puget Sound region, Kris is best known for her interpretive signs depicting marine life, birds, flora, and history. Most of these signs are installed at parks and waysides on Whidbey and Camano Islands in Washington State. 

For more information about Kris, see kriswiltse.com.

About Steffanie Lorig

Steffanie Lorig is an award-winning designer and founder of Art with Heart, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children in crisis through the power of creativity.

For two decades, she served as CEO and creative lead for Art with Heart’s portfolio of healing books and trainings, which helped more than 155,000 children and teens worldwide. In 2016, she left the organization in the hands of new leadership.

Now, in addition to being a prolific painter, she enjoys using her professional skills as a designer, consultant, and workshop facilita tor, helping others heal through creative expression.

Steffanie and Petra met during a childbirth class in 1999 and became fast friends. After giving birth to their respective sons, they began working together on the first edition of the Mixed Emotions card deck. With the boys now grown, they turned their attention to the second edition as well as other creative endeavors.

For more information about Steffanie, see steffanielorig.com.

Coming up with illustrations for the Mixed Emotions cards was a creative challenge that required teamwork. The images were born around the dining table of Petra’s home in Seattle, where she lived at the time. Her talented and creative friends Tony Nahra, Rand Babcock, and Peggy Foerch joined her. 

Petra asked, “What does grief look like?” Then the four of them sat in silence, writing down descriptions of the images that came to mind. When they shared those descriptions with each other, it sometimes sparked new ideas, and they continued to brainstorm until Petra was confident that they had one or more strong images to choose from.

Petra communicated the best of these ideas to Kris Wiltse. Kris created a sketch of Petra’s description and then showed it to her. When Petra gave Kris a thumbs-up, Kris began to carve a linoleum block. The first time she carved the block, she focused on the lightest colors, then made a print. Then she carved more linoleum away, made another print, and repeated the process. She scanned the prints, then used Photoshop to color and combine the layers.

Petra’s goal was to evoke—rather than depict—emotions wherever possible. But what fulfills, scares, or confuses people is so unique to each individual that it would have been impossible to find a single image that evoked the same feeling in everyone. Therefore, in some cases, she chose a more symbolic/conceptual image instead.

Petra considered it an absolute privilege to brainstorm these illustrations with Tony, Rand, and Peggy and to work with Kris to turn them into such beautiful works of art.

Meanwhile, Steffanie Lorig—a gifted artist, author, and graphic designer—guided Petra and Kris in producing art that fit the cards, book, and packaging. Steffanie beautifully designed both editions of the Mixed Emotions card deck.

The story continues

Unlike this book, the Mixed Emotions website (mixed-emotions.com) is a living, ever-changing resource that you can visit to:

• Find ideas for using Mixed Emotions cards that were submitted since this book was published.

• Submit ideas for using the cards that you’re willing to share with others.

• Read the latest research.

• Order cards.

David M. Kissen, H. E. (1962, April–June). Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Retrieved from ScienceDirect: www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article/abs/pii/0022399962900624 

K. Kircanski, M. D. (2012, September 4). That giant tarantula is terrifying, but I’ll touch it: Expressing your emotions can reduce fear. Retrieved from Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2012/09/120904192045.htm

Karim S. Kassam, A. R. (2013, June 19). Identifying Emotions on the Basis of Neural Activation. Retrieved from PLOS | ONE: https://journals.plos. org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal. pone.0066032

Matthew D. Lieberman, N. I. (2007). Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Retrieved from Semantic Scholar: 

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Puttingfeelings-into-words%3A-affect-labeling-in-toLieberman-Eisenberger/4c89c1cd3934ab438c0f5f6 64e7e4c1169d188d1

Niles, A. M. (2015). Affect labeling enhances exposure effectiveness for public speaking anxiety. Retrieved from escholarship: https://escholarship.org/uc/ item/91f398qp#main

Ramirez G, B. S. (2011, January 14). National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/21233387

Rumi, J. A.-D. (1997). The Essential Rumi. (C. Barks, Trans.) Harper One.

S. Greer, T. M. (1974, November 12). Journal of 

Psychosomatic Research. Retrieved from ScienceDirect: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0022399975900628

Taylor GJ, B. M. (1999). Disorders of Affect Regulation: 

Alexithymia in Medical and Psychiatric Illness. 

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.