Tangle of Emotions

During a ramble around Pinterest two years ago, I spotted an interesting visual: Ball of Grief: A Tangled Ball of Emotions. I printed it out (sans author, sorry) and have kept it in my file to remind me of how truly tangled and interconnected our emotions can be.

The skein-like ball of emotions shares over 40 emotions, ranging from sadness and inadequacy, to despair and denial, to rage. It provides a great resource for writers as potential characters enter problems and situations and must deal with their entanglements.

And…

Recently I read a novel about a woman who lost her husband. Both were in their mid-thirties. They had 4 young children that now she was raising them alone. As she progresses through the tangle of emotions of the 5 stages of grief, she also steps into a romantic relationship which mimics those same five stages. I found that especially interesting since I’d never through about how a person might struggle to allow herself to love again.

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3 Responses

  1. Behind the Story says:

    We tend to think of emotions as pure, as though we’re either happy, sad or afraid, lonely or angry. In reality, emotions may be mixed. Tangled is a good way to express it.

  2. Paddy says:

    Exactly! I also think the image shares the interrelationship of emotions and the tangled ball makes it easy to visualize/remember.

  3. Gretchen Houser says:

    Every person is such a jangly tangly mix of emotions, it’s sometimes hard to sort them out. That’s what makes us interesting and unique.