🧠 KNOW YOUR FEELINGS
This tool helps us identify emotions more specifically than simply saying “good” or “bad.”
ANSWER: What is a Feelings Wheel?
True or False: The goal of anger management is to never get angry again.
ANSWER: What is False?
This attachment style is generally comfortable with closeness, communication, and healthy boundaries.
ANSWER: What is Secure Attachment?
According to Maslow's hierarchy, food, water, sleep, and shelter fall under this level of need.
ANSWER: What are physiological needs?
Doing what you're told because you have to is most closely associated with this concept.
ANSWER: What is Compliance?
True or False: Anger is always the primary emotion.
ANSWER: What is False?
Name one physical warning sign that your anger is increasing.
ANSWER: What are clenched fists, tight jaw, racing heart, sweating, feeling hot, pacing, tense muscles, etc.?
Someone constantly worries that their partner is going to leave them and needs frequent reassurance. Which attachment pattern might this resemble?
ANSWER: What is Anxious Attachment?
Housing, stability, financial security, and physical safety are examples of what level?
ANSWER: What is Safety?
Accepting that your current way of doing things isn't working and becoming willing to try something different is associated with this concept.
ANSWER: What is Surrender?
Name ONE emotion that might exist underneath anger.
ANSWER: What are hurt, fear, sadness, embarrassment, disappointment, or frustration?
“Anger is sometimes what we show on the outside, while another emotion is underneath it. For example, someone may look angry because they actually feel hurt or rejected.”
Complete the sequence: Trigger → Thought → ______ → Urge → Action → Consequence.
ANSWER: What is Feeling?
“Something happens, we interpret it in our mind, and that interpretation creates an emotional response. That feeling can then create an urge to act.”
Example:
Someone cuts you off → “They did that on purpose” → anger → urge to chase them down.
Someone says, “I don't need anybody,” and pulls away whenever relationships become emotionally close.
ANSWER: What is Avoidant Attachment?
Family, friendship, connection, and community fall under this level.
ANSWER: What is Love & Belonging?
True or False: Surrender means giving up on yourself.
ANSWER: What is False?
“You're not giving up on your life. You're giving up on the behaviors and thinking that aren't working anymore.”
Being able to recognize, name, understand, and communicate your emotions is called what?
ANSWER: What is emotional literacy?
You receive an angry text. What's usually better: immediately firing back or creating some space first?
ANSWER: What is creating space before reacting?
True or False: Your attachment style is a permanent personality trait that can never change.
ANSWER: What is False?
“An attachment pattern is something we can become aware of and work on. Just because you've always reacted a certain way doesn't mean you have to keep reacting that way.”
Confidence, achievement, self-respect, and feeling capable are examples of this level.
ANSWER: What is Esteem?
Someone attends treatment only because probation requires it but has no interest in changing. This is an example of what?
ANSWER: What is Compliance?
If someone says, “I'm angry because nobody respects me,” what should we explore next?
ANSWER: What is the feeling, thought, trigger, or need underneath the anger?
💡
“Knowing we're angry isn't enough. We need to figure out what caused it and what we're actually needing. That's where we can start changing our response.”
In STOP–THINK–CHOOSE, what are you doing when you ask, “What could happen if I react impulsively?”
ANSWER: What is playing the tape through, THINKING about the consequences before choosing a response?
P.S.
“When we're angry, our first reaction isn't always our best reaction. Thinking gives us a few seconds to ask, ‘If I do this, what happens next?’”
“Who has ever typed an entire angry paragraph and then realized 30 seconds later that maybe they shouldn't send it?”
Complete this recovery connection: Relationship trigger → Emotion → Reaction → ______.
ANSWER: What is Consequence?
“Our reaction doesn't just disappear. It creates an outcome. Sometimes that outcome is more conflict, guilt, isolation, damaged trust, or even a craving to use.”
This highest level involves personal growth, purpose, reaching potential, and becoming the person you want to become.
ANSWER: What is Self-Actualization?
“This is basically asking, ‘Who can I become?’ It's moving beyond simply surviving and starting to build a life that has meaning.”
Someone says, “I don't know everything, but what I've been doing isn't working, so I'm willing to listen and try something different.”
ANSWER: What is Surrender?
“Surrender doesn't mean giving up. It means giving up the idea that you can keep doing the same thing and somehow get a different result. You're becoming willing to try something new.”
Important distinction:
Compliance: “I'm doing this because somebody is making me.”
Surrender: “I'm doing this because I recognize I need to change.”