Emotional Barometer

A tool to explain our moods

It can be remarkably hard to tell other people how we really feel; it may even be tricky for us to get clear about our own moods. Mostly, if people ask how we are, we'll just say, 'Fine' - knowing that we've provided only a sharp abbreviation of what is actually going on in our minds.

This is a tool to help us overcome our vagueness: cards that offer definitions of twenty moods that we can all recognise but that can be hard to pin down and explain. Here are descriptions of – among many other things – the sense of feeling weepy, nostalgic, anxious, and dreamy.

These cards help us reach a clearer understanding of our inner emotional weather. They can also be passed on to friends and colleagues (or simply displayed on our desk) so that the world can better know what’s going on inside us, without our needing to explain too much.

Quotes from the cards:

On Feeling Anxious

‘Everyone is more anxious than they are inclined to tell us. Even the tycoon and the couple in love are suffering. We’ve collectively failed to admit to ourselves how much it is customary to panic. But we can at least hold out our arms to our similarly tortured, fractured, and above all else, anxious neighbours, as if to say, in the kindest way possible: ‘I know…’

On Feeling Obsessive

‘We should enjoy our obsessive moods. To obsess well is to realise that the lovely person we sketch in our heads is our creation: a creation that says more about us than it does about them. We may not really be getting to know another person properly, but we are growing our insight into who we really are.’

On Feeling Sulky

‘Sulking combines intense anger with an intense desire not to communicate what we are angry about. This brings us to the odd privilege of being the recipient of a sulk: we only get into a sulk with people whom we feel should understand – that is, people we respect. It is one of the stranger gifts of love.’

20 cards with movable dial and fold-out stand on box lid | 160 x 115 x 20mm