What is a word for feeling wanted

I am looking for a word that describes the emotion or feeling of an intrinsic want of a new and better possession. Covetous or envious seem a bit too focused on the other other person’s possession of the desired object whereas I am looking for something that is defined by the internal thoughts we have when seeing an advertisement for the latest iPhone or life-changing new service.

I saw this post but I am wondering if there is a word with less emphasis on the second entity? Otherwise, would I covet new things from Amazon or Apple? Can I be envious of corporations?

For example, I just bought a new car and now, looking at my slightly out of date television, I feel the need to upgrade my T.V. with a newer, shiny one from Amazon. Would I be coveting that T.V. which Amazon sells?

I saw the ad for the latest iPhone, the iPhone 3000, and feel that my current phone is inadequate. I am a(n) ______ person, since I always desire something better than what I currently possess. If I was a caveman with a sharpened stick, I’d want your sharper, pointier stick.

I feel like there is probably some niche German word for exactly this, but I’m unsure it exists in English. Thanks!

What are the feelings, and how different are they from our emotions?

There’s a whole range of feelings that extend beyond the basics. But all feelings have one thing in common — they emerge from a reaction to emotions.

Emotions and feelings are often used synonymously, but they aren’t the same. Here’s how to tell the difference between them:

• What Are Feelings?
• The Differences Between Feelings and Emotions
• What Are Examples of Feelings?
• Why Are Feelings So Important?
• How to Express Your Feelings: 5 Tips From the Founders of Lifebook

Getting in tune with your feelings and emotions is paramount for your well-being and success.

What Are Feelings?

What is a feeling but simply an emotional experience or a physical sensation? They are our learned reactions to an emotional trigger and determine whether we are happy or sad, content or frustrated, and so on.

For example, you might experience “happiness” through feelings of bliss, exhilaration, or optimism. These are expressions of that particular core emotion, going beyond saying, “I’m happy.”

That’s the purpose of feelings — to be more specific in articulating what you’re experiencing. In fact, the English language has more than 4,000 words that describe feelings.

“Feelings” definition in psychology

Feelings are related to emotions, but they’re not the same. The “feelings” definition in psychology is the response to emotions.

It’s a “self-contained phenomenal experience,” according to the American Psychological Association. They explain this noun as “subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations, thoughts, or images evoking them.”

American psychologist R.S. Woodsworth viewed feelings and emotions as representing a person’s inner state — also known as your mood. Then, there’s also Immanuel Kant’s definition of feelings as states of unpleasantness and pleasantness, also known as psychological effects.

Looking at the word’s etymology, “feel” dates back to the Middle English word “fallen,” which means to perceive by touch. However, psychological feelings have more to do with inner than external sensations.

So much so that those feelings can strongly influence your perception of events with the possibility of harboring bias.

The Differences Between Feelings and Emotions

What are feelings without emotions? Both are often used interchangeably, but they don’t mean the same thing. 

So what are the differences between emotions vs. feelings? Here’s a closer look:

• Feelings are how you experience emotions. They’re influenced by a person’s personal beliefs, memories, hormones, and even environment. Because of this, they may differ from one person to another.

• Emotions typically range from four to eight core emotions. This list includes happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust.

  “Emotion,” the psychology definition, is a psychological state that involves subjective, psychological, or behavioral elements. Simply put, it’s how you would deal with positive or negative matters or situations that you find significant.

To put it into context, let’s look at an example. Take, for instance, the animals in a zoo. 

Seeing them caged up could stir up the emotion of sadness. The feelings that arise as a response to that could be disappointment that the animals aren’t allowed to roam free or dismayed that zoos are even still in existence in this day and age.

In this situation, the stimulus is the same. But where emotion is the foundation, the feelings are a deeper response.

This wheel is a great example of the feelings connected to core emotions.

What Are Examples of Feelings?

Here are examples of feelings linked to common core emotions:

Core Emotion	Example of Feelings
Happiness	You feel joyful, especially when you receive special attention or a thoughtful gift from your significant other.
Surprise	You feel shocked or startled, like when someone sneaks up on you.
Fear	You feel anxious during stressful times, like when you have to give a presentation at work.
Anger	You feel enraged when someone does a fender bender to your car.
Sadness	You feel guilty at seeing a homeless person in the street.
Disgust	You feel repulsed when you see bugs, especially dead ones.

Given that more than 4,000 words describe feelings, there are endless examples to choose from. And while this is a dive into feelings, their importance should also be noted. 

Why Are Feelings So Important?

The feelings you experience, positive or negative, are there for a reason.

Fear and anxiety may alert you to potential threats and help you respond accordingly. On the other hand, some feelings allow you to have meaningful social interactions and create emotional connections, like empathy, compassion, and understanding.

Here are three research studies that look at the impact of not expressing your feelings:

• One study looked into emotion regulation. Its results showed that suppressing feelings is associated with less positive emotions and more negative ones.

• Another study compared participants diagnosed with major depression versus healthy controls. Their results found that those who suppressed negative and positive emotions reported increased depressive symptoms and fear of emotions.

• A 2017 meta-analysis investigated the relationships between levels of emotional expression and suppression and social and interpersonal outcomes. Its results suggested that emotion suppression is associated with poorer relationship quality, lower social satisfaction, lower social support, more negative first impressions, and lower social well-being.

The bottom line is that what you feel can help enrich your life. Negative emotions can be a burden, but the positive experiences of our lives would be less meaningful without anything to compare them to.

How to Express Your Feelings: 5 Tips From the Founders of Lifebook

Expressing your feelings can sound scary. After all, it leaves your emotions open to interpretation and that can leave you feeling vulnerable.

So granted, the follow-up query to “what are feelings?” is bound to arise. And that is: how to express your feelings.

It’s more than just learning how to control your emotions. Rather, it’s about embracing them and healthily articulating them.

And when it comes down to feelings, Jon and Missy Butcher, trainers of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest, know a lot about the topic. So much so that one part of their Quest focuses specifically on it.

Here are a few of their tips that can help you express your feelings better:

1. Be gentle with yourself

As you practice feeling your feelings, you’re bound to make mistakes or get frustrated in the process. So it’s important to remember to be gentle with yourself.

Gentleness bolsters care, consideration, and tenderness. It’ll help you be less critical and less judgmental as you practice feeling your feelings.

“There is no shortcut to self-mastery,” Jon explains in the Quest. And for you to master your feelings and emotions, start by being kinder to yourself.

2. Acknowledge the feeling

Your feelings are signals within you, and their purpose is to tell you something. So don’t ignore it.

According to Jon, pleasurable feelings tell you that you’re doing something right and making good choices. And the unpleasant ones? They’re telling you that something’s wrong, that a boundary is being crossed, or even to run.

So take the time to notice the types of emotions that arise and acknowledge the feeling that’s attached to them. This will help you recognize it for what it is and what to do with it.

3. Name the feeling

Your feelings are forever seeking expression. (That might be why there are so many varieties of them!) So putting a name to it can help give it the attention it craves.

One study looked into emotional clarity — naming an emotion or a feeling — and how it’s associated with emotional regulation. The results found that the lack of emotional clarity was linked to symptoms of depression, social anxiety, borderline personality, binge eating, and alcohol use.

It helps to expand your vocabulary and learn new words for different feelings. Ecstatic, elated, excited, thrilled, and blissful are all feelings that fall under the emotion of “happy.” But they all express different spectrums of happiness.

So as Jon suggests, when you acknowledge your feelings, name them as well. When you’re able to do so, you’ll be able to respond to situations better, which can help enhance your well-being and enrich your connection with others.

4. Use positive self-talk

Your inner voice, or self-talk, combines your conscious thoughts and beliefs. So being aware of how you talk to yourself impacts how you feel and what you do. 

When it leans toward the negative, it undermines your confidence and self-esteem, contributing to issues with your overall well-being. However, when your self-talk is positive, it can be supportive and beneficial, motivating you to seek greatness in all areas of your life.

Jon shares, as an example, “When unhappiness comes up in my life, I treat it as an unwelcome imposter.” It’s his version of positive self-talk that works for him.

It’s not so much about tricking yourself into perceiving everything in life as wonderful. Rather, positive self-talk can help you see things as a whole in a calm, rational manner.

5.  Be aware of what makes you happy and what doesn’t

While it’s not always possible to control your emotions, you can try to put yourself in situations, events, people, places, and things that evoke good feelings rather than negative ones. For example, if there are certain people whose vibes uplift you, then try to hang out with them more often.

After all, the ultimate goal in life is happiness and fulfillment. So Jon suggests paying attention to what makes you happy and fulfilled versus what makes you unhappy and unfulfilled. That’ll help you react appropriately and create the life you love.

Get in Tune With Your Feelings

So, what are feelings? They’re nothing more than your innate response to emotions. It’s an intricate part of who you are. As the saying goes, “Don’t apologize for feeling something or a lot.”

So if you want to learn how to be at one with them, you can learn from the experts, like Jon and Missy Butcher, at Mindvalley.

In their Lifebook Online Quest, not only will you learn how to be more mindful and aware of what you feel, but when you do, you can better steer the other categories of your life. And ultimately, you’ll be able to rediscover your true self and awaken your unstoppable.

Welcome in.

(FULL TRANSCRIPT)​

One of the most common topics of small talk and conversation is how you feel about something happening.

It may be as simple as your response to the common question: “Hey, how’s it going?” To telling your coworker how happy, sad, tired, or angry you are about something that happened yesterday.

Of course, you know words like happy, sad, angry, and tired, but English speakers have a vast number of expressions, collocations, and idioms we use to talk about how we feel.

Doing so not only brings exciting variety to the conversation, but it also allows you to be precise about how you feel, choosing the exact word that allows you to express what you want.

I’m Annemarie with Speak Confident English. This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want for your life and work in English.

In this video today, you’re going to learn 23 new ways to talk about how you feel, whether it’s happy, sad, angry, tired, confused, or “all the feels.”

Throughout the lesson, you’ll learn a variety of collocations, idioms, and synonyms so that you can describe even the smallest difference in the kind of happiness you feel.

For example, there’s a difference between feeling happy because it’s Friday, which is certainly a great feeling, and the kind of happiness you feel when you realize you were successful in a job interview in English, and they just offered you the job.

Both of those result in happy feelings, but there is a little difference, isn’t there? There certainly is. And in today’s lesson, you’re going to learn exactly how to talk about those.

Let’s start today by talking about the feels.

On social media or on TV shows, you may hear people talk about having all the feels or feeling all the feels. It’s not very common that we see that word feel used as a countable noun.

These two expressions are very informal and what they mean is to feel a depth and often a variety of emotions.

For example, have you ever watched a TV commercial that made you cry? And you had this weird mix of feelings, including hope for humanity. Those are surprising feelings from a TV commercial. And when you’re telling a friend about it, you might say that TV commercial made me feel all the feels or I had all the feels when I watched that TV commercial.

It’s definitely become a common expression to use. And now that you know it, you’ll probably start seeing it quite a bit.

So now that we know about all the feels, let’s talk about a few ways to describe happiness.

For this feeling, we’re going to focus on four different synonyms that describe different levels or kinds of happiness we feel.

The first one is to be thrilled. Now, this is a word I actually use a lot. I love this word and it means to be extremely pleased.

For example, when someone tells me that one of my lessons was useful to them, I feel extremely pleased. I feel really happy. I’m thrilled.

Now with the word happy, of course, we could emphasize that word by adding the word very, to be very happy. Or we could be blissfully happy.

Blissful means to be full of. To be full of happiness.

Similar to being blissfully happy is to be delighted. This is also a great alternative to the word thrilled because it also means to be extremely pleased about something.

You might be delighted that your team was successful in winning a new client. You might be delighted that your son’s sports team won the championship. Or you’re delighted because a coworker brought you flowers for your birthday.

And the last one for talking about feeling happy is a really fun one to be giddy. We often combine this with the word excitement, to be giddy with excitement.

To be giddy can mean to feel dizzy. So imagine there’s so much excitement and happiness that you are dizzy. Or it can also mean to be light-hearted. Someone who’s lighthearted is so happy and they don’t have any worries or concerns or stresses.

One image I love to think about with this idea of giddy with excitement is to imagine a wave of excitement, something that’s overwhelming, but in a positive way.

All right, now that you’ve got a variety of ways of talking about feeling happy, let’s talk about feeling sad.

You know those days when you wake up and you just don’t feel great? You don’t really know why, maybe it’s a lack of sleep. Maybe something’s not going well at work. And you just feel this slight general sense of sadness or a little bit of depression.

It’s nothing serious, but you just don’t feel particularly great. In that case, you might say that you feel blue.

If a friend calls you and says, Hey, how are you doing? You might say, Hmm, feeling kind of blue today.

Similar to that idiom, but perhaps slightly stronger is to feel down or to feel down in the dumps.

Again, this means to be sad or depressed. If a friend of yours recently lost a job, they might be feeling down or maybe you see a friend and immediately you notice that something isn’t right. She’s upset about something. So you might say, you look a bit down, is everything okay?

Our third way to talk about feeling slightly sad is to say, I’m not really feeling it. What that means is you’re just generally disinterested in something.

I actually used this one recently when my husband and I were watching a movie. It was a movie that he thought was fantastic. He was really enjoying it. And at the end he said, wasn’t that fantastic? And I said, Hmm, I wasn’t really feeling it. In other words, I wasn’t very interested in it. I don’t know why.

Now typically we might feel that sense of disinterest because we’re tired or slightly depressed or upset about something.

And finally, our last example for how to talk about feeling sad is to have a heavy heart. Now, this one is a powerful expression. If you have a heavy heart, you are very sad, even miserable.

You may have a heavy heart because a friend received some terrible news or something awful happened at work. If you’re telling a coworker about something upsetting, you might say, Oh, I have a really heavy heart today.

Before we move on to look at a variety of ways that we can use to talk about feeling angry, I want to pause here for a moment. This particular month, I’m sharing several videos related to vocabulary because I want to help you grow your vocabulary and communicate precisely.

My goal, of course, is not only for you to learn new vocabulary, but to remember it, to be able to use it. So as you watch this lesson today, I have two pieces of advice.

Number one, after you hear my example sentences, take a moment to create your own example sentence, using the same synonym, idiom, or collocation. Doing that not only personalizes the language, but it also gives you some of the repetition you need to help you remember something new.

The second thing that you can do is to create an effective daily habit for practicing vocabulary. And I’ve got an easy way to help you do that. Recently, I shared a lesson on how to develop an effective daily habit in English, and I included a free download to help you track your English vocabulary habits.

You can check out that lesson and get the free download on my website. I’ll be sure to leave a link for you just below this video.

And now let’s talk about a few different to talk about feeling angry.

The first word on our list is kind of a fun word, even though it’s a negative feeling: to feel prickly. Now, a cactus is prickly. And when someone is prickly, it means they are easily offended or they’re just ready to take offense.

Maybe, you know someone at work who’s generally just prickly. You never know when they’re going to be offended and upset by something you say. And of course, sometimes all of us are prickly. Maybe you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. So today you’re just kind of a little angry and frustrated.

The danger of being prickly is that you never know when someone might explode or be about to explode. Now of course the word explode is an aggressive word. Imagine something exploding in anger. Definitely not a positive moment.

For example, yesterday, we were all shocked when our boss exploded with anger. Or those moments when you feel really angry inside, you know that you’re prickly and you want to warn someone to be very careful. You might say I’m about to explode and that lets them know it’s probably time to walk away.

The third way that we can talk about feeling angry is to say that you’re furious.

Now this is a synonym that we can use and it’s definitely a more powerful way to talk about being angry because when someone is furious, they are extremely angry. They may be about to explode.

Okay? We’ve talked about all the feels, alternatives to talk about feeling happy, sad, and angry. So now let’s move on to talking about feeling tired, feeling confused, and we’ll finish with some great expressions to use when you want to tell someone else that you understand exactly how they feel.

Let’s talk about feeling tired.

The first one is to feel or to be worn down, which means to be weary and overcome with stress and pressure. I think for many of us, 2020 was a year when we felt worn down, we had a lot of increased pressures and unexpected stresses in our lives.

At the end of a long week, you might come home on Friday and say, Oh, I’m so worn down. I just want to sleep all weekend.

An expression that sounds similar is to be worn out, but there’s a slight difference in the meaning here. When something is worn out, it means that it’s been overused. So if you’re feeling worn out, it typically means that physically you’re exhausted.

Maybe you had a particularly difficult workout or you went on a run that was much longer than usual and afterward physically you’re worn out.

And when that happens, you may need to take a breather. To take a breather means to pause your activities for a short period of time. And just to relax.

Again, for example, if you’ve had a particularly long week and someone asks, what are you doing this weekend? You might say, ah, I’m worn out. I’m just taking a breather.

And lastly, the fourth way to talk about feeling tired is again, a synonym to feel or be exhausted. So here we’re using a more powerful word to talk about feeling very tired.

How are you doing? I know we’ve got a lot of new vocabulary today. How are you feeling about it? Of course, in a moment I want you to practice, but first we have just six more expressions to learn today.

We’ve got four about feeling confused and two to learn for what to say when you want to tell someone else that you understand how they feel.

So let’s talk about feeling confused.

The first one is to feel off or to feel slightly off. This one works for a general feeling of being confused or not really clear minded. It’s also possible to use it when you just feel a light sense of sadness or depression to just feel off. I feel off today. It may be because you slept poorly or maybe you’re coming down with a cold.

There may be days when you go to work and you just can’t do anything. You can’t think clearly you don’t have the energy again. You just feel off.

Our second one is to be a hot mess. If you’re a hot mess, you are absolutely disorganized. Everything is in chaos and you might feel that you can’t do anything right. Maybe you had a particularly terrible day at work where everything went wrong. So then you come home at the end of the day and you say, Oh my gosh, I’m a hot mess today. Or I feel like I’m a hot mess.

Number three is to feel puzzled. This is a great synonym for feeling confused. And we often use this if we’ve got some doubt or uncertainty. Now, recently actually did a lesson on how to talk about expressing doubt and uncertainty. And I’ll leave a link to that just below the video.

And now our last one for talking about feeling confused is to have mixed feelings. This is another great one to talk about doubt and uncertainty.

Let’s say that you’re about to make a big decision, but you’re still having this mix of, is this the right thing? Is it the wrong thing? I don’t know. You go back and forth. You have mixed feelings about it.

Similarly, maybe you and your team members at work are trying to solve a problem. And although someone has presented a really great solution, you’re just not sure about it. Something doesn’t seem right. Again, you have mixed feelings about it.

And with that, you have 21 different ways to talk about all the feels plus being happy, sad, angry, tired, or confused.

So let’s finish with two ways that you can tell someone else that you understand how they feel.

For example, if someone says after 2020, I feel totally worn out. You might say, I feel, ya. I feel ya. Or I know the feeling. Both of those are perfect ways to identify with someone else.

Now that you have finished this lesson with 23 new ways to talk about how you feel, I want you to practice. That is an essential step in remembering all this new vocabulary so you can use it easily in conversation.

If you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know. You can tell me in three simple ways, number one, give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel so you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Number two, if you have a friend or a coworker, who’s also working to increase their English vocabulary, share this lesson with them. And number three, practice with me. Share your examples below the video with that.

Have a wonderful week. Thank you for joining me. And I look forward to seeing you next time for your Confident English lesson.

Aware or not, most people experience a wide range of emotions during an average day. And, these experiences are highly individualized, varying from one person to the next. Unfortunately, with today’s chronically high levels of workplace stress, many of our emotions are unpleasant and unproductive. If you want to manage or minimize your negative moods — known as “self-regulation” — it’s worth your time to more accurately pinpoint exactly what you’re feeling.

Below, you’ll find JMA’s comprehensive list of over 850 words for feelings — including emotions, moods and physical sensations (somatic states). It’s a great tool for learning, reference or exploration.

In a Word

Many of us do not differentiate our feelings very much. We use limited words to describe them, such as good, bad, happy, sad, anxious or stressed. (Check this for yourself: Set a timer for 2 minutes and see how many words you can come up with!) Other people can more easily identify — or differentiate — a wider range of emotions. Not surprisingly, this skill is characteristic of people with high emotional intelligence.

Tired of Being in a Bad Mood?

Research shows that people who can more clearly differentiate their negative feelings also tend to self-regulate their negative emotions more frequently. In JMA’s MindMastery program, clients learn that their feelings are not driven by the actual events that happen to them, but by their core beliefs, assumptions and attitudes, or “underlying operating system.” Your responses, too, are shaped by your personal underlying operating system.

The good news is that your core “system” can be changed in ways that will greatly improve your life and well-being. Accurately identifying your feelings is a critical early step in this process. JMA’s comprehensive list is a great tool to help you do that.

An Example

Let’s imagine (but only briefly…) that an “event” happens to you: Your significant other gets angry at you. Look at how many different emotions and responses could occur from this one single event!

      Event                                                  Emotion             Response

1. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel anger – you argue
2. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel fear – you imagine them leaving
3. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel curious – you seek to understand
4. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel disgust– you belittle them
5. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel frozen – you dissociate
6. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel sadness– you are ashamed
7. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel enjoyment– you gloat
8. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel attacked – you defend
9. Your significant other gets angry at you – you feel confused– you fumble, or ask questions

How to Use JMA’s List

You probably know many more words for feelings than you actually use in daily life; you just don’t think of them. As well, there are probably some new words you would use — if you only knew them! Use JMA’s list to remind yourself of words you can use — while learning some new ones, too. Here are just a few ideas; see what works best for you.

1. Start with the “Beginner’s List” — perhaps put a copy in your phone for easy reference. Check in on yourself a few times a day and see if any of those words accurately describe how you’re feeling.
2. Scan a section of the full list once a day to learn one new feeling, emotion or mood. Or, share the list with a friend and buddy up to learn and use new words.
3. Take a lighthearted approach; read over the list to find something fun or interesting that’s new to you. (Then try using it!)
4. Use the list in conjunction with our MindMastery training, app or coaching to increase your self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

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The JMA List of Feelings, Emotion and Mood Words (Over 850+ words)

 Note: This list is adapted and compiled from Design Epic Life, Hoffman Institute, The Center for Non-Violent Communication, John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, Enchanted Learning, and many dictionaries.

Beginner List

• Admiration
• Amused
• Angry
• Anxious
• Awed
• Awkward
• Belonging
• Bored
• Calm
• Confused
• Content
• Curious
• Disappointed
• Disgusted
• Distrustful
• Embarrassed
• Empathetic
• Engaged
• Enjoyment
• Envy
• Excited
• Fear
• Frustrated
• Grateful
• Guilty
• Happy
• Hopeless
• Inadequate
• Insignificant
• Interested
• Joyful
• Longing
• Love
• Nostalgic
• Optimistic
• Overwhelmed
• Sad
• Satisfied
• Scared
• Stressed
• Surprised
• Sympathetic
• Triumphant
• Worried

JMA’s List of Feelings, Emotions, and Moods

A 

• Able: The feeling that one has the skill, knowledge, permission capability, or power to do or accomplish; capable.
• Abandon: To give up or discontinue all any further interest in something because of discouragement, weariness, distaste; feeling unrestrained, uninhibited; to give up all concern with.
• Abandoned: Feeling unwanted, discarded, left behind.
• Abnormal: Feeling different from what is usual or average, especially in a way that’s bad.
• Abominable: Arousing feelings of disgust and hatred; detestable; loathsome.
• Absorbed: A feeling of deep interest or involvement.
• Achy: Feeling afflicted with aches; continuous pain in one’s body that are unpleasant but not very strong.
• Accepting or Acceptance: A feeling of being amenable; open.
• Acquisitive: Feeling strongly desirous of acquiring and possessing.
• Adamant: Feeling inflexible, rigid, uncompromising; determined to keep a position or point of view.
• Addled: Feeling fuzzy in the head, a little foggy and mentally confused; muddled.
• Admired or Admiration: A feeling of approval, liking, wonder.
• Adoration: A feeling profound love, admiration, respect.
• Adventurous: A feeling and inclination to take risks, to explore.
• Affable: Feeling friendly, pleasant, easy to talk to; approachable.
• Affection or Affectionate: A gentle feeling of fondness, devotion or liking.
• Affected: Feeling ingenuous or pretending; contrived.
• Afflicted: Feeling mentally or physically impaired.
• Afraid: Feeling fear, reluctance, apprehension.
• Agape (Greek): Felling selfless, unconditional, devotional love.
• Age-otori (Japanese): The bad feeling one gets after a terrible haircut.
• Agitated or Agitation: Feeling troubled, nervous, disturbed or flustered.
• Aggravated: A feeling of annoyance; irritation.
• Agreeable: A feeling of being ready or willing to agree or consent; pleasing to the mind or the senses especially as according well with one’s tastes and needs.
• Aggressive: Feeling ready or likely to attack or confront; feeling determined to get what you want.
• Aggrieved: Feeling troubled or distressed in spirit.
• Aggravated: Feeling angry or displeased especially because of small problems or annoyances.
• Agog: Feeling full of intense interest or excitement; eager.
• Agony or agonized: Intense feelings of physical or mental suffering.
• Alarm or alarmed: An anxious awareness of danger; apprehension.
• Alert: A feeling of being fully aware and attentive.
• Alienated or Alienation: Feeling withdrawn, socially isolated.
• Aliveness: A feeling of being full of energy and spirit; lively.
• All-in: Feeling engagement and full commitment or involvement without hesitation or restriction.
• Alone: Feeling lonely, lonesome; without companionship or association; feeling apart or separate from other people or things.
• Aloof: Feeling reserved or reticent; indifference; disinterested.
• Amae (Japanese): The urge to crumple into the arms of a loved one to be coddled and comforted.
• Amazed or amazement: A feeling of great surprise or wonder.
• Ambiguphobia (coined by American novelist David Foster Wallace): Feeling uncomfortable about leaving things open to interpretation.
• Amenable: A feeling of being ready or willing to answer, act, agree, or yield. Being open to influence, persuasion, or advice; agreeable.
• Ambivalent: Having mixed feeling about someone or something; being unable to choose between two courses of action.
• Amped up: Feeling heightened excitement or energy.
• Amused: A feeling of delight at being entertained.
• Angry or Anger: A strong feeling of displeasure aroused by some real or supposed grievance.
• Anguish: Extreme mental suffering or distress.
• Animated: Feeling full of life or action; lively.
• Animosity: A feeling of strong dislike or ill will arousing active hostility.
• Annoyed or Annoyance: Slightly angry; bothered; irritated.
• Antsy: Feeling restless, fidgety, impatient or eager to do something.
• Antagonistic: Showing or feeling active opposition or hostility toward someone or something.
• Anticipation: An emotion involving pleasure, excitement, or anxiety in considering or awaiting an expected event; suspense.
• Anxiety or Anxious: A vague unpleasant feeling that is experienced in anticipation of some danger or misfortune.
• Apathy or Apathetic: An absence or suppression of passion, emotion, excitement or enthusiasm.
• Apoplectic: Feeling extremely enraged.
• Appalled: Feeling overcome with dismay, horror, consternation or fear.
• Apprehensive or Apprehension: Feeling uneasy or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen.
• Ardent: A deep level of enthusiasm or passion.
• Aroused: A feeling of excitement or awareness; sexual excitement.
• Ashamed: A feeling of shame; distressed or embarrassed by feelings of guilt, foolishness, or disgrace.
• Astonished or Astonishing: A feeling of extreme surprise; amazed.
• Ataracia (Greek): Feeling robust and lucid tranquility; peace of mind; calmness.
• Attachment: A feeling of affection or fondness for someone or something.
• Attraction: An interest, desire in, or gravitation to something or someone.
• Audacious: Feeling intrepidly daring; recklessly bold.
• Aversion: A feeling of strong dislike, opposition; disinclination.
• Aware (Japanese): The bittersweetness of a brief, fading moment of transcendent beauty.
• Awe or Awed:  A feeling of reverence, admiration, respect mixed with fear or wonder.
• Awkward: Feeling embarrassed, inadequate, uncomfortable or inconvenienced.
• Aweary: Feeling weary.
• Awumbuk (from the Baining people, Papua New Guinea): Sadness, tiredness or boredom caused by the departure of visitors, friends or relatives.
• Aylyak (Bulgarian): The art of not rushing or worrying; living without hurry or concern.

B

• Bad: Feeling pain or distress.
• Bad tempered: Easily annoyed or made angry.
• Baffled or Bafflement: Feeling confused, bewildered or perplexed.
• Bashful: Feeling socially shy or timid; self-conscious; easily embarrassed and uncomfortable.
• Balanced: A feeling of mental or emotional steadiness.
• Basorexia: The sudden urge to kiss someone.
• Beat: A feeling of physical or emotional weariness; fatigue; exhaustion.
• Beaten: The feeling of being in a state of exhaustion.
• Beatitude (French): Feeling supreme happiness; a state of blessedness.
• Bedgasm: A feeling of complete and utter euphoria experienced when climbing into bed at the end of a very long day.
• Befuddled: Feeling confused, perplexed.
• Beleaguered: Suffering or being subjected to constant and repeated difficulties, opposition or criticism.
• Belligerent: An aggressive or fighting attitude; aggressively hostile.
• Bellicose: Feeling inclined to fight; contentious; quarrelsome.
• Bemused: Puzzled, bewildered or confused resulting from failure to understand; perplexed. Or, mildly amused in a detached way.
• Bereaved or bereft: The feelings of one who mourns a loss of a loved one; the feeling of intense grief.
• Besotted: Feeling blindly or utterly infatuated.
• Bewildered: Feeling baffled, confused, mystified or uncertain.
• Bewitched: To feel completely captivated, entranced, charmed, enchanted, possessed, mesmerized by someone or something.
• Bitter or Bitterness: A feeling of anger because of perceived unfair treatment.
• Black: Feeling very sad; gloomy.
• Bleak: A state of feeling hopeless, discouraged.
• Bleary: To feel dull or dimmed especially from fatigue or a lack of sleep; the feeling of being very tired.
• Blessed: A feeling of gratitude; bestowed upon. Feeling lucky to have something: health, love, fame, talent, or life itself.
• Bliss or Blissful: A state of extreme happiness and contentment.
• Blocked: Feeling stuck; an interruption or cessation especially of train of thought by competing thoughts or psychological suppression.
• Blue: Feeling low in spirits: melancholy.
• Boghz (Persina): Feeling a knot in the throat; the physical sensation that builds in the throat or chest before crying.
• Bold: Feeling fearless; a daring spirit.
• Bored or Boredom: The feeling of being weary and restless through a lack of interest.
• Bothered: Feeling or showing agitation, worry, annoyance.
• Brabant (coined by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd): Wanting to see how far you can push someone or to see what would happen if…
• Brave: Feeling courage to face danger, fear, or difficulty.
• Brokenhearted: Feeling overcome by grief or despair.
• Bull-headed: Feeling determined to do what you want to do, especially without concerning others people’s point of view or feelings; obstinately opinionated.
• Buoyant: Feeling cheerful and behave in a lively way.
• Buried: A feeling of being overwhelmed with too much to do.
• Burned out: Feeling worn out or exhausted, especially as a result of long-term stress.
• Bushed: Feeling exhausted, tired.

C

• Calculating: Feeling the need to control situations to your own advantage in a way that’s slightly unpleasant and causes people not to trust you.
• Calm: The mental state of peace and tranquility; feeling free from agitation, excitement, disturbance, mental stress or anxiety; serenity.
• Cantankerous:  Feeling bad-tempered, argumentative, and uncooperative.
• Capable: The feeling of having competence and confidence that you are able to do something well.
• Capricious: A disposition to do things impulsively; unpredictably.
• Carefree: The cheerful feeling you have when you are free from troubles and without worry.
• Careless: Feeling indifferent; unconcerned; thoughtless.
• Caring: Feeling concern and empathy for others.
• Cautious: Feeling the need to avoid risks, usually prompted by avoiding danger.
• Cavalier: Feeling assumptive; haughty; self-asserting.
• Centered: Feeling well-balanced, stable and self-confident.
• Chagrin or Chagrined: A feeling of embarrassment or distress caused by failure or disappointment.
• Charitable: Feeling full of love and goodwill towards others; benevolent.
• Charmed: Feeling extremely lucky or fortunate as if protected by a charm or spell.
• Cheerful: A feeling of joy or good spirits.
• Cheesed off: Greatly annoyed; out of patience.
• Chesty: Feeling proudly or arrogantly self-assertive.
• Chipper: Feeling cheerful; cheery; upbeat.
• Circumspect: Feeling thoughtful; prudent; cautious.
• Clear: Feeling free from doubt; sure.
• Clearheaded: The feeling of a clear, orderly mind.
• Closeness: Feeling connected; near; intimate; kinship.
• Cocky: Feeling boldly or brashly self-confident.
• Cold: Without warmth or feeling; indifferent; not cordial or kind.
• Collywobbles, the: An uncomfortable feeling in the stomach caused by feelings of nervousness, slight fear or anxiety.
• Comfortable or Comfort: A sense of physical or psychological ease; feeling contented.
• Commuovere (Italian): Heartwarming; to stir, to touch, to be moved to tears.
• Compassion or Compassionate: A feeling of deep sympathy or sorrow for another stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
• Compersion: An empathetic state of happiness and joy experienced when another individual experiences happiness and joy; the opposite of jealousy.
• Compliant: Feeling willing to do whatever you are asked or ordered to do.
• Complacent: Feeling smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievement, often without awareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.
• Composed:  Feeling calm and showing no nervousness or agitation.
• Compulsive: Feeling an irresistible urge, especially one that is against one’s conscious wishes.
• Compunction: A feeling of guilt or moral scruple that prevents or follows the doing of something bad.
• Conceit: Feeling an excessively favorable opinion of one’s own ability, importance, wit, etc.
• Concerned: Feeling worried, troubled or anxious; the feeling of sympathy.
• Confident: The feeling or showing of confidence in oneself; self-assured.
• Confused or Confusion: The feeling of being unable to think clearly or understand something; bewildered.
• Connected or connection: The feeling of affinity with or in touch with someone who cares about us.
• Considerate: Feeling regard for another’s feelings, circumstances; thoughtfulness.
• Contempt or Contemptuous: The feeling that a person or a thing is worthless or beneath consideration; scornful; disdain.
• Content or Contentment: An emotional state of satisfaction with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.
• Contrite: Feeling or expressing remorse or penitence; affected by guilt.
• Contrition: Feeling remorseful and penitent.
• Cooperative: Desire to work with others with an open, agreeable spirit for a common purpose or goal.
• Courageous or Courage: An emotional state that allows one the ability to act on one’s beliefs despite danger or disapproval.
• Crabby: Feeling easily irritated; grouchy.
• Cramped: Feeling confined; uncomfortably confined by lack of space.
• Cranky: The feeling of being easily annoyed; Ill-tempered; irritable; grouchy; cross.
• Crushed: Feeling overwhelmingly disappointed or embarrassed.
• Craving: An intense, urgent desire for some particular thing.
• Crazed or Crazy: Feeling mentally deranged; to be, or to become annoyed or angry.
• Curious or Curiosity: A strong desire or eagerness to know or learn something.
• Crestfallen: Feeling shame or humiliation; dejected.
• Cross: Feeling annoyed, irritated or angry.
• Crotchety: Feeling irritable; ill-tempered.
• Cruel: Feeling enjoyment at seeing the pain or distress of others; causing pain and suffering.
• Cyberchondria: An unfounded escalation of anxiety and concerns about “symptoms” of an “illness” fueled by Internet “research”.
• Cynical or Cynicism: A feeling of distrusting or disparaging the motives of others; pessimistic. 

D

•  Dadirri (Australian Aboriginal): A deep, spiritual feeling or act of reflective and respectful listening.
• Daring: Feeling adventurous courage.
• Dazed: The feeling of being unable to think clearly or act normally due to shock, bewilderment, fatigue or shock; to be stunned.
• Dazzled: To feel extremely impressed by someone’s skill, qualities or beauty.
• Dead or deadened: Incapable of being stirred emotionally or intellectually; feeling very tired, lacking power to move, feel or respond.
• Defeated: The feeling that accompanies an experience of being thwarted in attaining your goals; frustration by the nullification or prevention of success.
• Defiance or Defiant: A disposition to challenge, resist or fight; resisting to behave or conform to what is asked or expected; doing the opposite of what is expected; unwilling to accept criticism or disapproval.
• Dejected: Feeling low in spirits; depressed; miserable; unhappy.
• Delight or delighted: A feeling of extreme pleasure, excitement or satisfaction.
• Demoralized: The feeling of discouragement; to upset or weaken the morale of what is good or true or morally right.
• Dépaysement (French): The disorienting feeling of being an outsider.
• Dependent: Feeling the need to rely on others for aid, support or favor to succeed or survive.
• Depleted: The feeling of being exhausted; having reduced capacity.
• Depressed or Depression: The feeling of despondency, general unhappiness; without hope; a lack of agency and a loss of interest in activities.
• Desasosiego (Spanish): Feeling unrest; unease.
• Desire: A strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.
• Desolate: Devoid of cheer or comfort where there is a feeling of utter aloneness or lack of human contact.
• Despair or Despondent: The feeling of complete loss or absence of hope.
• Detached: The feeling of being separate or disconnected; aloof.
• Deterred: Feeling discouraged from doing something often because of doubt or fear of consequences.
• Determined: The feeling that you are going to do something and that you will not allow anyone or anything to stop you; feeling resolve.
• Devastated: Feeling overwhelmed by sadness; emotionally wrecked.
• Devious: To operate in a slick, cunning, deceptive, dishonest manner.
• Devotion: Feelings of ardent love, loyalty or enthusiasm for a person, activity or cause.
• Disappointed or Disappointment: A feeling of dissatisfaction caused by the nonfulfillment of one’s hopes or expectations.
• Disapproval: Feeling an unfavorable opinion; belief that someone or something is bad.
• Discombobulated: Feeling disconnected, unbalanced or forgetful.
• Disconcerted: Feeling perturbed, anxious, confused or embarrassed.
• Disconnected or Disconnection: A feeling of being separated, detached.
• Disconsolate: Dejected; hopelessly unhappy; cheerless.
• Discontent or Discontented: A longing for something better than the present situation; a lack of satisfaction or contentment.
• Discounted: Feeling less than; minimized; unappreciated.
• Discouraged: The feeling of despair or lack of confidence in the face of obstacles.
• Disdainful: Feeling someone or something is unworthy of one’s consideration or respect; contempt.
• Disenchanted: Feeling disappointed about someone or something you previously respected or admired; disillusionment.
• Disengaged: Feeling emotionally detached; lacking attention, engagement, focus or interest.
• Disgruntled: A feeling of being unhappy, annoyed or dissatisfied.
• Disgusted or Disgust: A feeling of revulsion or strong disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive.
• Disheartened: Feeling that one has lost hope, enthusiasm or courage; a loss of spirit.
• Disillusioned: Feeling disappointed in someone or something that one discovers to be less good than one had believed.
• Disinterested: Feeling or having no interest in something.
• Dislike: A feeling of distaste, aversion, disapproval or hostility.
• Dismal: Feeling devoid of cheer or comfort.
• Dismay or Dismayed: A sudden or complete loss of courage or resolution in the face of trouble, alarm or danger; overwhelming and disabling terror; sinking of the spirits.
• Dismissive: Feeling or showing that something is unworthy of consideration.
• Dispirited: To feel deprived of morale or enthusiasm.
• Displeased or Displeasure: A feeling of annoyance or disapproval.
• Dissatisfied: Feeling a lack of satisfaction; discontent.
• Distant: Feeling reserved, removed or aloof.
• Distaste: A feeling of intense dislike; an aversion to.
• Distracted or distraction: Feeling unable to concentrate or give attention to something.
• Distraught: A feeling of being very worried and upset; agitated with doubt, mental conflict or pain.
• Distress or Distressed: Great anxiety, strain, difficulties, sorrow, or pain.
• Distraught: A feeling of agitation with doubt or mental conflict or pain.
• Disturbed: Feeling upset, worried, unhappy or deep concern.
• Disquieted: A feeling of unease, anxiety.
• Dither: A highly nervous, excited or agitated state.
• Divided: Feeling torn; the experience of having conflicting interests, assessments, or states; disunited.
• Docile: Feeling submissive; quiet.
• Dogged: Feeling or showing tenacity and grim persistence.
• Dolce far niente (Italian): The pleasure of doing nothing.
• Doleful: Feeling full of grief; cheerless; sad.
• Done: Feeling doomed to failure, defeat or death; feeling physically exhausted.
• Down: Feeling unhappy; depressed; low in spirit; dejected.
• Downcast: Feeling despondent.
• Downhearted: Downcast; dejected.
• Down in the mouth: Sad or depressed.
• Doubt: A feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction.
• Drained: A feeling of exhaustion.
• Dread or dreadful: Fearful expectation or anticipation; an extreme reluctance to meet or face; trepidation.
• Dreary: Feeling discouragement resulting from sustained dullness or futility.
• Ducky: A feeling that everything is fine.
• Duende(Spanish): The mysterious power we feel when a work of art deeply moves us.
• Dull: Feeling mentally slow; uninteresting; lacking zest; listless.
• Dwaal (Africaans): A dreamy, dazes, or absent-minded state.
• Dyspeptic: Feeling indigestion or irritability.
• Dysphoric: Feeling very unhappy, uneasy, or dissatisfied.

E

• Eager or eagerness: Enthusiasm or impatience to do or to have something.
• Earnest: Feeling sincere and complete conviction; purposeful.
• Ebullient: Feeling cheerful and full of energy.
• Ecstatic or ecstasy: An overwhelming feeling of great happiness or joyful excitement.
• Easy-going: Relaxed and not easily upset or worried; relaxed and casual in manner.
• Edgy: A feeling of tension or irritability.
• Eilkrankheit (German): Feeling an overwhelming and continual sense of urgency.
• Ei viitsi (Estonian): The feeling of slight laziness, can’t be bothered by anything. A lack of desire to work or go anywhere.
• Elated or Elation: A feeling marked by high spirits; an exhilarating psychological state of pride and optimism; an absence of depression.
• Elegiac: The feeling or expression of sorrow often for something in the past.
• Elevated: Exhilarated in mood or feeling.
• Emasculated: To feel deprived of or shame around lacking virility, strength or vigor.
• Embarrassed or Embarrassment: A feeling of self-consciousness, shame, awkwardness and distress.
• Emboldened: A feeling of boldness, courage or resolution.
• Empathy: Understanding, being aware of and entering into another’s feelings, thoughts and experience.
• Empowered: The feeling that one has the knowledge, confidence, means, or ability to do things or make decisions for oneself.
• Empty: Feeling unfulfilled; feeling you or your life has a lack of purpose and meaning; inner desolation; an absence of joy or hope or satisfaction; a feeling like you’ve lost everything.
• Enamored: Feeling full of love or admiration for someone or something; besotted.
• Enchanted: Feeling delightfully pleased or charmed; feeling as if one has been placed under a spell.
• Encumbered: Feeling restricted or burdened.
• Encouraged: Feeling inspired with courage, spirit or hope to move forward.
• Energized or Energetic: Feeling vigor and robust capacity for forward movement.
• Engaged: A feeling of being deeply interested; emotional involvement or commitment.
• Engrossed: A focus and an engagement of one’s complete attention.
• Enjoyment: Feeling a happiness, pleasure or satisfaction from something.
• Enthralled or Enthrallment: A feeling of being spellbound; a feeling of great enchantment for something wonderful and unusual.
• Enthused, Enthusiastic or Enthusiasm: Intense and eager excitement, enjoyment, interest, or approval.
• Entranced: A feeling of being carried away with wonder, delight, rapture or enchantment.
• Enraged: Filled with rage and anger.
• Enrapt or Enraptured: A feeling of being wholly absorbed; transported; filled with delight.
• Envy or Envious: A painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage; a feeling of discontent or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck.
• Equanimity: A feeling of evenness of mind especially under stress.
• Eudaimonia (Greek): A sense of fulfillment and flourishing; a contented state of being happy, healthy and prosperous.
• Eunoia (Greek): Good, beautiful thinking; a well mind.
• Euphoric or Euphoria: A feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.
• Evighed (Danish): The felt eternity of the present moment.
• Exasperated or Exasperation: A feeling of intense irritation or annoyance.
• Excited or Excitement: A feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness; a heighted state of energy.
• Exhausted: Feeling completely or almost depleted of energy; extremely tired.
• Exhilarated: Feeling very happy and excited or elated.
• Exuberant: Feeling effusively and almost uninhibitedly enthusiastic.
• Exonerated: A feeling of being relieved of accusation, blame, responsibility, obligation or hardship.
• Expectant: A feeling of looking forward to something.
• Explosive: Feeling and showing powerful and sudden emotion.
• Exposed: Feeling unprotected; unsafe.
• Extroverted: Feeling enjoyment talking to and being with other people; seeking outward engagement with others.
• Exuberant: Feeling unrestrained joy and enthusiasm.

F 

• Fair: Feeling neutral – not bad, but not very good.
• Fascinated or Fascination: A feeling of being transfixed; spellbound; an intense interest in something.
• Fago (Ifaluk): A unique emotional concept that blurs the boundaries between compassion, sadness, and love. It is the pity felt for someone in need, which compels us to care for them, but it is also haunted by a strong sense that one day we will lose them.
• Famished: Feeling intensely hungry.
• Fatigue or Fatigued: Feeling weariness or exhaustion from labor, exertion or stress; a state or attitude of indifference or apathy brought on by overexposure.
• Fatalistic: Feeling futility; the feeling that no matter what one does, events are determined by an impersonal fate and cannot be changed by human beings.
• Fear or fearful: An unpleasant and often strong emotion that is caused by the anticipation or awareness of some real or imagined danger, pain, or harm. Note: Every fear and phobia are not listed here. If you are interested, Google “list of phobias.”
• Festive: Feeling joyful.
• Feierabend (German): The festive mood that arrives at the end of a working day.
• Fernweh (German): Feeling homesickness for the unknown; the call of ‘far away places.’
• Ferocity: Feeling fierce or ferocious.
• Fiero (Italian): Feeling pride or satisfaction in meeting a difficult challenge.
• Fidgety: Feeling restless; antsy.
• Fired up: Feeling overwhelming enthusiasm, anger or another strong emotion.
• Flummoxed: Feeling bewildered or perplexed.
• Flustered: Feeling agitated confusion.
• Foolish: Feeling unwise, stupid or not showing wise judgment.
• Forelsket (Norwegian): The indestructible euphoria experienced as you begin to fall in love.
• Fondness: Feeling a great liking, affection or love for someone or something.
• Forgiving: Feeling ready and willing to forgive.
• Forlorn: Feeling sad and lonely because of isolation or desertion.
• Fortunate: Feeling lucky; fortuitous.
• Formal feeling, a (coined by Emily Dickinson): The fragile emotional equilibrium that settles heavily over a survivor of recent trauma or profound grief.
• Fragile: Feeling delicate, frail; easily broken or destroyed.
• Fraud, feeling like a: A feeling that one is not what he or she pretends to be or is represented to be.
• Frazzled: An emotional state of extreme nervous fatigue or agitation.
• Free: Feeling uncontained, unbound, unrestricted or impeded; open; clear.
• Free-swinging: Feeling bold, forthright, and heedless of personal consequences.
• Fresh: Feeling full of or renewed in vigor.
• Friendly: Feeling and exhibiting kindly interest and goodwill toward others.
• Frightened or Fright: An emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight).
• Frustrated or Frustration: The feeling of being upset, discouraged, angry or annoyed as a result of being unable to change or achieve unfulfilled goals, desires or needs.
• Fulfilled: Feeling satisfaction and happiness; feeling that one’s abilities and talents are being fully used.
• Funny: Feeling out of sorts; not feel yourself; to have a strong premonition or belief in a particular future event.
• Fury or Furious: Intense, disordered and often destructive rage or violent anger.

G

• Gaiety: A festive merry feeling.
• Gay: Feeling happily excited; buoyant; cheerful.
• Geborgenheit (German): Feeling protected and completely safe from hard.
• Generous: Feeling a willingness to share money, help, kindness; feeling bountiful.
• Gezelligheid (Dutch): A particular feeling of coziness; both physical circumstances and an emotional state of feeling ‘held’ and comforted.
• Giddy: Feeling joyful elation.
• Gigil (Tagalog): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.
• Glad: Feeling pleased; delighted.
• Gladsome: Giving or showing joy; the feeling that comes when good things happen to people we’re fond of.
• Glee or gleeful: A feeling of great delight, especially from one’s own good fortune or another’s misfortune.
• Gloomy: Feeling low in spirits.
• Glum or Glumness: A gloomy ill-tempered feeling; a silent dispiritedness.
• Goya (Urdu): The feeling of being completely absorbed in a storyline due to fantastic storytelling. Sometimes the suspension of disbelief follows the reader into real life.
• Gratitude or grateful: Feeling thankfulness and appreciation.
• Gratified: Feeling satisfaction or pleased.
• Grace: A feeling and experience of being in God’s favor and having our burdens lifted from us from time to time.
• Graceless: Feeling that one lacks grace, charm, or elegance.
• Gracious: Feeling generosity of spirit; kind; courteous and compassionate.
• Grateful: The feeling of appreciation of benefits received.
• Greng Jai (Thai): The feeling of being reluctant to accept another’s offer of help because of the bother it would cause them.
• Great: The feeling that situations, events, your mental or physical state are considerably above average.
• Greedy: Feeling excessively or inordinately desirous of wealth, profit, etc.
• Grief or Grief-stricken: Intense sorrow, poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.
• Grim: Feeling gloomy; without hope.
• Grouchy: A feeling of crankiness; given to grumbling.
• Grumpy: Surly; Moodily cross.
• Grounded: Feeling mentally and emotionally stable; admirably sensible, realistic, and unpretentious.
• Guarded: Feeling cautious; circumspect.
• Guilty or Guilt: Remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offense.

H

• Han (Korean): A combination of hope and despair at the same time; the collective acceptance of suffering combined with the quiet yearning for things to be different, but combined with the very grim determination to see things through, even to the very bitter end.
• Hard headed: Feeling stubborn; willful.
• Harikoa (Marori): Feeling joyful, euphoric, delighted, thrilled, ecstatic.
• Happy or Happiness: State of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.
• Happy-go-lucky: A lighthearted mood; blithely unconcerned.
• Hardened: Feeling accustomed to dealing with a sad or bad situation and unlikely to change or feel sorry about it.
• Hard-nosed: Feeling realistic; tough-minded.
• Hatred or Hate: Intense dislike which could invoke feelings of animosity, anger or resentment.
• Headstrong: Feeling self-willed and obstinate.
• Heady: Feeling giddy, exhilarated.
• Heavy: In a sad or miserable state; unhappy; depressed.
• Heebie-Jeebies, the: A general feeling of anxiety, fear, uneasiness, or nausea.
• Heartbroken: A feeling of being overcome by sorrow.
• Heavy-hearted: Feeling despondent; glum.
• Heart-sick: Feeling very despondent; depressed.
• Heart sore: Feeling heartsick.
• Heimat (German): Deep-rooted fondness towards a place to which one has a strong feeling of belonging; hiraeth (Welsh).
• Helpless or Helplessness: A feeling of being unable to manage, to act or react; feeling powerlessness.
• Hesitant: Feeling the need to hold back from action (doing or saying something); feeling doubt or indecision.
• Hindered: Feeling delayed, interrupted, impeded, obstructed.
• Hoard, the urge to: Store valuables.
• Homesick: A feeling of longing for one’s home during a period of absence from it.
• Hopeful: Feeling full of hope.
• Hopeless or hopelessness: Feeling no expectation of good, or of success or improvement.
• Horror or Horrified: An intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust.
• Hostility: Feeling opposition or dislike; unfriendliness.
• Huff, in a: A state of irritation or annoyance.
• Humble or Humbled: Feeling modest or low estimate of one’s importance.
• Humiliated or Humiliation: Strong feelings of embarrassment.
• Hunger or Hungry: A feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.
• Hurt: The feeling of emotional pain or distress; psychological suffering.
• Hwyl (Welsh): A feeling of exuberance; full of joy and excitement.
• Hygge (Danish/Norwegian): Feeling a deep sense of place, warmth, friendship, and contentment.
• Hyperactive: Feeling more active than is desirable; feverish; overactive.
• Hysterical: Excessive or uncontrollable fear or excitement.

I

• Ignorant: Feeling a lack of knowledge or training; the experience of feeling uniformed.
• Ijirashii (Japanese): Arising when seeing someone praiseworthy overcome an obstacle.
• Ikigai (Japanese): The feeling that life is ‘good and meaningful’ and that it is ‘worthwhile to continue living’; reason for being.
• Iktsuarpok (Japanese):The feeling of anticipation while waiting for someone to arrive, often leading to intermittently going outside to check for them.
• Ilinx (coined by Roger Caillois): The “strange excitement” of wanton destruction; a sensation of spinning, falling, and losing control.
• Ill-tempered: Feeling irritable or grumpy.
• Impatient or Impatience: Feeling a lack of patience and easily annoyed; A restless desire for change and excitement; feeling short of temper especially under irritation, delay, or opposition.
• Immovable: Feeling rigid; rooted; moored; incapable of being influenced by feeling.
• Impeded: Feeling delayed or blocked in progress or movement.
• Implacable: Feeling unable to be placated; unappeasable.
• Impotent: Feeling helpless; lacking in power, strength, or vigor.
• Inadequate: Feeling not good enough, not worthy, insecure; inept.
• Incapable: A feeling of lacking capacity, ability, or qualification for the purpose or end in view.
• Inconsolable: Feeling incapable of being consoled.
• Indecision: Feeling the inability to make a decision quickly.
• Inconvincible: Holding rigidly to a position, opinion, purpose or course of action in spite of reason, arguments or persuasion.
• Indifferent or indifference: Feeling a lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.
• Indignation: Anger or annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment.
• Inebriated: Feeling drunk, exhilarated or confused by alcohol, or as if by alcohol.
• Infatuated or Infatuation: An intense but short-lived passion, interest or admiration for someone or something; strong and unreasonable attachment.
• Inflexible: Feeling unwilling to change or compromise.
• Inhibited: Feeling restraint; feeling discouraged from free or spontaneous activity especially through the operation of inner psychological or external social constraints.
• Incensed: Feeling extreme anger or indignation.
• Indignant: Feeling or showing anger because of something unjust or unworthy.
• Ingiogatzau (Sardinian): Being playfully happy; joyful joking and playfulness.
• Inquisitive: Feeling curious or inspiring.
• Insecure or Insecurity: Uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence.
• Inspired: The feeling that you want to do something and can do it.  The feeling of being aroused, animated or imbued with the spirit to do something, by or as if by supernatural or divine influence. The feeling that you want to do something and can do it.
• Insulted: A feeling of being disrespected or scorned because of a remark or an act.
• Interested or Interest: The feeling of wanting to know or learn about something or someone; engaged attention.
• Intractable: Feeling or being perceived as difficult or stubborn; not easily controlled or directed.
• Intransigent: Feeling an unwillingness to agree or compromise or change one’s view.
• Intoxicated: Feeling emotionally excited, elated or exhilarated (as by great joy or extreme pleasure).
• Intrigued: Having one’s interest, desire, or curiosity strongly aroused.
• Introverted: Feeling subdued, quiet, reserved; not feeling a need to seek out special attention or social engagements.
• Invigorated: Feeling full of vitality, vigor, excitement and energy; refreshed; animated.
• Involved: Feeling part of something, associated with.
• Irascible: Easily angered or irritated.
• Irate: Feeling great anger; enraged.
• Irked: Feeling annoyed; irritated.
• Iron-willed: Feeling determined on a course of action.
• Irritated, Irritation or Irritable: The state of feeling annoyed, impatient, or slightly angry.
• Irrational: Feelings or thoughts not based on logical reasoning or clear thinking.
• Isolated or Isolation: Feeling apart from others; feeling remote; having minimum contact or little in common with others.
• Insulted: Feeling demeaned or affronted.

J

• Jaded: Feeling dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by having seen too much of something; feeling fatigued by overwork.
• Jealous or Jealousy: Feeling an envious resentment or hostility towards someone believed to enjoy an advantage (i.e.; envious resentment of their achievements, possessions, etc.).
• Jittery: A feeling of nervous excitability; feeling shaky, high-strung; spasmodic.
• Jocular: Feeling cheerful, being humorous or playful.
• Joie de vivre (French): Feeling a joy for living, a joy for life; ebullience; zest for life.
• Jolly or Jolliness: Feeling full of high spirits; joyous.
• Joviality: Feeling jolly, full of good-humored cheerfulness and conviviality.
• Joy or Joyful: A feeling of great pleasure and happiness.
• Jubilant or Jubilation: A feeling of great happiness, joy and triumph; rejoicing.
• Judgmental: Feeling quick to judge or have opinions often with a grounded assessment.
• Judged: Feeling that a critical opinion or conclusion has been made about you.

K

• Kaifas (Lithuanian): The sensation of massive relief for having completed something significant and then being duly rewarded with something amazing; suaimhneas croi (Gaelic).
• Kaukokaipuu (Finnish): The craving for a distant land; the desperate yearning to be somewhere you’ve never even visited, or the desire to be anywhere but where you are right now.
• Keen: Feeling very interested, eager or wanting to do something very much.
• Ker (Ifaluk): Pleasant surprise
• Kvell: (Yiddish) Feeling happy or proud.
• Kind or Kindly: Feeling benevolent, helpful, considerate; feeling thoughtful and acting in a helpful manner.
• Kind-hearted: Feeling or showing kindness, generosity, sympathy.
• Kilig (Tagalog): The feelings of butterflies in your stomach, usually when something romantic or cute takes place.
• Kind or kindness: Benevolent nature; considerate; or helpful.
• Knackered (British): Feeling tired; exhausted.
• Koi No Yokan (Japanese): The feeling on meeting someone that falling in love will be inevitable.
• Kuebiko (Japanese): A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.

L

• Lackluster: Lacking in vitality, force or conviction; uninspired or uninspiring.
• Laid back: Feeling relaxed and easy-going.
• Lazy: Feeling a disclination towards activity or exertion.
• Lagom (Swedish): A sense of moderation, of doing anything to just the right degree.
• L’appel du vide (French, “the call of the void”): The feeling of walking along a high cliff and being gripped by the urge to leap or the itch to fling yourself in front of an oncoming train.
• Leery: Feeling suspicious, wary.
• Lethargic: Feeling lazy, lacking energy; feeling unwilling or unable to do anything.
• Liget (coined by Ilongot people): Aroused by situations of grief but closely related to anger.
• Liking: A feeling of regard or fondness.
• Lighthearted: A feeling of being free from care, anxiety, or seriousness; happy-go-lucky; cheerfully optimistic and hopeful.
• Listless or Listlessness: A feeling of lack of interest or energy.
• Litost (Czech): A state of agony and torment caused by a sudden sight of one’s misery.
• Lively: Feeling full of energy and vigor; active and outgoing.
• Livid: Furiously angry.
• Loathing: A feeling of intense dislike or disgust; hatred or abhorrence.
• Logy: Feeling sluggish; groggy.
• Lonely or Loneliness: Sadness or unhappiness because one is without friends or company; a depressing feeling of being alone; destitute of sympathetic or friendly companionship.
• Longing: A strong desire especially for something unattainable.
• Lost: A disposition and awareness that we don’t know which way to go; feeling we have an absence of knowledge needed in order to “get there.
• Love, Loved or Loving: A strong positive emotion of affection and regard.
• Low: Feeling depressed or lacking energy.
• Low-spirited: Feeling unhappy and having little hope; Feeling blue, dispirited.
• Lucky: Feeling blessed with good fortune.
• Lull: Feeling soothed, calm.
• Luckless: Feeling that one has a lot of bad luck.
• Lust: Intense or unbridled sexual desire.
• Lykke (Danish): The feeling of everything is perfect in life.

M

• Mad: Feeling angry or annoyed; feeling mentally disturbed.
• Makarious (Greek): Feeling blessed, happy.
• Malu (Dusun Baguk people of Indonesia): The feeling of being flustered in the presence of someone we hold in high esteem.
• Man (Hindi): A visceral yearning backed up by the recognition that what we desire reflects our innermost self.
• Masterful: The feeling and inclination that one has the competence to act as a master in a particular domain.
• Matutolypea: Waking up in a bad mood; ill-humor in the morning; getting up on the wrong side of the bed.
• Mean: Feeling stingy, ungenerous, unkind, unfair or rude.
• Meek: Feeling deficient in spirit and courage; enduring injury with patience and without resentment.
• Mehameha (Tahitian): Fear associated with the uncanny sensation experienced in the presence of spirits, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena.
• Melancholy: A feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.
• Mercurial: Sudden and unpredictable changes of mood or mind.
• Malevolent: Feeling or showing ill-will, spite or hatred.
• Manic: Feeling an elevated, expansive or unusually irritable mood state; great excitement, euphoria, delusions, and overactivity.
• Manipulated: Feeling emotionally controlled, influenced or treated in an unfair manner.
• Manipulative: Feeling the need to influence or control the behavior or emotions of others for one’s own purposes.
• Mellow: Feeling relaxed, calm, pleasant.
• Melodramatic: Feeling and expressing exaggerated, sensationalized, or overly sentimental emotions.
• Merry: Feeling full of gaiety or high spirits.
• Midding (new): Feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it – hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, chatting outside a party while others dance inside. (Coined by John Koenig)
• Miffed: Feeling somewhat annoyed; peeved.
• Míng mù (Chinese): The sense that one has lived well; dying without regret.
• Mirthful: Feeling gladness or gaiety as shown by or accompanied with laughter.
• Mischievous: Feeling maliciously or playfully annoying.
• Miserable or Misery: A feeling of being wretchedly unhappy or uncomfortable; great distress or discomfort.
• Mistrustful: Feeling suspicious; having a general lack of trust or confidence sometimes based on instinct; lacking confidence.
• Misunderstood: Feeling incorrectly interpreted or understood.
• Mono no aware (Japanese): An empathy towards impermanence of things and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
• Modest: Feeling unassuming or moderate in the estimation of one’s abilities or achievements; reserved in behavior.
• Mopey: Feeling depressed, in low spirits; lackadaisical.
• Moody: Frequent and unpredictable changes of moods and feelings; sudden bouts of gloominess or sullenness.
• Morbid: An abnormally gloomy or unhealthy state of mind.
• Morbidly curious: Curiosity focused on objects of death, violence, or any other event that may cause harm physically or emotionally.
• Morbid: An abnormally gloomy or unhealthy state of mind.
• Morose: Feeling sullen and ill-tempered.
• Mortified or Mortification: Feeling or showing strong shame or embarrassment.
• Mournful: Feeling full of sorrow; sad.
• Mousy: Feeling timid, nervous or shy; lacking in presence.
• Moved: Strong feelings of sadness or sympathy, because of something someone has said or done; touched; emotionally affected.
• Muditā (Sanskrit): Taking delight in the happiness of others, vicarious joy; opposite of schadenfreude.
• Mulish: Feeling unreasonably and inflexibly obstinate.
• Mystified: Feeling utterly bewildered or perplexed.

N

• Naches (Yiddish): Joyful pride or delight seen in someone else’s successes.
• Naïve: Feeling or showing a lack of experience, wisdom, judgment, sophistication or street smarts.
• Nasty: Having a ‘nasty feeling’ is to feel certain something bad is happening; predict; forecast; premonition.
• Naughty: Feeling disobedient, mildly rude or indecent.
• Naz (Urdu): The pride one feels in knowing that the other’s love is unconditional and unshakable.
• Needy or Neediness: Feeling an above average need for attention, affection or emotional support.
• Needed: Feeling wanted or necessary.
• Neglected or Neglectful: The feeling of not getting proper attention; disregarded.
• Nervous or Nervousness: The anxious feeling you have when you have the jitters; agitated or alarmed.
• Nervy: Feeling or showing calm courage; bold; brash.
• Nginyiwarrarringu (from Pintupi Aborigines of the Western Australian Desert): A sudden fear that leads one to stand up to see what caused it.
• Nice: Feeling pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory.
• Nirvana (Sanskrit): An ‘ultimate’ form of happiness, total liberation from suffering.
• Njuta (Swedish): To enjoy deeply, to profoundly appreciate.
• Nonchalant: Feeling or appearing indifferent, coolly unconcerned or unexcited; causal.
• Nonplussed: Feeling nonchalant; unimpressed. Or, feeling surprised, confused, and not certain how to react.
• Nostalgic or Nostalgia: A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.
• Numb: Deprived of feeling or responsiveness; unable to think, feel, or react normally because of something that shocks or upsets you; indifferent.

O

• Oime (Japanese): The intense discomfort of being indebted.
• Obedient: Feeling a willingness to comply with orders and requests; submissive to another’s will.
• Obdurate: Feeling resistant to persuasion or softening influences.
• Objection or Objected: To feel or express disapproval, dislike or opposition.
• Obligated: Feeling you owe something to someone because you are grateful for what they have done for you.
• Obsessive or Obsessed: The feeling of preoccupation; haunted persistently by some thoughts, feelings or desires.
• Obstinate: Feeling stubborn and refusing to change one’s opinion or choose a course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so.
• Obstructed: Feeling blocked or hindered.
• Offended: Feeling hurt, angry or upset by something said or done.
• Offensive: Feeling or acting in a manner than is actively aggressive, attacking, or assaultive.
• On edge: Feeling anxious or nervous.
• Open: Feeling accessible, vulnerable, without reserve or pretense; feeling comfortable to talk more about yourself and your feelings.
• Open-hearted: Showing or motivated by sympathy and understanding and generosity; benevolence.
• Open-minded: Feeling willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced.
• Onism: (new) The awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience. (Coined by John Koenig)
• Optimistic or Optimism: Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.
• Orka (Swedish): To be exhausted to the point of not wanting to do something, even something enjoyable.
• Ornery: Feeling combative; bad-tempered; grouchy.
• Outgoing: Feeling friendly and socially confident.
• Outraged or Outrage: An extremely strong reaction of resentment, anger, shock, or indignation aroused by something perceived as an injury, insult or injustice.
• Overcome: Feeling overwhelmed with an emotion.
• Overjoyed: Feeling extremely happy.
• Overloaded: Feeling overburdened with excessive amounts of work, responsibility or information.
• Overpowered: The feeling of being overcome or overwhelmed; feeling defeated by someone with greater power.
• Overstimulated: Feeling excessive stimulation; pleasure that is experienced as unbearable or uncomfortable.
• Overwhelm or Overwhelmed: Strong emotional effect from overpowering feelings.

P

• Pain or pained: Mental or physical suffering or discomfort.
• Panicked, Panicky or Panic: An overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety.
• Patient: The emotional capacity to accept or tolerate delays, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.
• Paralyzed: The inability to think or act normally, especially through panic or fear.
• Paranoia: The irrational and persistent feeling that people are ‘out to get you’ or harm you.
• Paro (new): The feeling that no matter what you do is always something wrong – as if there’s an obvious way forward that everyone else can see but you. (Coined by John Koenig)
• Passion or Passionate: A strong and barely controllable emotion; a feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something.
• Passive: Feeling acceptance or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance.
• Pathetic: Causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sorrow; feeling weak and helpless; a maximum state of misery.
• Peaceful: Feeling free from disturbance; tranquil; serene.
• Peckish (British): Hungry.
• Peeved: Feeling angry; irritated.
• Pensive: Engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought.
• Persistence: Ability to stick with something, especially in spite of opposition, obstacles, discouragement.
• Penitence: Feeling sadness and sorrow coupled with humble realization of and regret for one’s misdeeds.
• Perplexed: Feeling completely baffled; very puzzled.
• Pertinacious: Feeling tenacious to hold onto a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute, obstinate.
• Perturbed: Feeling anxiety or concern; unsettled; a disquieted mind.
• Perverse or Perversity: A deliberate desire to behave in an unreasonable or unacceptable way.
• Pessimistic or Pessimism: The feeling that things will turn out badly.
• Petulant: Feeling annoyed and behaving in an unreasonable way because you cannot get what you want.
• Petrified: Feeling so frightened that you feel unable to move; terrified.
• Philoprogenitive: Feeling love towards one’s offspring.
• Pig-headed: The lack of capacity to change very strong opinions; stupidly obstinate; stubborn.
• Pining: Feeling an emotional or physical decline, especially because of a broken heart.
• Pique, a fit of: A feeling of irritation or resentment resulting from a slight, especially to one’s pride.
• Pissed: Feeling very angry or annoyed.
• Pity: The feeling of sorrow and compassion caused by the sufferings and misfortunes of others.
• Placid: Even-tempered; unruffled; tranquil; pleasantly calm or peaceful.
• Played out: Feeling worn out or used up; spent.
• Playful: Feeling lighthearted; wanting to have fun and not feeling serious.
• Pleased: Feeling happy or satisfied; content; delighted.
• Pleasure: Feeling happy satisfaction and enjoyment.
• Pooped: Feeling exhausted; tired.
• Postal, going: Becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of violence.
• Pouty: The feeling or the expression of displeasure.
• Powerful: Feeling connected with your strengths and capabilities, and trusting them to see you through a situation.
• Powerless: Feeling unable to control or influence events.
• Preoccupied: A feeling of being engrossed in thought, distracted.
• Present: Feeling deeply connected to the ‘here and now,’ not thinking about the past or future; experiencing the time that is associated with the events perceived directly, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain).
• Pressured: Feeling coerced or persuaded into doing something.
• Pride or Proud: A feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of one’s close associates, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
• Pronoia: Feeling that the world around you conspires to do you good; opposite of paranoia.
• Prostor (Russian): A desire for spaciousness, roaming free in limitless expanses, not only physically, but creatively and spiritually.
• Proud: Feeling great self-respect or dignity; feeling deep pleasure or satisfaction as a result of one’s own achievements, qualities, or possessions or those of someone with whom one is closely associated.
• Provoked: To feel stirred up, aroused; an attempt to deliberately to stir an emotion in another; anything that brings about a strong reaction.
• Pushy: Feeling extremely determined to get what you want, even if it annoys other people.
• Puzzled: Feeling unable to understand; perplexed; at a loss.

Q

• Qualunquisimo (Italian): An attitude of apathy, indifference or disgust towards politics.
• Quarrelsome: The feeling or inclination to argue, quarrel, pick a fight.
• Queasy: Feeling sick; nauseated.
• Querulous: Complaining in a petulant or whining manner.
• Questioned: Feeling contested, examined, investigated.
• Quiet: Feeling an absence of noise or bustle; calm; silent; still.
• Quirky: An enduring and distinct feeling of differentness from others; eccentricity.

R

• Radiant: Feeling so happy that happiness shows on one’s face; glowing; having outward signs of good feelings (such as love, confidence, happiness.)
• Rage: Feeling violent uncontrollable anger.
• Rapturous or Rapture: A feeling of intense pleasure or joy; a state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion.
• Rational: Feeling agreeable to reason; using sound judgment.
• Rattled: Feeling confused, upset, frustrated or shocked; usually happens when a person did not expect or believe what happened.
• Razbliuto (Russian): The empty sentiments you feel for someone whom you loved but no longer do.
• Reasonable: Feeling that you used good, sound judgment and were fair in your determination; well-grounded.
• Reassured: Feeling comforted, having doubts removed.
• Rebellious: Feeling the need to defy or resist some established authority, government or tradition; insubordinate; inclined to rebel.
• Reflective: Thinking deeply about situations and life events.
• Regret or Regretful: A feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has done or failed to do.
• Rejected, Rejection: Feeling the spurning of a person’s affections; the experience or feeling that you are not good enough or worthy of one’s attention.
• Rejuvenated: Feeling young or youthful again; feeling restored, vitalized and invigorated.
• Relaxed: A feeling of refreshing tranquility and an absence of tension or worry.
• Relief or Relieved: A feeling of reassurance and relaxation following release from anxiety or distress.
• Reluctant or Reluctance: Unwillingness or disinclination to do something.
• Remorse or Remorseful: A feeling of deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed.
• Removed: Feeling disconnected or detached from one’s self.
• Renewed: Feeling restored; replenished.
• Repentance: Feeling regret for wrong doing.
• Reproachful: Feeling or expressing disapproval or disappointment with disgrace or shame.
• Repugnance: Feeling intense disgust.
• Repulsed: Feeling strong dislike, disapproval or disgust.
• Resentful or Resentment: A feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will.
• Reserved: Feeling and showing constraint with one’s thoughts and feelings.
• Resigned: The feeling that something you do not like or want to happen will happen because you cannot change it.
• Resistant or Resistance: The act of fighting against something or refusing to accept something; fearing or avoiding change or what is new, uncomfortable or unpredictable.
• Resolute: Feeling determined in character, action or ideas.
• Rested: Feeling healthy, rejuvenated or full of energy again because you had a rest.
• Restless: Feeling mental unrest; unwilling or unable to stay still or to be quiet or calm, because you are feeling worried or bored.
• Restored: Feeling strong, happy full of energy or happy again.
• Revived: Feeling emotionally invigorated, awakened, alive again; the restoration of energy.
• Revulsion: Feeling a sudden or strong reaction or need to pull away or draw away.
• Retrouvailles (French): The happiness you feel upon reuniting with someone after you have been apart for a long time.
• Ringxiety (coined by David Laramie): The phantom feeling of a phone call in one’s pocket. Any moment of ringxiety is immediately followed by a sort of minor shame and embarrassment as you put your phone back in your pocket.
• Road rage: Aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by a driver of a road vehicle, which includes rude and offensive gestures, verbal insults, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted toward another driver or a pedestrian in an effort to intimidate or release frustration.
• Rock-ribbed: Feeling resolute or uncompromising, especially with respect to political allegiance.
• Romance: A feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
• Roused: A stirring or feeling of excitement.
• Ruinenlust (German): The feeling of being irresistibly drawn to crumbling buildings and abandoned places.
• Rus (Ifaluk): Unpleasant surprise.

S

• Sad or Sadness: An emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow.
• Safe: Feeling free from harm or hurt; feeling internally relaxed with a person having neither to weigh thoughts or measure words.
• Sanguine: Feeling optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation.
• Sarcastic: Using irony in order to mock, convey contempt or hurt someone’s feelings.
• Sardonic: Disdainfully or skeptically humorous; acerbic.
• Sassy: Feeling cocky boldness or disregard of others; audacious.
• Saucy: Feeling bold, impudent, forward, or flippant.
• Sati (Sanskrit): Mindfulness/awareness of the present moment.
• Satisfied or Satisfaction: The contentment one feels when one has fulfilled a desire, need, or expectation.
• Saudade (Portuguese): A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves; dor (Romanian); natsukashii (Japanese).
• Scared: Feeling fear, fright or panic.
• Schadenfreude (German): Pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another.
• Secure: Not doubting or being worried about yourself and your personal relationships; feeling free from danger or threat; feeling confident and assured in one’s opinion or expectation.
• Sehnsucht (German): life longings; an intense desire for alternative states and realizations of life.
• Seijaku (Japanese): Feeling quiet tranquility; silence; calm, serenity.
• Self-assured: Feeling confident in one’s abilities or character.
• Self-congratulatory: Feeling unduly complacent and proud regarding one’s personal achievements or qualities; self-satisfied.
• Self-conscious: Feeling undue awareness of oneself, one’s appearance, or one’s actions.
• Self-loving: Feeling an appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue.
• Self-pity: Excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s own troubles.
• Self-satisfied: Feeling or showing self-satisfaction.
• Self-willed: Inflexible to yielding to the will of others; obstinate.
• Sensitive: Easily hurt emotionally; thin-skinned.
• Sentimentality: Exaggerated and self-indulgent tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia.
• Serene or serenity: Feeling utter calm and unruffled repose or quietude.
• Serious or seriousness: Calm intent; being thoughtful or subdued in appearance or manner; not joking, being earnest.
• Scared: Feeling fear, apprehension, nervousness or panic.
• Scorn or scornful: Feeling open disrespect for someone or something; disrespect coupled with intense feelings of dislike.
• Shackled: Feeling thwarted or prevented from doing something you want to do.
• Shaky or Shaken: Feeling upset; feeling unsteady or taken aback.
• Shame: A painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
• Shock or Shocked: The feeling of distress and disbelief that you have when something bad happens accidentally.
• Shut down: A self-defense/self-preservation mechanism when one is overwhelmed or feel threatened or triggered and they compensate by going into autopilot or survivor mode.
• Shy: Being reserved or having or showing nervousness or timidity in the company of other people; fear of being embarrassment.
• Silly: Feeling foolish, playful or childish; embarrassed; afraid that people will laugh at you; showing little thought or judgment.
• Sincere: A feeling, belief, or statement that is honest and true based on what you feel and believe; genuine.
• Sisu (Finnish): An extraordinary determination in the face of adversity.
• Skeptical: Feeling doubt that something is true or useful.
• Sleepy: Feeling tired, struggling to go to sleep; drowsy, lethargic.
• Smug or Smugness: Excessive pride in oneself or one’s achievements.
• Sociable: Feeling gregarious, friendly and seeking others to engage in conversation.
• Song (coined by Ifaluk people, Micronesia): Close to anger, or admonition, with moralistic overtones and no disposition to revenge.
• Sore: Feeling angry; irked. Feeling a source of pain or vexation.
• Sorry, Sorrow or sorrowful: A feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others.
• Startled: Feeling a quick scare, alarm or surprise.
• Spellbound: Feeling so impressed by something that you do not pay attention to anything else; to have your attention captured by something, captured so strongly it feels like a spell.
• Spent: Feeling drained of energy or effectiveness; used up; consumed.
• Spite or spiteful: A desire to hurt, annoy, or offend someone; feeling a need to see others suffer.
• Spooked: The feeling that occurs when one has been startled and as a result frightened or frantic.
• Startled: To become alarmed, frightened, or surprised.
• Stiff-necked: Feeling stubborn, haughty.
• Still: Feeling deep silence and calm.
• Stimulated: Feeling interested to learn new things; the act of arousing.
• Stingy: Feeling unwilling to share, give or spend possessions or money.
• Stoic: Feeling capacity to endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.
• Stress or Stressed or Stressed Out: A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.
• Strong: Feeling steady, not easily upset; resilient.
• Stubborn: Feeling adamant, unreasonably or perversely unyielding; resolute.
• Subdued: Feeling quiet and rather reflective or depressed.
• Suffering: The state of ongoing emotional or physical pain, distress or hardship.
• Sukha (Sanskrit): ‘Genuine’ happiness; not referring to positive feelings that one ‘happens’ to experience, but is a state of flourishing rooted in ethical and spiritual maturation.
• Sulkiness: A sullen moody resentful disposition.
• Sullen: A forbidding or disagreeable mood; a refusal to be social.
• Submissive or Submission: Inclined or ready to yield to the authority of another; unresistingly obedient.
• Surly: Feeling irritably sullen and churlish in mood or manner.
• Surprise or Surprised: The astonishment you feel when something totally unexpected happens to you.
• Suspicious or Suspicion: A feeling of cautious distrust.
• Sympathetic or Sympathy: Feelings of sorrow or pity for someone else’s misfortune.

T

• Tarab (Arabic): Musically induced ecstasy or enchantment.
• Tartle (Scottish): The anxiousness occurring before you have to greet or speak to someone whose name you can’t quite remember.
• Teary or tearful: Having tears in the eyes from emotion; crying or feeling the inclination to cry.
• Technostress: Stress caused by working with computer technology on a daily basis.
• Temperamental: Liable to unreasonable changes in mood; mercurial.
• Tender: Feeling fragile, sensitive, ‘thin-skinned’ or easily injured; showing gentleness and concern or sympathy.
• Tenderness: Feeling gentleness or kindness.
• Tense or Tension: A state of mental or emotional strain or suspense.
• Terrified or Terror: An overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety.
• Textpectation: The anticipation felt when waiting for a response to a text.
• Thankful: Feeling pleased and relieved; expressing gratitude and relief.
• Thin-skinned: Sensitive to criticism and insults.
• Threatened or threatening: Feeling that someone may do or say something unpleasant and unwanted, especially to intimidate you to act in a manner that is desired for that individual. Thrilled or Thrill: A sudden feeling of excitement and pleasure.
• Tickled: Feeling amused, delighted, pleased.
• Tight: Feeling tension in the face or body; not loose.
• Timid or Timidity: Feeling a lack of courage or self-confidence; lacking in boldness or determination.
• Tired: Drained of energy; depleted; fatigued, often to the point of exhaustion.
• Tiresome: The feeling state of weariness; tedium.
• Tivoglio bene (Italian): The attachment for family, friends, and animals.
• Tolerance, tolerant: Feeling sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own; capacity to endure pain or hardship; endurance.
• Torment or Tormented: A feeling of extreme pain or anguish of body or mind; feeling agony.
• Torn: Feeling unable to choose between two possibilities. Feeling upset or distressed or a situation that is difficult.
• Torschlusspanik (German): The agitated, fretful feeling we get when we notice time is running out.
• Toska (Russian): A longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness.
• Touched: Feeling gratitude or sympathy; moved.
• Tranquil: Feeling free from disturbance; calm.
• Trapped: Feeling a lack of ability or freedom to escape from an unpleasant situation.
• Triumph or Triumphant: A state of joy or exultation at success.
• Troubled: Feeling distress, concern, worry about a situation or decision.
• Truculent: Eager or quick to argue; aggressively defiant.
• Trust, Trusted or Trusting: Feeling confident in the honesty or integrity of a person or a thing; a belief that someone is being truthful.
• Trustworthy: Feeling you can believe in someone or something;  dependable; reliable.
• Turbulent: Feeling agitated, chaotic, disordered characterized by conflict.
• Turmoil: A state of extreme confusion, agitation or commotion; feeling deeply unsettled.

U

• Ukiyo (Japanese): A sense of living in the moments of fleeting beauty, detached from the pains of life.
• Unaccommodating: Not in harmony with the wishes and demands of others; unhelpful.
• Unadventurous: Feeling a lack of interest in an adventure or in exploring.
• Unafraid: Feeling no fear or anxiety.
• Unappreciated: The feeling of not being understood, recognized or valued.
• Uncertain: Not completely confident or sure of something; feeling doubt.
• Uncomfortable: Feeling unease or awkwardness.
• Uncompromising: Inflexible; unyielding attitude to a situation or person.
• Uncooperative: Feeling unwilling to help others or do what they ask.
• Unconstricted: Feeling free, loose, unencumbered or uninhibited.
• Undecided: Feeling unable to make a decision; uncommitted.
• Uneasy: Feeling anxiety, uncomfortable.
• Unenterprising: Not feeling bold or venturesome.
• Unencumbered: Feeling free of encumbrance.
• Ungrounded: Feeling spaced-out, light-headed, unable to focus or dizzy.
• Unhappy or Unhappiness: Feeling sad, miserable, unsatisfied, discontented.
• Unimpressed: Feeling no admiration, interest, or respect.
• Uninterested: Feeling a lack of interest, involvement or engagement.
• Unnerved: Feeling deprived of courage, strength, or steadiness; to feel nervous.
• Unrelenting: Feeling extremely determined; never becoming weaker or admitting defeat.
• Unruffled: Feeling poised and serene especially in the face of setbacks or confusion.
• Unsettled: Feeling nervous and worried; feeling a lack of stability, directionless or purposeless.
• Unsteady: Not feeling stable, calm.
• Unsure: Feeling uncertain of yourself or something.
• Unyielding: Feeling resolute, firm or inflexible; unlikely to be swayed.
• Uplifted: Feeling morally or spiritually elevated; inspiring hope or happiness.
• Upset: A state of being unhappy, angry, disappointed or worried.
• Useless: Feeling you have no purpose, capability or capacity to be of value.

V

• Vacant: Feeling devoid of interest, thought or reflection.
• Valiant: Feeling very brave or determines, especially when things are difficult; showing courage or determination.
• Validated: Feeling heard, understood.
• Vain: Excessively proud of one’s appearance, achievements.
• Valued or Valuable: Feeling important, cherished, or prized.
• Vengeful or Vengefulness: A malevolent desire for revenge.
• Verklempt (Yiddish): Feeling overcome with emotion.
• Vergüenza ajena (Spanish): A sense of shame on behalf of another person, even though that person may not be experiencing shame themselves; fremdschämen (German); myötähäpeä (Finnish); bixomets (Catalan).
• Vermodalen: (new) The fear that everything has already been done. (Coined by John Koenig)
• Vexed: Feeling annoyed, irritated, or provoked.
• Vibrant: Feeling full of energy and enthusiasm.
• Victimized: Seeing ourselves as powerless in a situation were we actually have resources and options to do more than we are doing; seeing ourselves as innocent parties on the receiving end of someone else’s misbehavior without recognizing our contribution to the struggle we are engaged in.
• Victorious: Feeling triumphant; conquering.
• Vigilant: Feeling alert, watchful in order to avoid danger or problems.
• Vigorous: Feeling strong, healthy, robust, and full of energy.
• Vitalized: Feeling endowed with vigor and energy.
• Vindictive: Feeling a strong and unreasoning desire for revenge.
• Viraag (Hindi): The emotional pain of being separated from a loved one.
• Virtuous: Feeling that you have done what you are saying that a person is living according to high moral standards.
• Vivacious: Feeling lively in spirit, temper or energy.
• Volatile: Quickly becoming angry or violent.
• Voorpret (Dutch): Pre-fun, the sense of enjoyment felt before a party or event takes place; vorfreude (German).
• Vulnerable or Vulnerability:

W

• Wabi-sabi (Japanese): A state of acceptance of the imperfections in life and appreciating them as beautiful. Appreciating the flow of life.
• Waldeiensamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods and a connectedness to nature; friluftsliv (Norwegian); shinrin-yoku (Japanese).
• Wanderlust: Feeling a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.
• Wary: Feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems.
• Warm or warm glow: Altruistic pleasure.
• Washed out: Feeling depleted in vigor or animation; exhausted.
• Waspish: Feeling easily irritable or crappy.
• Wasted: Feeling extremely intoxicated from alcohol or drugs.
• Watchful: Feeling vigilant, wakeful and alert.
• Weak: Feeling feeble, frail, not strong enough physically or emotionally.
• Weary or Weariness: Feeling or showing tiredness, especially as a result of excessive exertion or lack of sleep.
• Weepy: Feeling tearful; inclined to weep.
• Weltschmerz (German): The resigned feeling you get when life cannot satisfy you.
• Whimsical: Exhibition of sudden, impulsive erratic or unpredictable behavior; lightly fanciful.
• Whole: Feeling mentally and emotionally sound.
• Willful: Feeling determined intention to do what one wants, regardless of the consequences or effects.
• Wiped out: Feeling extremely tired; exhausted.
• Wise: A feeling of being informed, experienced, knowledgeable or showing sound judgment.
• Withdrawn: Feeling socially detached and unresponsive; not wanting to communicate with other people.
• Witty: Feeling clever and funny; making funny quips at the top of your head.
• Wistful: Feeling vague or regretful longing.
• Woe or Woeful: Feeling full of grief or misery.
• Wonder: A feeling of amazement and admiration, caused by something beautiful, remarkable, or unfamiliar
• Worn out: Feeling extremely tired; exhausted.
• Worried or Worry: The state of being anxious and troubled over actual or potential problems.
• Worthy: Feeling one has worth, value, merit.
• Worthless: Feeling that one has no worth, value, importance.
• Wrath or wrathful: Extreme anger.
• Wretched: Suffering greatly; Very unhappy or unfortunate.

Y

• Yaqin (Arabic): Certitude and freedom from doubt.
• Yearning: A feeling state of intense longing for something.
• Yielding: A feeling state of being willing to do what other people want you to do.
• Yūgen (Japanese): A feeling of being moved to one’s core by the impenetrable depths of existence.

Z

• Zanshin (Japanese): A state of mental alertness.
• Zany: Feeling goofy, wacky and clownish.
• Zeal or zealous: Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective; strong eagerness.
• Zest or Zestful: Eagerness, dedication, interest and enthusiasm for pursuing something.

Somatic List of Feelings, Emotions, and Moods

• Achy
• Blocked
• Breathless
• Bruised
• Burning
• Buzzy
• Clammy
• Clenched
• Cold
• Constricted
• Contained
• Contracted
• Dizzy
• Drained
• Dull
• Electric
• Empty
• Expanded
• Flowing
• Fluid
• Fluttery
• Frozen
• Full
• Gentle
• Groggy
• Hard
• Heavy
• Hollow
• Hot
• Icy
• Itchy
• Jittery
• Jumpy
• Knotted
• Light
• Logy
• Loose
• Nauseous
• Numb
• Pain
• Pounding
• Prickly
• Pulsing
• Queasy
• Radiating
• Relaxed
• Releasing
• Rigid
• Sensitive
• Settled
• Shaky
• Shivery
• Slow
• Sluggish
• Smooth
• Soft
• Sore
• Spacey
• Spacious
• Sparkly
• Stiff
• Still
• Suffocated
• Sweaty
• Tender
• Tense
• Throbbing
• Tight
• Tingling
• Twitchy
• Vibrating
• Warm
• Wobbly
• Wooden

Congratulations! You made it to the end of the list. I hope you found this helpful.

Want a printable PDF version so you can easily reference? Download now. 

Download the List

Feelings of worthlessness can come at any time in your life, but if you are suddenly feeling like you can’t do anything right or that you aren’t worthy of the things you have in your life, you might be wondering what has happened to your self-confidence.

You are not alone. Feelings of unworthiness can be triggered at any time, especially during your development years.

What’s even more possible is that if you are struggling with your self-confidence as an adult, it’s likely that you have had some experience with others telling you that you aren’t worthy and you might have been harboring those old feelings in some way now.

If you can’t shake that feeling that your self-confidence is waning, it might be time to start exploring why that is. Here’s how.

1) People are telling you that you are no good.

It’s hard to understand why anyone would put someone else down, but many people grow up in households where they have been told repeatedly that they are worthless.

For many reasons, parents take out their frustrations with life on their children, calling them names or saying they are unworthy of being loved. This can especially be the case if you were raised by narcissists.

In other periods of life, your boss or coworkers may make remarks about your performance that make you feel like you are no good at anything.

It doesn’t help that, according to Scientific American, it’s natural for humans to care what other people think of them. This is probably, even more, the case when it comes to our close ones or people we work with.

You might have had a series of failed jobs or relationships or opportunities and now you feel like everything you touch turns to stone.

I know that breaking free from toxic people can be extremely difficult.

However, if there are people in your life who are tearing you down, you simply have to learn to stand up for yourself.

Because you do have a choice in the matter.

QUIZ: What’s your hidden superpower? We all have a personality trait that makes us special… and important to the world. Discover YOUR secret superpower with my new quiz. Check out the quiz here.

2) If you’ve been telling yourself that you’re no good.

If you’ve grown up hearing bad things about yourself, it’s going to be hard to tell yourself something different.

But you do need to make sure that these thoughts are not your own.

If you are an adult when you find yourself feeling less self-confident or unworthy of your life in any way, you’ll need to ask yourself why you are telling yourself these negative things.

You wouldn’t say that to a friend, right? Why do we always treat ourselves poorly and give so much to other people?

Take some time to consider why you are having these ill-gotten feelings about yourself and explore where the thoughts are coming from.

It might not be from the comments of others. We often find it hard to place ourselves in society, especially if we haven’t had a good role model of self-confidence.

Younger generations are increasingly struggling with their self-esteem and self-image because of social media and how they think they should be acting.

In fact, studies have found links between social media use and loneliness, envy and anxiety.

More and more we are getting away from our most authentic selves. If you can just figure out why you are treating yourself so poorly, you can start to introduce more kind actions and thoughts into your day-to-day life.

RELATED: What J.K Rowling can teach us about mental toughness

3) You lack resilience

It’s understandable if you feel down in the dumps right now – the good news is that you can overcome this.

But the thing is, most people who feel worthless do so because they lack resilience. 

Without resilience, most of us give up on the things we desire. Most of us struggle to create lives worth living.

We even give up on our own personal sense of worth.

I know this because until recently I had a tough time overcoming a few setbacks in my life. I felt like I lost all confidence, like my life was just passing by with no significance or meaning. 

That was until I watched the free video by life coach Jeanette Brown. 

Through many years of experience as a life coach, Jeanette has found a unique secret to building a resilient mindset, using a method so easy you’ll kick yourself for not trying it sooner. 

And the best part?

Unlike many other life coaches, Jeanette’s entire focus is on putting you in the driver’s seat of your life.

To find out what the secret to resiliency is, check out her free video here.

4) You are comparing yourself to others.

You spend a lot of time looking at other people, reading about other people, wishing you had another life, made more money, had a different job or house.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.

If you find yourself doing this, you need to stop and start practicing gratitude for what you have in your life.

According to Susan Biali Haas M.D. in Psychology Today:

“If you commit yourself to being deeply grateful for what’s good in your life, and remind yourself of it daily, you’ll be far less vulnerable to comparison and envy.”

No matter how little you have or how worthless you feel, there are lots of reasons to be happy about the way your life is right now.

If you spend your time comparing yourself to other people, you’ll always wish you had more or could do more.

Instead, be an example of what is possible in your own life and start comparing yourself to the person you were yesterday and strive to be better than that person tomorrow.

5) You’ve experienced a great change in your life.

Sometimes a change in our identity can alter our sense of self. If you have been recently divorced or lost a job, you might not know how to quantify your value.

Many people look to their careers as a way to validate their success in the world and if you have recently lost yours, you might find it difficult to relate to others and the life you once had.

When you’re dealing with trauma or heartbreaking change, it can become easy to blame yourself.

Suzanne Lachmann Psy.D. explains:

“In an effort to gain control of your circumstances, in your head you may have convinced yourself that you were complicit or even to blame.”

Aside from any misery and negativity, you might have related to the loss to your identity, the negative thoughts you were having about yourself now aren’t helping.

It’s best to let yourself process what is happening and try not to judge yourself for what has gone down.

If you feel emotionally drained, you might identify with the 6 signs in this video (it also offers 3 tips to recovery as well):

6) You feel like everyone is against you.

You might find that you feel bad about yourself, not because of the thoughts you are having about yourself, but because of the thoughts you are having about other people!

Sometimes we put words in other people’s mouths and we think they are thinking things about us even when they are not.

If you feel like the whole world is against you, it’s not because they are out to get you, it’s because you think they are.

When you create these situations in your mind, you find that they often come true.

This is because you might be operating with a “cognitive bias“. These are rules of thumb that help you make sense of the world and make fast decisions.

Your “rule of thumb” is that people are against you and don’t hold positive judgments about you. This leads to errors in processing the world around you.

You’ll start to see evidence of how people are working against you, even when they are not.

In order to deal with this, you need to turn your attention inward and ask yourself why you think people are out to get you.

Question your thinking and try to look at the facts objectively.

7) You are negative.

Another thing you might need to consider is that you are the problem. It’s hard to hear, but it could be true.

Do you find yourself dwelling on criticisms or mistakes you’ve made? That negative events tend to draw your attention more than positive events?

This is actually more common than you think. Psychologists say that it’s natural for negative events to have a greater impact on our brains than positive ones. It’s referred to as “negative bias”.

If you are struggling to find your self-worth and if you are feeling bad about yourself, it might be that you want to feel like that and want others to feel bad for you.

We like to be victims in our own lives sometimes, even if we don’t like to admit it.

If you are feeling low and can’t seem to get out of the funk you are in, you might need to consider that it’s nobody’s fault but your own.

Nancy Colier LCSW, Rev. has some great advice in Psychology Today on how to deal with a victim mindset:

“Victim mentality focuses you on your suffering, specifically what you’re not getting. Try flipping your perspective and focusing on something that matters to you, that you do enjoy, and that you do “get.” Shift your attention from what you’re missing to what you have.”

If you let yourself get sucked into negative thinking and see the glass as half empty instead of half full, try reworking the way you think and force yourself to see the glass as half full.

There may be underlying health issues.

A final thing to consider is that if you look yourself in the eye and feel like you are not the problem, but you can’t get your thoughts under control and feel like you are not getting anywhere, it might be time to seek professional help.

You know your body better than anyone else and if you feel like something’s not right, you might be right.

Don’t sit around and wait to find out what is going on, talk to your doctor about how you are feeling and ask for the help you need to feel better.

(If you’re looking for a structured, easy-to-follow framework to help you find your purpose in life and achieve your goals, check our eBook on how to be your own life coach here).

1) Acknowledge and accept your situation

You don’t want to believe it: the fact that you feel worthless, meaningless, and like if you disappeared from the face of the earth, nothing would change and no one would care.

It’s a feeling you shun away and ignore, and you might’ve been shunning and ignoring it for years now.

But no matter how much you try to pretend it doesn’t exist, you know in the back of your mind that it dictates your overall demeanor — you feel worthless, and you can’t stop yourself from feeling this way.

But nothing will ever change if you don’t truly look at this feeling in the eye and tell yourself what needs to be said: this exists, it’s real, and it’s something that needs to be accepted.

Running away from it, hiding from it, and pretending it’s just a fleeting feeling will stop you from actually addressing the problems that might be causing it in the first place.

Meaning you end up trapping yourself in an endless cycle of feeling worthless, doing things that make you happy in the short-term to forget that you feel worthless, and feeling worthless again when that short-term happiness wears off.

So accept it. Look yourself in the mirror and say: “I feel worthless. Now, what am I going to do about it?”

2) Learn how to love yourself  

Life has a way of dampening our spirits, filling us with anxiety, and knocking our self-esteem, but only if we let it. 

You see, you feeling worthless is just your perception of yourself, built up in your mind. It comes from a place of fear, insecurity, and doubt. It comes from a lack of self-love. 

It’s something I learned from the world-renowned shaman Rudá Iandê. He taught me that the way to find love and intimacy is not what we have been culturally conditioned to believe. 

As Rudá explains in this mind blowing free video, many of us chase love in a toxic way because we’re not taught how to love ourselves first. 

And chasing toxic love can be a huge contributor as to why you feel worthless.

So, if you want to start practicing self-love I’d recommend starting with yourself first and taking Rudá’s incredible advice. 

Here’s a link to the free video one again. 

3) Pay attention to when the lows hit.

When you notice that you aren’t having a great day, week, or month, pay attention to what is going on in your head.

It might just be that you need to replace a thought or try to do something else than what you are doing in order to change your confidence.

This can take time to develop the skills to notice your thoughts, but with practice, you’ll be able to recognize that your lack of self-confidence is just a thought in your head and you can start doing something about it.

A great way to practice being aware of your thoughts is through mindfulness.

APA (American Psychological Association) defines mindfulness “as a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment”.

Studies have suggested that mindfulness can help reduce rumination, reduce stress, boost working memory, improve focus, improve emotional reactivity, improve cognitive flexibility and enhance relationship satisfaction.

To practice mindfulness, all you have to do is bring your attention to your senses or your thoughts.

According to Mindful.org:

“Whenever you bring awareness to what you’re directly experiencing via your senses, or to your state of mind via your thoughts and emotions, you’re being mindful. And there’s growing research showing that when you train your brain to be mindful, you’re actually remodeling the physical structure of your brain.”

As Mark Epstein, M.D, says in his book Thoughts Without a Thinker, meditators quickly understand the nature of the “monkey mind”:

“Like the undeveloped mind, the metaphorical monkey is always in motion, jumping from one attempt at self-satisfaction to another, from one thought to another. “Monkey mind” is something that people who begin to meditate have an immediate understanding of as they begin to tune into the restless nature of their own psyches, to the incessant and mostly unproductive chatter of their thoughts.”

When you allow yourself to take the time to step back and observe your thoughts, you’ll quickly realize you don’t have to believe your thoughts. Your brain is a thought-making machine ande everything it thinks doesn’t represent who you are as a person.

This will give you enormous liberation from the constraint of self-limiting thoughts. If you can’t help but think negative thoughts about yourself, remember that it’s just your brain. It’s not you and you don’t have to believe those thoughts.

4) Take responsibility

If you are feeling worthless in life, will you take responsibility for getting yourself out of this funk?

I think taking responsibility is the most powerful attribute we can possess in life.

Because the reality is that YOU are ultimately responsible for everything that happens in your life, including for your happiness and unhappiness, successes and failures, and for feelings of worthlessness.

I want to briefly share with you how taking responsibility has transformed my own life, including how I see myself.

Did you know that 6 years ago I was anxious, miserable and working every day in a warehouse?

I was stuck in a hopeless cycle and had no idea how to get out of it.

My solution was to stamp out my victim mentality and take personal responsibility for everything in my life. I wrote about my journey here.

Fast forward to today and my website Hack Spirit is helping millions of people make radical shifts in their own lives. We’ve become one of the world’s biggest websites on mindfulness and practical psychology.

This isn’t about bragging, but to show how powerful taking responsibility can be…

… Because you too can transform your own life by taking complete ownership of it.

To help you do this, I’ve collaborated with my brother Justin Brown to create an online personal responsibility workshop. We give you a unique framework for finding your best self and achieving powerful things.

I mentioned this earlier.

It’s quickly become Ideapod’s most popular workshop. Check it out here.

I know that life isn’t always kind or fair. After all, no one chooses to feel worthless.

But courage, perseverance, honesty — and above all else taking responsibility — are the only ways to overcome the challenges that life throws at us.

If you want to seize control of your life, like I did 6 years ago, then this is the online resource you need.

Here’s a link to our best-selling workshop again.

5) Accept the hard truth of value

We all want to be loved unconditionally.

By our spouses, our family, our friends — we want them to back us and support us even when we don’t really deserve it, because we want to know that they love us for who we are, not for what we may be offering them at the present moment.

But while you might have a handful of people who will truly love you unconditionally, you can’t expect society to feel for you the same way.

Society requires that you offer value in whatever way you can, and only through your value will you have a purpose.

And that means you need to be doing something to improve someone else’s life in some way.

Without providing a valuable contribution to society, you might as well be worthless in the eyes of everyone outside your inner circle.

For those who are outside our family and friends, we only want from people what they can provide for us.

If they have nothing to provide, then they have no reason to even exist: and that’s the hard truth on value that society demands.

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6) Start picking yourself up

You know what’s wrong with you: your biggest flaws, the reasons why you dislike yourself and why you might be feeling worthless, and your most influential triggers.

With all that in mind, it’s now time to ask yourself: “What am I going to do about it?”

There’s no step-by-step guide out there because we all have our own paths and needs.

The act of picking yourself up is different for each and every one of us.

But the truth is it all starts with that first step: the conscious and active decision to make yourself feel better, and to stop doing the things that are making you feel bad.

You’re in a rut, a cycle of negative feelings that will only continue to twist until you decide that you’re sick of it.

And if you don’t truly make that decision — and mean it — you might continue repeating this cycle for the rest of your life.

Stop making the choices that lead to short-term happiness right now, and start making those that lead to long-term happiness in the future.

7) Begin with little achievements

Feelings of worthlessness are hard to defeat.

We’re innately programmed to want to do things, and when we don’t feel like we’re doing anything meaningful in the world, we end up asking, “Why do I even exist at all?”

But you can’t start off with a bang, especially when you’re at your lowest.

No one can go from zero to a hundred in a single day or even a week, and the reason why so many people fail when they try picking themselves up is that they end up setting extremely high expectations, ultimately disappointing themselves when they fail.

So start small. Your first task shouldn’t be, “Get your dream job”, “Get a six-pack in a month”, or “Double your income ASAP”.

Your first task should be simple things like, “Run a kilometer or two”, “Cook yourself a nice meal”, or “Clean up your room.”

It’s not about proving to yourself that you can be your ideal self immediately.

It’s about proving to yourself that you’re capable of starting and completing goals that you set out to do. It’s about creating the habit of succeeding, by starting off with counting every little success.

Get a job or do better at your job

While this point may not apply to everyone, it does apply to some of us: your lack of a job (or your bad performance at your job) is weighing you down, even if you don’t like to admit it.

You want to feel valued and that means you need a system that values you, and there’s no better place to feel that way than at work.

So get a job. It doesn’t have to be the job you dreamed of as a kid. Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut or a scientist or a lawyer or a number of other things, but for one reason or another, life simply didn’t work out that way (at least, not yet).

But right now you need to do everything you can to start building your own momentum, and a job is the exact social structure you need to build routines, habits, and the foundation for greater success.

Already have a job? Then try to understand why you still worthless despite the fact that someone pays you for your time.

It may be that your job disconnects you too much from any kind of sense of accomplishment, and if this is the case then it might be time to either change careers or step up.

9) Help someone in need

If you’re reading this article, then you have a computer or a phone, and probably food in your stomach and a roof over your head.

You may have it rough, but there’s bound to be someone in greater need than you.

So help someone out.

What better way to give yourself the feeling of worth than by proving your worth to someone who needs your help?

It could be as simple as calling up a friend going through tough times, or lending a hand to a stranger in any way you can.

Too many of us convince ourselves that acts of kindness have to be these huge, grand gestures, and this prevents us from acting kindly to one another.

But acts of kindness can be as simple as helping an old lady unload the groceries from her car, or helping someone pick up something they dropped.

Acts of kindness should be everyday occurrences, embedded seamlessly into your life like chalk on a board.

You’ll never feel more valuable than when you turn yourself into the exact person that someone needs at that exact moment.

10) Become a part of the community

If you find the previous point works for you, then why not go a step higher and become invaluable not only to one person, but an entire community?

There are countless options out there to become part of a social group, community, or organization.

We can’t all get the feelings of accomplishment we want from our work — either because we don’t truly love what we’re doing, or because our role is too disconnected from the product or service we create — so many of us instead seek out this internal validation from social communities instead.

What are your hobbies and interests, and is there a community — either locally or online — that you could be a part of?

Ask yourself: how can you positively contribute to things you care about?

Become the positive influence you would like to see in others, and in no time at all you’ll find yourself becoming an actual and invaluable part of your new group.

11) Cut yourself off from negativity

Negativity builds upon itself, even if it’s two completely unrelated balls of negativity.

Even unstated, unspoken negativity can easily spread, and one person’s negative mood can bring down an entire group.

This is why it’s so important to protect your mental energy, especially when you’re already starting from the disadvantage of feeling bad about yourself.

When you feel worthless, your barriers are down; the mental walls we maintain to protect ourselves are all open, and any negative energy you might feel from someone else can seep in and further exacerbate your negative mood.

So eliminate those sources of negative energy from your life.

If you have friends or relatives who are always using you as their soundboard to complain about their own issues, you need to confront them and say something along the lines of, “I care about you and your issues, but I need to protect my mental space right now. Can we talk about something else?”

If they truly care about you, they’ll oblige. And if they don’t, then they’re not the greatest friends to begin with.

12) Continuously set goals

When you’ve fallen to the point that you feel utterly and hopelessly worthless, then you’ve conditioned your mind and behavior to a certain toxic state.

Remember the law of inertia: an object at rest will remain at rest, unless acted upon by external force.

And your mind and body work the same way — if you’ve done nothing for a long time, then everything in your system will continue trying to do nothing, despite your best efforts otherwise.

This means that change won’t happen overnight. Your instincts will push against your attempts to move, to work, to be better.

You might have two good days and one bad day, and that one bad day might make you feel like you’re back to square one.

This is why it’s crucial that you keep setting goals, every single day. Even if those goals are as simple as “making up the bed” or “taking a walk outside”.

Being a better person isn’t just about making better choices; it’s about making better choices consistently.

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13) Reconnect with people who once loved you

We all lose people along the way. Life is long and tough, and people can come and go in the blink of an eye.

If you’re feeling lost, worthless, and alone right now, ask yourself: “Who can I reach out to who might help?”

If you look at your present situation, the answer might be no one. But dig into your past. Your college friends, highschool friends, childhood friends. Any groups or communities you might once have been a part of.

Even relatives you haven’t truly connected with in years. These people once loved you and once cared for you, and there’s no doubt that they know you enough to understand whatever problems led to your departure from their life for however many number of years.

Reach out with those old bonds and reconnect with them. If you’ve forgotten who you once were, they’ll surely remind you.

14) Take a step back and appreciate everything

Sometimes it’s really all just in your head, a matter of perception.

Your feelings of worthlessness may be completely unfounded; maybe you actually do contribute plenty to society. Maybe you actually do mean a lot to the people around you.

Maybe you’re so much more valuable than you actually think.

But sometimes we can get lost in our personal storms.

We’re our own worst critics, meaning a single failure or setback might make us feel like we’ve done nothing right with our lives.

This is especially true for high-functioning people — while you may be completely productive and efficient when you’re “on”, you may also be completely down when you’re “off”.

So think about what you’re really feeling. Is it as true as it feels, or is it just a result of something that happened right now?

Appreciate what you have, count your blessings, and think about everything you’ve already done.

Is your life really not something you can be proud of? In many cases, it is, and the only problem is your current storm and getting over it.

15) Get rid of your ego

Your ego is your greatest asset. It’s what makes you, “you”. It gives you a reason to pick yourself up, to get out of bed in the morning, and to make something of yourself.

We all begin our journeys by thinking about the ego, and our never-ending quest of appeasing and pleasing the ego.

But the ego can also become your greatest detriment. Once the ego becomes too big, it overshadows everything else.

Suddenly instead of just trying to please the ego, you’re now feeding it and its insatiable hunger.

You constantly need the affirmation and the validation of your successes and accomplishments to keep up with your ego’s needs, because you never attempted to rein it in when you could.

Now, even if you aren’t worthless, the unsustainable practice of feeding an ever-growing ego finally outgrew your own ability to satisfy it, and now you feel worthless.

If this is you, then you now have to go through the long and winding self-journey of killing your own ego.

You fed it for so long that now it’s bigger than your actual life, and its needs dictate your reality.

You have to learn to work for other reasons, to find meaning in purposes other than making yourself feel good.

As difficult as it may be, it’s essential you get to the point that you can truly get rid of the ego and say goodbye to that drive.

16) Ask yourself: What would happen if you disappeared?

As we said above, it all just might be a matter of perspective. You might just be feeling worthless right now, but your actual reality is far from it.

So an easy way to test this possibility is by asking yourself: what would happen if you disappeared?

Who would miss you? What things would go wrong? Whose life would be significantly affected by your absence? Your family, friends, partners, pets? Your personal projects, things you love and things you’ve dedicated your life to, and all the people you’ve met along the way?

Your life isn’t meaningless and you aren’t worthless. No matter how difficult it may be to answer those questions right now, you know in your heart you do have answers to them.

17) Identify your biggest flaws

Feeling worthless is rarely ever a cause of actually being worthless. It might not be that you don’t have any worth; it just feels that way because it’s the easiest way for you to understand your own negativity as an emotional manifestation.

In many cases, when a person feels worthless it’s less about their actual worth and value, and more about their perceived self-image, and the things they don’t like about themselves.

So what are your biggest flaws? Are you lazy? Are you unmotivated? Do you not know what you want in life?

Do you hate your job and want a career shift, but you’re afraid to do it? Are you unsociable and shy, but would like to meet new people and do something else with your life?

Write down a list of everything you don’t like about yourself, and then begin eliminating the lesser problems.

Try to come up with your three biggest issues — things you can actually work on — and ask yourself, “What can I do to change these issues?”

18) Get up and get moving.

You might not like to exercise, but there’s nothing better for boosting a mood than when you exercise.

Sure, there is a lot of science behind why exercise makes you feel better, but besides all the science and medical evidence of how endorphins boost your mood, exercising can help you connect with your body in a new way and you can discover that you are capable of things you didn’t even know were possible.

Harvard Health says that aerobic exercise is key for your head, just as it is for your heart:

“Regular aerobic exercise will bring remarkable changes to your body, your metabolism, your heart, and your spirits. It has a unique capacity to exhilarate and relax, to provide stimulation and calm, to counter depression and dissipate stress. It’s a common experience among endurance athletes and has been verified in clinical trials that have successfully used exercise to treat anxiety disorders and clinical depression. If athletes and patients can derive psychological benefits from exercise, so can you.”

Try running for 5 more minutes, hiking a new hill, or biking a little longer every time you go out and soon you’ll have a new routine that makes you feel great about your efforts.

19) Look for evidence of other times when you felt confident.

If you are feeling low about yourself and can’t think your way out of the situation, start looking to the past to provide you evidence of times when you used to feel better.

This isn’t about faking it until you make it though: it’s about rediscovering the things about those moments that made you feel good.

See if they still make you feel good now. If not, keep looking for the things that will help you rise above your thoughts this time around.

Practicing gratitude can be a powerful technique. All you have to do is think of 5 things you’re grateful for every day. Do it in the morning or before you go to bed. Write it down. Get in the habit of being appreciative for everything you have in your life.

The Harvard Health Blog says that “gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness.”

“Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”

Practicing gratitude as you follow your own lead will help you see that there are lots of things in your life that are worthy of your attention and work to create happiness in your life and in the lives of others.

If you were happy before, you can be happy again.

20) Ask questions.

Another way to boost your self-confidence is to use low moments as an opportunity to learn about yourself.

If you approach your life with a sense of curiosity instead of feeling like you need to have everything figured out, you’ll be better equipped to go about your life learning and growing instead of feeling like you missed the last train to know-it-all-ville.

Ask questions about how you do things, why you do them, and what you get out of them. Use the information you discover to help you move forward.

For me, I find that writing in a journal every day allows me to get to know what I’m really thinking and feeling.

In the Harvard Health Blog, Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH says that when people write about what’s in their hearts and minds, they better make sense of the world and themselves:

“Writing provides a rewarding means of exploring and expressing feelings. It allows you to make sense of yourself and the world you are experiencing. Having a deeper understanding of how you think and feel — that self-knowledge — provides you with a stronger connection to yourself.”

To get started, here are 4 questions to prompt your writing:

1) What do I really want?

2) What am I no longer willing to accept?

3) What makes me happy?

4) Are my current habits enabling me to live the life I want?

21) Be in the now.

A lack of self-confidence often comes from living in the future.

If you turn your attention to what is going on right now instead of living in an anxiety-filled-future focus, you can just put one foot in front of the other and work to like who you are right now, instead of worrying about who you will be in the future.

Being in the now allows you to accept where you are and where you’ve come from instead of putting pressure on yourself to get where you are trying to go later.

This is where mindfulness can come in to help live in the present moment. In the book Mindfulness for Creativity, Danny Penman says that mindfulness practices can help you be more open to new ideas, can improve attention and nurtures courage and resilience in the face of setbacks.

Furthermore, living in the present moment empowers you to take action.

If you followed the above steps and you understand what you want to do with your life, then it’s important to take practical action to make that a reality.

Here are some tips to take meaningful action in the present moment:

1) Focus only on single tasks, no matter how small it is.

2) Do your tasks in a slow, relaxed pace. Take it in and enjoy it.

3) Minimize checking things like Facebook. They’re distractions that take you away from the task you’re doing.

4) Tell yourself: Now I am…As you do something, simply tell yourself what you’re doing. If you’re brushing your teeth, tell yourself that and only do that.

5) Start a meditation practice. This is a great way to learn to calm your mind and improve your focus. You’ll find that you’re more productive when your mind is clear and you know what you need to do.

(To dive deep into how to improve your own self-esteem, check out my ultimate guide on how to love yourself here)

In conclusion

Feeling worthless is a common human experience for many people. Whether it’s from growing up in a non-supportive environment, a trauma-based event or the tendency to compare ourselves to others, feelings of worthlessness are difficult to deal with no matter who you are.

But learning to practice mindfulness to allow us to question our own thoughts and emotions allows us to take a step back from the mind and understand that we don’t need to think negatively about ourselves.

Taking an objective look at reality will allow you to see that you have a lot of potential and skills, a lot to be grateful for, and you don’t need to believe your own negative thoughts.

You may also like reading:

• My life was going nowhere, until I had this one revelation
• I was deeply unhappy…then I discovered this one Buddhist teaching
• How a regular guy became his own life coach (and how you can too)