“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe.

People ask me what they might expect to get out of counselling, and over the years I have gathered a list of useful resources to help answer that question. Those that follow in today’s post I have found to be extremely helpful, in helping to understand my own moment to moment experience, and in navigating what Albert Bandura calls “the vicissitudes of life”, i.e. life’s inevitable ups and downs. I am grateful to the authors for providing these valuable resources and I have provided the links to the original article in the post that follows below. The Mood Meter and RULER were developed by Marc Brackett.

1. The Mood Meter

When I was at University, my tutor would regularly ask the class:

“How are you travelling?”

The Mood Meter helps to address how we are travelling: Emotionally. Although it has been aimed at schoolchildren in this article, I believe it has a much broader use, and that everybody can benefit from checking in regularly with this tool to build their emotional awareness or emotional intelligence.

It helps us to figure out where we are at (emotionally) and also invites us to consider where we would like to be, if our current ‘mode of travel’ (or is that ‘mood of travel’?) is not to our liking. It reminds us that we have a choice, and that we can pay attention to our “emotional weather” and what we are experiencing in the present moment.

At the most basic level, we might ask ourselves:

“Am I feeling Mad, Sad, Brave or Calm?”

You can of course use your own words, instead of the ones providing here, although hopefully this is a useful starting point.

Once we notice where we are at, we can re-calibrate (‘adjust our sails’, as it were)  and then navigate accordingly through to what we hope will be a better (braver, calmer) place (different ‘states’). It’s like an emotional set of traffic lights, explaining when we slowing down, or when we overloaded.

Give it a try for a week and see if it makes a difference to you. There is also an app available.

2. RULER

There are five questions that accompany this chart that can be remembered by using the acronym “RULER”. They invite you to break down your emotional experience into five stages, measure its intensity and figure out where to place it on the Mood Meter.

The five stages are:

Recognise, Understand, Label, Express and Regulate.

Each time you find yourself experiencing some kind of emotional response, ask yourself the following five questions.

• Recognize: How am I feeling?

• Understand: What happened that led me to feel this way?

• Label: What word best describes how I am feeling?

• Express: How can I express appropriately what I am feeling for this time and place?

• Regulate: What can I do to maintain my feeling (if I want to continue feeling this way) or shift my feeling (if I do not want to continue feeling this way)?

Teaching Emotional Intelligence in Early Childhood | NAEYC

And what happens if you combine these two ideas together?

The Mood Meter will help determine the onset of “the Blues”, or when you “see Red”. It will also indicate when you are feeling “Golden”, or simply enjoying a calm natural space (in the green area).

Practising using the RULER questions develops a process for emotional tracking and checking in that helps us regulate ourselves and tailor our responses more appropriately in social situations.

How would I use Mood Meter and RULER in Counselling?

During a counselling conversation, features of your emotional journey can help to identify particular patterns and responses to stress we experience in everyday situations. This tool can help us become more emotionally aware, and prompt us to take corrective action when we stay too long in an unhelpful emotional place. It can also help us to appreciate preferred ways of relating to ourselves, others and the world, and encourage us to pursue braver and calmer moments.

Interested in taking this further?

See our free consultation page to arrange an initial appointment. You can also complete and send in an online Client Intake Form to get the ball rolling. I look forward to meeting you soon.